Ask a new question

Why can't I open Office 2011 files on my QNAP NAS?

I'm on Mac OSX 10.8.2, and running Microsoft Office 14.2.5.  I can open Word and Excel documents just fine from my desktop and from other mac's on our network in the office, but when I try to open a document straight off of our QNAP TS-219P NAS device I get the following error message:

Word cannot open this document. The document might be in use, the document might not be a valid Word document, or the file name might contain invalid characters (for example, \/).

for excel, the following error:

'JCIEUSA:filename.xls' could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name, and verify that the file location is correct.

JCIEUSA is the name of our NAS.  I've seen the same problem but with a Synology NAS on other threads attributed to a bug with the NAS device, but since other files (pdfs etc) open just fine I think it must be a problem with Office.  
Hey mwed,

I see where the issue is occurring, but I'm not exactly sure why it's occurring.

For some reason, the Office applications seem to think that your NAS's name is part of the file name. That's adding a colon which is supposed to separate the volume from the file name. Office for Mac applications don't like colons in the file name since their not compatible with their Windows counterparts.

Can you access your NAS via an SMB file share and see if the files open correctly? You can do this by opening Finder and choosing Go > Connect to server..., type smb://JCIEUSA and then click Connect. 

Once you've connected via SMB, try opening a Word document and see if you have better luck.
Instead of telling our young people to plan ahead, we should tell them to plan to be surprised.

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

I am connected via SMB getting the above error messages.  any other suggestions or explanations?

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

I suggest asking for support about QNAP products at QNAP support. Although we're experts on Word, this is a problem specific to the QNAP product.
Be sure to include the version number and OS version when asking your question.

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

I can open pdfs just fine, anything that uses an application other than an office suite program, so I assumed this was a problem with Office not with QNAP.  I have seen reviews of people with NAS devices from other companies who have experienced the same problem.  

1 person found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

PDF is a very simple format. Usually the only transaction involves copying the file to or from the network host. Word is a very complex product. When a Word document is open, additional temporary files must also open on the server. Permissions must be properly set to allow this to happen. Word very actively uses the file server. 
Be sure to include the version number and OS version when asking your question.

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

While risking to resurrect zombie threads...
Did anyone ever figure this out?

I appear to have the same issue, and i've narrowed it down to opening Office files from a AFP:// share called HOME. Files on any other share work without issue.

Regards,

Casper

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

As I said earlier, the proper place to find support for QNAP is QNAP.

Microsoft Word requires read/write access on the server. It sounds like the server is using symbolic links that are not resolving properly on the server and/or is not configured properly to allow Word to read and write files. IOW it’s most likely not a problem with Microsoft Word.

Be sure to include the version number and OS version when asking your question.

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Its not just QNAP, i'm having the exact same problem on a Synology (which is a completely separate brand of NAS)

But since other programs (Adobe, LibreOffice, simple texteditors) have no issues opening files from these shares, i'm quite confident that the problem is in Microsofts implementation of the AFP protocol.

The same files can be opened on a smb:// share, but just not on afp shares called home.

I've opened a thread at the Synology forum to see if they can find a workaround, since I dont expect that Microsoft will pick up the ball and fix this bug (since it has been there since Office 2011 through Office 2013).

FYi, there appear to be quite a lot of posts that appear to be all connected to sub-optimal AFP implementation by Office 2011

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

There are some naming restrictions on shared volume names. I believe Home is one of the names that is not allowed because Home is reserved for use by the system. Try renaming the volume and see if that fixes things.
Be sure to include the version number and OS version when asking your question.

1 person found this reply helpful

·

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Hi Jim,

Unfortunately, renaming the Home share is impossible in most NAS servers. (because it is also a standard reserved name, for uh.. home). Is there any documentation of the list of reserved words, then perhaps we can use that as leverage to get the NAS builders to enable a workaround. (although it is not their fault, but a weird quirk from MS Office for Mac)

Regards,

Casper

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

 
 

Question Info

Last updated October 5, 2021 Views 4,537 Applies to: