Office documents can't be saved to mapped network drive

[jzukerman]

I've got a client who 2 weeks ago started having problems where a handful (not all) employees tries to open an Office program (Word, Excel, etc) and tries to save the document to a mapped network drive and they get an error message "document.doc is currently in use. try again later." The Office app refuses to save directly to the mapped network drive. You can save to the desktop (which is actually redirected desktop gpo) and that works fine. You can copy and paste the file from the desktop to the mapped network drive fine. That's the kicker.

I looked on the server and checked the share permissions which is set to everyone full control. I checked the folder NT file permissions and the domain users are set to full control. So it doesn't appear to be a permissions issue. I checked event logs on the server and clients and didn't see anything related to the file shares. I checked the Files Open on the server and didn't see any files open except when I tried to save a file to mapped network drive.

I did install Microsoft updates to the server, but that was last week. The client workstations did get their updates soon after Microsoft released them on Patch Tuesday.

Advise is greatly appreciated.

 

[Mick]

Are their files actually on the mapped drive (that is, are they opening existing files 'remotely', working on them and then trying to save)? Or are they creating new files (locally) and then trying to save them to the mapped drive? I had a very similar problem with users working with large graphic files in Adobe products (In-Design etc) and saving to a NAS box. Adobe's answer was - don't do it. Make a copy of the file on the NAS box, and save locally to your desk-top, Work on it, save it, and then move/copy it back to the NAS box, over-writing the original. They would not support any other way of doing things, nor did they accept we had a legit problem - just said we were using the s/w inappropriately.

 

[freedomit]

From memory I have seen a similar issue and it was related to thumbnails being displayed on network drives, will try and find the link

 

[jzukerman]

Are their files actually on the mapped drive (that is, are they opening existing files 'remotely', working on them and then trying to save)? Or are they creating new files (locally) and then trying to save them to the mapped drive? I had a very similar problem with users working with large graphic files in Adobe products (In-Design etc) and saving to a NAS box. Adobe's answer was - don't do it. Make a copy of the file on the NAS box, and save locally to your desk-top, Work on it, save it, and then move/copy it back to the NAS box, over-writing the original. They would not support any other way of doing things, nor did they accept we had a legit problem - just said we were using the s/w inappropriately.

New documents opened in Office apps and then trying to save to the mapped network drive. Not all of the employees are affected by this issue.

 

[NETWizz]

Why not check what's open on the file-server to see where and by whom it is in use?

 

[Mick]

NETwizz: If they are creating new docs from scratch on their local drives (which is what I think the OP is saying), then the server shouldn't even know about them until they've been named and saved? In any case - sounds different from the situation I had, where users were working on existing files which had already been stored remotely.

 

[Mokester]

Can they save a generic .txt file to the server when created new? Take Office out of the equation. Use notepad and see if they can save a test document directly to server.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

From memory I have seen a similar issue and it was related to thumbnails being displayed on network drives, will try and find the link

^^^this

 

[freedomit]

I found the link but it doesn't quiet link up with your issue. Might be worth a try though
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2025703

 

[jzukerman]

Are their files actually on the mapped drive (that is, are they opening existing files 'remotely', working on them and then trying to save)? Or are they creating new files (locally) and then trying to save them to the mapped drive? I had a very similar problem with users working with large graphic files in Adobe products (In-Design etc) and saving to a NAS box. Adobe's answer was - don't do it. Make a copy of the file on the NAS box, and save locally to your desk-top, Work on it, save it, and then move/copy it back to the NAS box, over-writing the original. They would not support any other way of doing things, nor did they accept we had a legit problem - just said we were using the s/w inappropriately.

Existing files are on the mapped network drive. Client's employees are well trained to save files to the server. And if the employee opens an existing file from the mapped network drive, makes changes, then goes to Save button you get the error message File in use. But not always. Also happens if you just open Office app with a blank page, create content, then click on Save where it asks where to save to, select the mapped network drive, click save and the error message File in use comes up. All of the files are incredibly small, mostly letters in Word, 50KB is largest file.

 

[jzukerman]

Why not check what's open on the file-server to see where and by whom it is in use?

View attachment 4875

Not seeing this an issue as the files are not accessed by multiple employees. Files Opened doesn't show anything other than the one employee trying to save the document. In fact, it will leave a 0KB file behind in some cases.

 

[jzukerman]

Further discussion and demonstration:

Seems to be Office only applications. Outlook email works fine, but I haven't tried saving emails to a file in it.
Saving a file from the Internet Explorer directly to the mapped network drive works fine.
Sometimes opening the file on the mapped network drive, editing it, and then saving will work, sometimes not.
I have the employees saving new files or edited files to their Desktop or Documents folders (which are redirected per GPO to the server) as a temporary work around but that also doesn't always work.
A Line-Of-Business application (which is VB with flat Access db files) works fine. That app is used by most of the employees and opens a dozen or so files for each employee.
Saving a file will sometimes leave a 0KB file behind on the mapped network drive after encountering the error message "file in use".
MaxFocus Vipre AV is used on all computers and the server. Only 2 folders are exempted from scans per LoB vendor.

 

[TAPtech]

Do you get the same problem if they open the document through Explorer vs. going to File-> Open within the Office program?

Also, Stonecat may be on to something... see if they have the "details" pane turned on in Explorer. Try it with it turned off and see if there is any difference.

 

[FremontPC]

If turning off the "details" doesn't work, I'd test with Vipre out of the picture on both the server and one of the workstations.

 

[Mokester]

Does it actually say "document.doc" or is that just an example given? I do believe it's an Office issue...possibly template or something along those lines if it's saying document.doc when the file name is accountingparty.docx or something of that nature...

Since you're redirecting desktops and such...is the issue isolated to a couple computers? Try delete/recreate roaming profile...just for shits n giggles...

Also, repair of Office...are you syncing offline files?

 

[jzukerman]

Do you get the same problem if they open the document through Explorer vs. going to File-> Open within the Office program?

Also, Stonecat may be on to something... see if they have the "details" pane turned on in Explorer. Try it with it turned off and see if there is any difference.

Same problem when opening file directly from desktop/explorer or from Office. Details pane are already off.

If turning off the "details" doesn't work, I'd test with Vipre out of the picture on both the server and one of the workstations.

I'll try with AV uninstalled.

Does it actually say "document.doc" or is that just an example given? I do believe it's an Office issue...possibly template or something along those lines if it's saying document.doc when the file name is accountingparty.docx or something of that nature...

Since you're redirecting desktops and such...is the issue isolated to a couple computers? Try delete/recreate roaming profile...just for shits n giggles...

Also, repair of Office...are you syncing offline files?

document = example = bkafkjhfaksljhf = whatever the file is named. Happens from a new document or existing document. No roaming profiles. I did build a new workstation and added it to the domain, but it doesn't have Office installed so I couldn't test with Office. Wordpad documents operated fine.

 

[jzukerman]

Disabling Vipre AV made no difference, still got the error message.
I disabled Offline Files, rebooted, re-enabled, rebooted, dumped the CSC cache, then rebooted, and that didn't fix the issue either.

 

[jzukerman]

I wonder if this is a SMB2.0 issue.... waiting for MS to reply to my ticket. Also opened a ticket with Third Tier.

 

[FremontPC]

I wonder if this is a SMB2.0 issue.... waiting for MS to reply to my ticket. Also opened a ticket with Third Tier.

Thanks for the updates!

 

[CompConfig]

If this is a new problem that just started with this client. Do a scan for root kit viruses. I saw something similar 7 months ago. It is worth a shot.