sorry there was a problem and we can't open this document. if this happens again, try opening the document in microsoft word

Question

i previously had 2 web front end servers in my SharePoint 2019 Farm. the Word files and Excel files were loading fine using the browser. now i added a new web front end server to the farm. Some times i was getting the error "sorry there was a problem and we can't open this document. if this happens again, try opening the document in microsoft word". I stopped the iis in the two old front end servers and kept the new server IIS on started mode.Now, all my requests to open the word and excel files were getting the error "sorry there was a problem and we can't open this document. if this happens again, try opening the document in microsoft word". i belieive something is missing in the new server some configuration step or something, does any one know where to check and what to check in this case?

Answer 1

Hi @Bikram Pal ,

According to my research, there are some possible causes for this issue:

1. One possible cause is that the new web front end server is not configured properly to communicate with the Office Online Server. You may need to check the following steps on the new server:

• Install the Office Online Server prerequisites and updates.
• Run the New-OfficeWebAppsFarm or New-OfficeWebAppsHost cmdlets to create a new Office Online Server farm or join an existing one.
• Configure the bindings and zones for the Office Online Server farm.
• Run the New-SPWOPIBinding cmdlet to create a new binding between SharePoint and Office Online Server.
• Verify that the SharePoint and Office Online Server certificates are trusted by each other.

2. Another possible cause is that the SharePoint services related to document viewing are not running or not started on the new server. You may need to check the following services on the new server:

• PowerPoint Service
• Word Viewing Service
• Excel Calculation Service
• Excel Services Application Web Service Application
• Secure Store Service
• Visio Graphics Service

3. The third possible cause is that the file types or file extensions are not supported by the Office Online Server or SharePoint. You may need to check the following settings on the new server:

• Verify that the file types and file extensions are enabled in the SharePoint Central Administration site.
• Verify that the file types and file extensions are supported by the Office Online Server. You can use the Get-OfficeWebAppsFarm cmdlet to see the supported file types.

There are some articles for your reference:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/sharepoint/sharepoint-2019-office-online-server-error/m-p/3091865

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/troubleshoot/lists-and-libraries/error-when-view-or-edit-in-browser

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/fix-problems-opening-documents-in-sharepoint-libraries-31329fa1-4ad0-47fc-95d8-bb0c5b12a536

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