Editing documents on a remote server causes Excel and Word to hang

Question

Original Title:"Network problems"

I try to use Excel and Word 2011 editing documents on a remote server on a relatively slow connection. This causes both programs to contantly "stop" and show "bathingballs" (or whatever they´re called). It is extremely tedious - basically impossible to work. If I then download the file locally, I still have the same behaviour. The only way to prevent this is to disconnect from the server, and then reboot. This behaviour is strange, or even ridiculous. I have never experienced the same on a PC, only with the MAC-version.

/Uffe

Answer 1

Made another test now as I had to edit a document.

1. Connected the VPN-tunnel to the server.
2. Copied the file (excel) I need to edit to my local disk
3. Started to edit the file locally.
4. Frequently I have to wait 10-15 s when excel stops responding.
5. If I shut down the tunnel - excel crashes completely.

Only way to continue is to reboot, and not re-connect the tunnel.

To me, this sounds like excel does something strange. Since the file was copied to local disk, and opened from the local disk I fail to see why the VPN-tunnel should cause these issues.

Answer 2

I think you've done an excellent job at diagnosing the problem and pinpointing it to VPN.

VPN encrypts and decrypts all network communications at both ends of the connection on the fly. This requires a lot of computing power at both ends of the connection and there's plenty of room for things to slow down, not to mention the network speed itself. 

Your observation that Office applications do a lot of read/write while they are running is also spot-on. This is not a bug. Office applications write temporary files on purpose.

You have control over your portion of the VPN scenario. You can increase your computer's RAM and processing power to make what happens on your side as fast as possible. You can connect to the internet with a high speed data connection. 

You probably don't have control over the other end of the connection. The speed of the machine at the other end of your VPN connection might be too slow. Or it might be using a slow connection to the internet.

Your Mac comes with built-in tools to help you figure out where the slowdown is. You have Activity Monitor application, and Network utilities that you can use to monitor the input and output of your Mac. Use these tools to figure out whether the slowdown is a result of your Mac, the network, or a slow computer on the other end of the connection. How to do this sort of diagnosis is beyond the scope of this forum, which is why I tried to convince you to go to a forum better suited for helping analyze networking and hardware issues.

Answer 3

No, I believe you went just for the simple answer. If I, only after a reboot, edit the document it works OK. It is related to editing the document on a remote server using an Internet connection which is fairly slow (1,5 Mbit/s up, and 15 Mbit/s down). I suspect that Excel/Word continuosly writes to the file for some reason which causes these strange delays. And, the same behaviour continues even if I copy the file to the local disk and continue editing - which to me sounds extremely strange. The only way to resolve this behaviour is to reboot the PC and never open-up the remote connection (I use a VPN-connection) - then I can edit the file "normally".

I believe this is due to buggy behaviour in  Office for MAC.

Answer 4

Because you are experiencing the problem regardless of whether you edit locally or on the server, the problem relates to Mac OS X and your network connection speed and type. 

The first suggestion I have would be to make sure Mac OS X is up to date by using the Apple menu (top left corner) and choose Software Update. 

Because this is not a problem with Microsoft Office I would refer you to the Apple discussions at Apple.com where you are likely to encounter folks who have lots of network experience.

Answer 5

Could it be related to some kind of setting, creating this behaviour? I sure hope so, otherwise I will have to quit using MAC Office.