Cannot save Word 2011 Document on WebDAV volume

Question

I'm running Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8.2), and Word 2011.

I have a WebDAV-based file server that I use; it's running Apache 2.2.15.  I'm using a fair collection of Applications (Adobe CS6, OmniGroup applications, etc.).

The server is mounted via the Mac WebDAVfs file system (i.e., in the Finder).  I've opened a particular file, a fairly old .docx file; it opens and seems to be amenable for editing.  But if I go to save the file on that volume, I get a dialog that says "This is not a valid file name.  Try one or more of the following: * Check the path to make sure it was typed correctly.  * Select a file from the list of files and folders".  I'm then sent to the file save dialog, where the previous file name (which would usually be highlighted to facilitate replacement with a new name) reads as ".docx..." (then followed by the ".docx" suffix: ".docx....docx).

If I go to save a file that has been created or opened from my local disk, I get a different message.  The message in this case is "There has been a network or file permission error.  The network connection may be lost. ( )".

This affects both .doc and .docx documents; I can open other files in this directory on the server with other applications.  I can drag the file to and from a directory on my local Mac, edit and save, and drag the file back to the server but I cannot save the file directly to the server volume from Word.

Finally, the server log doesn't have any entries that indicate that Word attempts to write to the server and is getting an error.  There are log entries when the file is opened ("GET"), but no other messages are generated there.

The name of the file itself has embedded spaces, but no other characters other than a..zA..Z, and the suffix.  Any idea where I might go to get this issue resolved?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Jim,

No improvement, alas.  Thanks for the pointer.

I did get a call last night that MS has this as an open problem, and they are working on a solution... I'll update everyone if there is further progress...

Have a great weekend!

Answer 2

There is a another update available to 14.3.2 which you can obtain by going to Word's Help menu and choosing Check for Updates, which launches the AutoUpdate utility.

Do that, and see if there's any improvement. Please reply, and if you hear from Microsoft and sort this out, please reply. Thanks.

Answer 3

Hi Jim (and Phillip),

I was about to reply to Phillip, and realized that I might be able to open a support request with Microsoft, since I am still in the "trial" period for Office 365.

I appreciate the assistance from both of you.  Here's what I've done:

I did check, per Phillip, about the Forbidden Characters, but I even attempted to create a file on the root of the volume where there would be nothing in the path other than the server name - same issue.  (Of course, the path would contain directory separators and a colon, as it's https://servername/)

To Jim:

I had not actually used Office for several years, but I have a client who I am writing some code for, and they use Outlook, so I signed up and have installed Office 11.  So, it's a new problem only because I haven't used Office for some time.  I can't actually save any Word document on the server.

I was able to open a support request with Microsoft, and spoke to someone in Mac Word support.  One of the first questions that she asked was whether this problem affects Excel or Powerpoint.  I tried, and both of these other applications work correctly, as expected.  Just any Word document I've tried fails.

What I'd done is look for any logs on my client that Word might have written, with more information.  I didn't find any.  I also checked the server logs, as I indicated.

I was told by Microsoft support that - well, I hate to say this, because it doesn't make any sense to me - that there is a "timing" issue, that the server doesn't respond quickly enough because of the number of temporary files that Word writes.  When I said that there were no writes to the server, I was told that it didn't matter, that it had to do with the speed of the local client v. the network speed.

(I'm afraid that I don't believe this - but I was told that the problem would be escalated; I was thanked profusely for reporting it, I'm told that I will be contacted about the problem, even though they are going to close my support request.  So, honestly, I will see what the engineering team says.)

Last thing: in my research before calling Microsoft, I located some issues reading documents from SharePoint, which is also WebDAV-based to some extent; the solution was to install SP1 for Office 2011.  However, my copy is "fresh", no service is available (14.3.1).

I'll follow up if/when I hear more.  Any other ideas in the meantime would be welcome!

Again, thanks...

Answer 4

I guess Phillip didn't see that you mentioned your file path contains no special characters.

Is this a new problem?

If this is a new problem, what changed on the server or on the client? Was a particular update installed?

Does the problem affect all documents or just one?

What troubleshooting steps have you already tried?

Answer 5

See whether this will help

2011 has a bit of accidental PC code in that does not allow certain forbidden Characters. However; it so deep in code if they can't take it out without the whole application suite blowing up.

Some of the forbidden Characters are:

Numbers before names, Superscript/Subscripts, "  '  \ | / < > { } [ ] <<  >>

Numbers after Names are okay.  None of these character can be used in name of Hard Drive, Directory Names, and any File Names.

And on servers no names can have the name File or Fileserver  in any path names.

You can use _ (underscores).