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Office Web Apps troubleshooting (Installed on SharePoint 2010 Products)

 

Applies to: Word Web App Preview, PowerPoint Web App Preview, Excel Online

Topic Last Modified: 2011-08-05

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This article contains information to help IT pros troubleshoot Microsoft Office Web Apps.

We encourage you to give us your feedback. Your comments, suggestions, and troubleshooting tips can be incorporated into future versions of this content. You can send your feedback to us at ITSPDOCS@microsoft.com.

When the SharePoint administrator installs and configures Microsoft Office Web Apps, he or she, or end users, might encounter any of the following error messages or issues:

  • End users cannot view or edit Office 2010 documents in the browser

  • Office 2010 documents open in the client application instead of in the browser

  • An end user cannot open an Office 2010 document in the client application by using the button on the toolbar

  • When you try to uninstall Office Web Apps, you receive an error that it has already been uninstalled

  • When you attempt to reinstall SharePoint Server 2010 on a computer, you receive an error that there is a conflict with SharePoint 2010 Products that were previously installed

The following sections describe possible causes and how to fix these issues.

End users cannot view or edit Office 2010 documents in the browser

After the SharePoint administrator has installed, configured, and activated Office Web Apps, end users might receive an error message when they try to view or edit Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, or Microsoft OneNote documents in the browser.

The error messages might include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Unable to process the request.

  • An unexpected error has occurred.

  • PowerPoint Web App encountered an error. Please try again.

  • Word Web App cannot open this document due to an unknown error. If the problem persists, try opening the file in Microsoft Word.

  • OneNote Web App cannot open this notebook because the Office Web Apps Feature isn't activated on this site collection. Try opening the file in Microsoft OneNote.

  • The file that you selected could not be found. Check the spelling of file name and verify that the location is correct. Make sure that the file has not been renamed, moved, or deleted.

These errors might occur for one or more of the following reasons:

  • The SharePoint administrator has run Office Web Apps Setup, which configures the default open behavior for SharePoint to open Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote documents in the browser by using their associated Web application. However, the SharePoint administrator has not yet started the services, created the service applications, and activated the Office Web Apps feature.

  • The Office Web Apps services are not started on the Web front-end server.

  • The Office Web Apps service applications and proxies have not been created.

  • The Office Web Apps service applications proxies are not associated with the proxy group of the Web application that the site collection belongs to.

  • There might be a problem with the permissions for the service account that is used to run the Web application or one of the Office Web Apps services: Excel Calculation Services, PowerPoint Service, or Word Viewing Service. The Web application and service applications must have the appropriate permissions to access the content databases and the configuration database.

To resolve these errors, apply the following solutions:

  • The SharePoint administrator can avoid end users' seeing error messages while he or she finishes additional deployment tasks to deploy Office Web Apps on a live production server. We recommended that you enable the OpenInClient feature on existing site collections before you run Setup. For more information, see Configure the default open behavior for browser-enabled documents (Office Web Apps).

  • Activate the Office Web Apps feature for the site collection. For information about how to activate the Office Web Apps feature for a site collection, see Activate the Office Web Apps feature in Deploy Office Web Apps (Installed on SharePoint 2010 Products).

  • Verify that the services have been created and check the status of the services on the servers in the farm by doing the following:

    1. On the Central Administration Web site, in Application Management, click Manage services on server.

    2. On the Services on Server page, do the following:

      1. In the list of services on the selected server, verify that Excel Calculation Services, PowerPoint Service, and Word Viewing Service exist and are started. If a service is not started, click Start.

      2. Click the Server button at the top, click Change Server, and then in the Select Server dialog box, click a different server name.

      3. Repeat these steps until you have verified that the services exist and are started on all servers in the farm.

  • Verify that the Office Web Apps service applications and proxies have been created by doing the following:

    1. On the Central Administration Web site, in Application Management, click Manage service applications.

    2. On the Manage Service Applications page, verify that there the following kinds of service applications exist:

      • Excel Services Application Web service application

      • PowerPoint service application

      • Word Viewing service application

    Verify that the service applications have been created. For information about how to create service applications, see Create the service applications and the service application proxies in Deploy Office Web Apps (Installed on SharePoint 2010 Products).

  • Verify that the Office Web Apps service applications and proxies are associated with the proxy group of the Web application that the site collection belongs to by doing the following:

    1. On the Central Administration Web site, in Application Management, click Manage web applications.

    2. On the Web Applications Management page, select the Web applications that the site collection belongs to, and then click Service Connections.

    3. On the Configure Service Application Associations page, verify that the following kinds of service application proxies are associated with the Web application:

      • Excel Services Application Web service application proxy

      • PowerPoint service application proxy

      • Word Viewing service application proxy

      For information about how to add service application connections to a Web application, see Add or remove a service application connection to a Web application (SharePoint Server 2010) or Add or remove a service application connection to a Web application (SharePoint Foundation 2010).

  • Verify that the service account permissions for the Web application and the Office Web Apps services are appropriate. The Web application and service applications must have the appropriate permissions to access the content databases and the configuration database. For information about the appropriate service account permissions for the Web application and the Office Web Apps services, see Account permissions and security settings (SharePoint Server 2010).

Office 2010 documents open in the client application instead of in the browser

Except for Excel, the default open behavior for a site collection is to open Office 2010 documents in the client application, if the client application is installed. If the SharePoint administrator installs Office Web Apps and then the Office Web Apps feature is activated for a site collection, the default open behavior is set to open Office 2010 documents in the browser.

If the documents do not open in the browser, it could be for the following reasons:

  • The Office Web Apps feature is not activated for the site collection in which the document resides.

  • The Open Documents in Client Applications by Default feature is activated for the site collection in which the document resides.

To resolve this error, do the following:

An end user cannot open an Office 2010 document in the client application by using the button on the toolbar

While using Office Web Apps, an end user clicks the Open in Word, Open in PowerPoint, Open in Excel, or Open in OneNote button on the toolbar and receives a message that states that the file cannot be opened in the client application.

This error might occur for one or more of the following reasons:

  • The user is running a 64-bit version of Internet Explorer.

  • The ActiveX control necessary for opening the file in the Office client application is not installed or is not running in the browser.

  • Microsoft Office is not installed on the client computer.

  • The version of Office that is installed is earlier than Office 2003.

  • Security settings in Internet Explorer prevent ActiveX controls from running.

  • The browser does not support ActiveX.

  • The client browser is Firefox, but the plug-in that enables Firefox to open Office documents is not installed.

When you try to uninstall Office Web Apps, you receive an error that it has already been uninstalled

If you uninstall SharePoint Server 2010 before you uninstall Office Web Apps and then attempt to uninstall Office Web Apps by using Control Panel, you will receive an error that Office Web Apps has already been uninstalled. This situation does not apply to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010.

To resolve this error, see You cannot use Programs and Features within Control Panel to remove Office Web Apps from Windows Server 2008 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=215534).

When you attempt to reinstall SharePoint Server 2010 on a computer, you receive an error that there is a conflict with SharePoint 2010 Products that were previously installed

You might encounter an error if you uninstall SharePoint Server 2010 but do not uninstall Office Web Apps, and then attempt to reinstall SharePoint Server 2010 on the same server. In this situation, you will receive an error that there is a conflict with a previously installed Microsoft Office 2010 Server product.

To resolve this error, see You cannot use Programs and Features within Control Panel to remove Office Web Apps from Windows Server 2008 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=215534).