Re: problem saving with Microsoft Word in Office 2004 on G5 with 10.3.7 OSX
From: John McGhie (john_at_mcghie.name)
Date: 01/07/05
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Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:45:32 +1100
Hi Jason:
I'm going to take a wild guess here that this is the RAID expression of our
old friend the "Insufficient available file handles" problem.
Each time you edit a document in Word, it records the edit in a temporary
file (work file) in case you wish to back out the change. Under some
scenarios, you get a new temporary file open for each edit. Somewhere
around the 60 open files mark, the OS starts returning "You can't have any
more new files" messages, which Word interprets as either "Disk full and
unable to save" or "Serious disk error" (in other words, it can't get a new
file when it wants one.
The reason it's only "some" documents is because Word creates temporary
files if it "needs" them. If it already has a temp file it can use to store
the change it will. If the content of the document includes object types
for which Word does not yet have a temp file, it will create a new one for
each change.
I am guessing that you have a RAID 0 array, which could potentially cause
your controller to begin returning this error with 30 files open, given that
each file in a RAID 0 array could have at least two handles.
The reason you cannot see the files being complained about is that they are
in the System temporary folder. You would have to login as Root and give
your userID root access in order to be able to see these files in the
Finder. If you do this, don't forget to put things back again later, it's a
seriously unsafe practice to run logged in with root access for long.
I'm guessing that the location of the boot volume and the location of the
application directory will make no difference to this problem. The location
of the Word original document and the location of your user temporary
storage would have an influence: chances are if both the document and its
temporary files were on a non-RAID volume you would get a "different"
result. Not necessarily fixed, it could make it worse!
I'm going to seek a comment from the Word developers on this one.
Stay tuned
On 6/1/05 6:32 PM, in article
1104996755.060823.15100@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, "JasonRomney"
<jason.romney@netvideo.com.au> wrote:
> I am getting a recurrent problem with Word whilst trying to save a
> number of different Word documents and wonder if anyone has also
> experienced this? I am using a dual 2.5Ghz G5 with 4GB RAM and 2
> interal 250GB disks raided into one disk on the desktop using the OSX
> RAID facility.
>
> The G5 reports the following message when an attempt is made to save
> just about any reasonably substantial Word document:
>
> There is a serious disk error on file "Word Work File D_47857804"
>
> Here are the things I have tried to fix the problem:
>
> 1. I booted into an OSX 10.3.7 installed on my external Lacie drive
> which was created by using Clone Doubler on the G5's internal hard
> disk. When I fire up Word from the Lacie external firewire disk (after
> booting up from that Lacie firewire disk), the same error message could
> be generated when repeatedly test saving a Word document.
>
> 2. so going back to a normal bootup, that is, from the G5's own
> internal hard disk, the error message happens whether I save a file to
> the G5's internal hard disk or to the Lacie external drive. (even
> though it seems unlikely that both drives would have this problem).
>
> 3. I have reinstalled initially just Word and then the entire suite of
> applications in Office 2004 for Mac and the same error message occurs
> afterward when I try to save a document in Word. I have also tried
> renaming the Word template Normal file, and renaming the Word
> preferences file. I also did a full uninstall of Office 2004 via the
> special UnInstall program, including a search (and manual delete) after
> the de-install procedure for all Microsoft-related prefs and plist
> files for each application in the Office Suite that might have been
> left over by the uninstaller program. Then reinstalled the Office Suite
> again - same problem.
>
> 4. I have tried to save multiple different documents but the error
> message is not restricted to attempts to save just one Word document,
> that is, the error message recurs after 5 to 30 saves are made of
> apparently ANY Word document.
>
> 5. I copied the contents of one of the documents the saving of which
> triggers the error message into a new document, and saved, but the
> error message recurs with the new document thus saved, as well.
>
> I can report the following observations:
>
> 1. the Work File identifier is different each time eg it is not always
> D_47857804 but may be some other letter and number
>
> 2. if I search the hard disk for the Word Work File that is nominated
> as being subject to the serious disk error, I can't find the file
>
> 3. If I ignore the error message and just keep working, albeit
> nervously, the document does not seem to corrupt and seems to save OK
> on subsequent attempts. (If I move the document onto another computer
> and start editing it with Word on the new computer, no more error
> message recur).
>
> 4. the error message can be fairly reliably summoned on just about any
> document. I hit a keyboard key at random, over and again, saving
> between key presses, and the problem recurs after about 20 such saves.
>
> 5. the same document(s) that trigger the problem (ie just about ALL
> Word documents on the G5) will not trigger such a problem on the 17inch
> Powerbook when using the same version of Word.
>
> 6. The version of Word I'm using on the G5 is 11.1 (040910). I've tried
> to see whether the problem recurs if I go back to the version of Word
> prior to the service pack upgrade and yes, the error message does
> recur.
>
> What do you think is the problem?
>
> I have tried running Disk Warrior over both disks and they seem to
> check out fine (ie both the G5's internal disk and the external Lacie
> firewire disk).
>
> Do you think this could be a Logic Board problem with the G5? Do you
> think Word is actually saving correctly and giving a bogus error
> message or that the saves Word is doing are somehow flawed when it
> reports the error? Do you think this problem could be restricted to
> Word only or extend to other as yet undetected applications? Do you
> think this problem is common to all G5s running Word, or just mine? Do
> you think the problem is related to the RAID array (uninstalling the
> RAID is quite a business when you have a huge amount of data on a 500GB
> disk... although that is obviously going to be one of my next steps).
>
> Do you think the problem may lie, not so much with Word itself but with
> the fact that the G5's internal hard disk (there are two internal
> drives installed on the G5) have been fused together with a RAID array
> to appear as just one disk?
>
> Any advice or experience with this kind of problem would be very
> gratefully received please.
> Kind regards,
> Jason Romney
> jason.romney@netvideo.com.au
>
-- Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email me unless I ask you to. John McGhie <john@mcghie.name> Consultant Technical Writer Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410
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