Level 1

0 points

iWork not iWorking on SMB in Mavericks

I had to apply a hack to get SMB (to Windows Server 2008R2) to even work in Mavericks, but now I have encountered a new problem:

Any file I open in Pages or any other iWork app from an SMB share becomes unsavable, as soon as anything is changed in it.

It starts with an Autosave error: "The document could not be autosaved. You don't have permission to write to the folder that the file is in."

From there, I can't even duplicate it, export it, or anything. Everything I do gives me a "The location of the document xxxx cannot be determined."

Even if I try to do a "Save as", I get the same "You don't have permission to write..." error (even to my own desktop!).

If I try to "Duplicate" the file- I lose all embedded elements (images) and most of my formatting.

I don't recall having this problem before, but I just started testing the iWork applications again since upgrading to Mavericks. I have been looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office for my company's staff, but this really makes iWork "not ready for prime time" in a business environment. I hope this has something to do with the SMB2 issue, and it will be resolved soon, but I am open to any suggestions to try to fix the problem.

iWork-OTHER, OS X Mavericks (10.9), MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Oct 25, 2013 1:46 PM

75 replies

Wolf.NBM Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 12, 2013 7:18 AM in response to Wolf.NBM

Just as follow-up: From what I can tell from their own documentation and support database- Tuxera is strictly an NTFS stack/driver for Mac (and other non-Windows devices). It allows the reading and writing of NTFS drives. That actually has nothing to do with SMB at all. It is likely very useful to connect to USB drives running NTFS, but not actual NAS devices or servers. It's possible it may help with permission issues tied to NTFS via SMB, but there is nothing on their Web site that indicates that. I may give it a try anyway.

Also, with regard to my previous reply, I believe AFP is still used by Time Capsule, but not by most 3rd party NAS devices, which use CIFS/SMB1.

Petie81

Level 1

18 points

Dec 12, 2013 1:47 PM in response to Wolf.NBM

Ok, thanks.

So, I have a qNAP and if I can connect with AFP it meens that qNAP supports AFP, right? Can it harm my files?

Wolf.NBM Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 12, 2013 1:55 PM in response to Petie81

AFP and CIFS/SMB are not compatible at all. If you can access your files using AFP- you are probably fine.

Petie81

Level 1

18 points

Dec 13, 2013 1:01 AM in response to Wolf.NBM

Ok, Thank you

Jan 6, 2014 7:04 PM in response to Wolf.NBM

Are there any working resolutions for this yet? We are struggling with this issue in our corporate environment. Have tried multiple things suggested in this thread, but issues still persist. We are running Windows Server 2003 for our shared drives, and upgrading these is out of the question.

Thanks

RBuday

Level 1

5 points

Jan 6, 2014 7:11 PM in response to gunwalloe

Sadly, no solution yet. A true bummer.

Jan 6, 2014 7:47 PM in response to RBuday

This happening on AFP shares as well. I put in a call to apple enterprise and they spoke to the iWork team... It is a known issue and there is no fix. I am recommending switching to MS Office. New iWork is missing a lot of needed features anyways.

Jan 6, 2014 8:32 PM in response to kginger_consulting

Why not just use iWork '09?

It should be in your Applications/iWork folder.

Peter

mwrourke

Level 1

4 points

Jan 7, 2014 9:56 PM in response to Wolf.NBM

I do have a workaround - of sorts. This allows iWork '09 documents to co-exist with iWork '13 documents.

If you rename the three iWork Apps in /Applications/iWork '09 by appending (say) '09', so Numbers becomes Numbers09, you can alter the "Open with" file property (using %I) to reference the new name.

This works for files on an AFP or SMB share.

Note that "Change All".. doesn't work.

And also note that if a version of an iWork Application is already running, additional concurrent file opens will use the same version.

Haven't seen any negative consequences of this so far.

joe555

Level 1

8 points

Jan 13, 2014 12:31 PM in response to Wolf.NBM

Nearly 3 months now with no solution?

And no, I don't consider copying file to desktop, editing, saving, copying back to server a solution. Maybe if we were still using floppies yes, but not in 2014.

Killing me softly.

Jan 13, 2014 7:24 PM in response to Wolf.NBM

For OS X Server 10.9.1 I have resorted to running a shell script to recursively set ACL group owner and full control permissions (in my case Workgroup) every 15 minutes:

in /usr/local/bin/iworkfix.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Fix ACLs for iWork 3

echo "Fixing ACLs"

chmod -R +a "Workgroup allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,re adextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_i nherit" /path/to/your/directory

# put message in system log

syslog -s -l error "ACLs have been changed to Workgroup"

make it run as root

chmod u+s /usr/local/bin/iworkfix.sh

schedule via launchd every 15 mins, in /Library/LaunchDameons/com.example.iworkfix.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Label</key>

<string>com.example.iworkfix.plist</string>

<key>ProgramArguments</key>

<array>

<string>/usr/local/bin/iworkfix.sh</string>

</array>

<key>RunAtLoad</key>

<true/>

<key>StartInterval</key>

<integer>900</integer>

</dict>

</plist>

(you can also use lingon.app to create your launchd plist)

Jan 13, 2014 11:41 PM in response to kginger_consulting

Again…

Why not just use iWork '09?

It should be in your Applications/iWork folder.

Peter

Wolf.NBM Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 14, 2014 6:48 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

@PeterBreis0807:

This only works as a solution if one previously had installed iWork '09. It does nothing to fix a problem that Apple seems to be ignoring, and as others have noted- this affects far more than just iWork. There are underlying SMB permission and access issues that can negatively impact anything stored on an SMB share. The current version of iWork just becomes unusable because of it.

Jan 15, 2014 3:43 PM in response to Wolf.NBM

@PeterBreis0807 Consider that we have 100+ documents that have been updated to new iWork format.

AFAIK that this happens on ALL network shares, AFP and SMB. I would have switched to MS Office but all our Numbers docs use the "floating" tables and will not convert to Excel properly.

Jan 15, 2014 4:01 PM in response to kginger_consulting

So why have you "updated" your 100+ documents to the new iWork format?

Were all those features in iWork '09 annoying you?

As iWork '09 runs on most Mac hardware and OSes, was that killing your productivity?

Peter

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iWork not iWorking on SMB in Mavericks