Shared Excel/Word files corrupting/becoming read only on 10.9.1 Server, 3.0.2

Do a google search on "word Mac .TemporaryItems" and you will see that this is not a new problem. There are a few ways to resolve it.

Sorry about the terse reply above. Had a detailed reply written, then lost all of it due to a page refresh...

MS Office products create a hidden older on the root of the drive (or rot of the share), called .TemporaryItems. Inside .TemporaryItems, a subfolder is created for each user. These subfolders are named using the user's unix accountID number. By default, macOS assigns 501 as the account number of the first user created locally on a system. 502 for the second, et cetera. If you have multiple workstations, and user accounts created locally on them, then you'r liable to have multiple users that are UserID 501 on their local system (same with 502, 503, et cetera). In contrast, accounts created on the server will have UserIDs starting at 1001, 1002, etc. Another difference is that server account IDs will actually be unique, because there's only one server.

The problem occurs when you have multiple users trying to claim read/write access to the same temporary files in the 501, 502, 503 (etc.) folders. It is a true file-in-use contention situation.

There are a vareity of ways to resolve it. The approach I used is to NOT create local accounts on the individual macs. All accounts are managed by the server, so no account number reuse issues. For users that travel, I then generate Portable Home directories on their mac. Their portable account will still have the unique account number assigned by the server (numbers starting at 1001 and up).

Given that you have a lot of BYOD devices that you can't really control the configuration of, the suggested option is to make the ".TemporaryItems" folder on the root of each server share completly promiscuous (read/write by all), and set the sticky-bit so as to prevent anyone from deleting the folder. If anyone can delete the folder, then the next time it is created, it won't have your custom permissions.

Read here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2720016?answerId=13262056022#13262056022

Particularly this comment in that thread.

Open a terminal on the server, and then type

sudo chmod 1777 /Users/.TemporaryItems

(or whatever your folder is...)

You should see the premissions with 'ls -la'

drwxrwxrwt+ 12 root wheel 408 Oct 13 13:01 .TemporaryItems

The sticky bit (the '1' in the command that produces the 't' in the permissions) allows only the owner (root) to delete the folder even if everyone has write permissions .

Ciao

STMAC

You will need to do this to the .TemporaryItems folder on the root of each share you have defined on the server. If one doesn't exist in one or more of your shares, might as well create the folder now and set it's permissions, because it's only a matter of time before the problem occurs on that particular share.

Due to the keychain issue with Mavericks Sever, at the moment I have local users on each machine. I am experiencing the same issue with some Word and Excel documents opening as Read Only. The local users have the same credentials as that of the network users on the server, so they access the shares with their network credentials (odd I know - but until apple fix the incredibly frustrating Keychain issue it's the only way at the moment - thats for another thread!)

I have changed permissions of the .TemporaryItems directory in the share root, and in the root of the drive.

I have also disabled quicklook on the server and on the client.

The Owner of every file in the share always seems to be set to 502.

I still have the issue of the files opening Read Only.

Any other ideas? Appreciate the input as this issue is doing my head in! So many niggly issues with Mavericks Server still!

Hi Robert,

Did you ever resolve this? I'm experiencing the same problem.

Kind Regards,

Chris

Ditto, i've got the same problem. Be nice if there were a fix for it. All emailed docs are read only, as well as some that come by ftp. Does Microsoft have any workaround?

Hi All,

I would like to know too! I've found someone else with a bit of the same problem:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/macenterprise/BTv_HdVEenE

I've also contacted him, maybe he has found a solution.

Did you have any luck with this one.?. having similar problems...

Thanks...C

Hi All,

I managed to temporarily fix this issue for now.

I have had to change the UID of each local user on every machine to a unique UID. Then repair permissions for the network share.

Then add a script to logout of each user using the logout hook. This script should un mount all network shares. The issue stems from a combination of matching local UID's if using local logons (as I am) and drives not unmounting on logout and login. Therefore two volumes are mounted with different names and Microsoft cannot handle two volumns mounted from the same drive.

Hi, I've just come across this problem tonight and after a bit of playing around, for me, I was trying to save the file with a forward slash / in the title and it saved as read only. When I changed to a - there was no problem saving the file so that I could then edit it. I presume that there's a problem with some characters in the code. I'm not speaking as an expert just someone who's had a bit of a play around. I hope this helps.

This is genius 🙂 I couldn't fix this and realised that I had a '/' in my file name. I changed this to a dash and viola, I can finally save my file again.

Brilliant!...

Hay Road Runner.. Voila..!! What a star you are I have ben trying to fathom out how what my excel document was read only.. .. You saved the day!! It was indeed, because I was putting a '/' in the title as I was saving it.. As soon as I took away/removed the '/' (forward slash) Hey presto! document is no longer 'read only'!! It was such a simply and clear explanation.. I am most grateful to you!! THANK YOU😉