[DaveGee]

I've started to see a problem and while it might be simply related to MS Office and SMB it could also be Apple's SMB itself... Could anyone please test this and report back with the results...

All that's required is a W2K smb share and 2 macs running 10.3.3 with MS Office installed...

What's required:

2 - Mac's running 10.3.3 (that have login access to the same SMB share - see below)
1 - W2K with smb sharing turned on

1 - On both Macs mount the SMB share.
2 - On one mac open (and leave open) an Excel file located on the W2K share (mounted via smb)
3 - On the other mac try to copy that open file from the SMB share to your local HD and then open it locally - the file will be corrupt (and or empty) yet the finder will not report a single error.

Also broken is the following...

1 - Open an Excel file on one of the Macs running 10.3.3

2a - TRY and open the Excel file on the other Mac running 10.3.3 (it can't do it - it should open as [read only] but it doesn't)
2b - TRY and open the Excel file on the W2K box (that's hosting the share) - can't do that either again, it SHOULD open as [read only] but it doesn't...

3 - Once the file has had ATTEMPTED access from the Mac - the Mac that does have the file open MAY (doesn't always happen) have trouble saving the file - This doesn't always happen tho..

Please I'd love to hear results from anyone else... This all starting happening with 10.3.3 (as best I can tell)

Dave

[DaveGee]

For those who don't have 2 different Macs but do have Keynote v1.1.1 you could also try the following...

- On a Mac OS X 10.3.3 Machine

1 - Mount an smb share located on a W2K machine
2 - Open Apple Keynote v1.1.1
3 - Make a test slide
4 - Attempt to save the file to the SMB share

Keynote will fail with a 'Couldn't Save File' error message

Dave

[RayX]

Does the W2K box have SP4 installed?

[DaveGee]

Originally posted by RayX:
Does the W2K box have SP4 installed?

I'd have to check but I would imagine yes... Where I work they tend to roll out all the SP's (eventually) as well as the never ending stream of patches to 'make windows even more secure'(tm).

I'm starting to get the feeling that it might have been one of those update rollouts that broke things but its just strange that it happened on or around the same time that 10.3.3 came out (you can't go by that WRT what MS might have released for W2K cause like I said the MIS group rolls things out on their own schedule so who knows what it might have been...

I'm gonna try and get my hands on an 'unmanaged' W2K box and see what happens with that...

Dave

[RayX]

Reason I asked is because even MS had this problem with their own products, saving from Office XP to a Windows 2000 Server file share (probably applied to Professional as well). At the time there was a hotfix, but it was included in SP3 or SP4. So that'd be the first thing to check. Other than that it very well could be a patch that broke something (MS always seem to conveniently break Samba with patches and service packs).

[DaveGee]

Originally posted by RayX:
Reason I asked is because even MS had this problem with their own products, saving from Office XP to a Windows 2000 Server file share (probably applied to Professional as well). At the time there was a hotfix, but it was included in SP3 or SP4. So that'd be the first thing to check. Other than that it very well could be a patch that broke something (MS always seem to conveniently break Samba with patches and service packs).

Well..

I've gotten one confirmation that there is a problem although the user was connecting to a W2003 smb share..

He tried my 'save keynote' file to the SMB share and came up with the same results "Coun't save file" error message.. I've yet to hear anyone say they haven't seen the bug at all either with Excel or Keynote - I'm starting to wonder just how wide spread this is...

Looks like I'm in for some long-ass testing sessions... ugh.

Dave

[DaveGee]

I'm really in a bind here (looking for a reason/cause of this problem)..

If anyone with access to a W2K box (W2K SMB Share) can test this and report back I'd really appreciate it.

1 - Mount SMB share on the Mac 10.3.3 box
2 - Create an Excel file and save it to the SMB share (and leave it open)
3 - Attempt to open that same file on either the W2K box serving up the SMB share or another Mac (that also has the share mounted)

What happens?
-------------
Does the file open with [read only] status? (what should happen)
Does the other Mac get an error saying the file can't be opened? (what I'm seeing)
Does the W2K machine just 'hang' with Excel trying to open the file? (also what I'm seeing)
Something else?

Dave

[-Q-]

Originally posted by DaveGee:
What happens?
-------------
Does the file open with [read only] status? (what should happen)
Does the other Mac get an error saying the file can't be opened? (what I'm seeing)
Does the W2K machine just 'hang' with Excel trying to open the file? (also what I'm seeing)
Something else?

Dave

Ok. Running OS X 10.3.3 on my TiBook, connected to a wired NT network running DHCP, I connected to my Compaq box running Win2K SP4. Created an excel file and saved it to the share. Attempting to open in on the Windows box resulted in a spinning cursor for about 5 minutes and ultimately an error message that says 'Cannot access 'test.xls.'' Closing the file on the mac allows it to be opened on the Windows machine w/out any apparent harm to the file.

My hunch is your 'hang' will eventually result in a dialog that says the above. Based on typical windows behavior, the file should probably open as 'read only' (that's my experience when trying to view some excel based reports when another user has them open). I don't have another mac to test the sharing issue, however.

HTH.

[DaveGee]

Originally posted by -Q-:
Ok. Running OS X 10.3.3 on my TiBook, connected to a wired NT network running DHCP, I connected to my Compaq box running Win2K SP4. Created an excel file and saved it to the share. Attempting to open in on the Windows box resulted in a spinning cursor for about 5 minutes and ultimately an error message that says 'Cannot access 'test.xls.'' Closing the file on the mac allows it to be opened on the Windows machine w/out any apparent harm to the file.

My hunch is your 'hang' will eventually result in a dialog that says the above. Based on typical windows behavior, the file should probably open as 'read only' (that's my experience when trying to view some excel based reports when another user has them open). I don't have another mac to test the sharing issue, however.

HTH.

Q! Thank YOU!!!

I've finally got positive confirmation that a problem exists some place other than were I work! At least now I know it isn't TOO local of any issue. Been on the phone with Apple and MS about this and lets just say nobody even wants to admit they SEE the problem let alone who's to blame.

Dave

[Big Mac]

Please don't misunderstand my intention for posting this - it is purely for the purpose of edification - why is it so important to have a given file open on two systems at the same time? Isn't that what you're referring to? If so, we're dealing with a file contention issue, something which sometimes trips up programs that deal with files on a local volume. It makes sense that there would be a problem with performing this operation. It doesn't sound like this issue amounts to trashed SMB support. Perhaps I've missed the point.

[DaveGee]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
Please don't misunderstand my intention for posting this - it is purely for the purpose of edification - why is it so important to have a given file open on two systems at the same time? Isn't that what you're referring to? If so, we're dealing with a file contention issue, something which sometimes trips up programs that deal with files on a local volume. It makes sense that there would be a problem with performing this operation. It doesn't sound like this issue amounts to trashed SMB support. Perhaps I've missed the point.

Not at all...

When you are connecting to a file server some programs (like MS Office) will query and respect if the server indicates the file you are trying to open is already in use by someone else. (file locking I think). If the program does support it then it can handle it in one of several ways - either tell the user it can't be accessed or in the case with MS Office apps it will let the user open the file anyway but indicate in the title bar of the document window that the file is [READ ONLY].

This is the way things have always worked WRT MS Office accessing a file that is in use, it still opened it but in [READ ONLY] mode... Suddenly users started reporting this new issue where they could no longer open the file that someone else already had open. The reports started coming in over the last few weeks is my best guess.

In fact things are only 'BROKEN' in one way - and that is when the Mac 10.3.3 machine opening the file first.

Example - SMB:

Mac opens test.xls located on SMB share and then another Mac tries to open it and it says it can't... (normally it could just with [read only] access)

Mac opens test.xls located on SMB share and then a W2K user tries to open it and the windows machine will 'stopwatch hang' (for some time as indicated above)

W2K user opens test.xls located on SMB share and then Mac 10.3.3 and the file will open just fine - with [read only] indicator in the documents title/window bar.

Example - AFP:

Mac opens test.xls located on an AFP share and then another Mac tries to open the same file and the file will open just fine - with [read only] indicator in the documents title/window bar.


Also, a 2nd and bigger problem exists (since its more complex to get into and doesn't always happen I didn't want to put this in the mix just yet).

Problem 2:

When working with 2 Macs that are accessing the same file on an SMB share... The one will gain access and the other will not but then if the person who did gain access makes a change to the file and tries to re-save it SOMETIMES (not all the time) Excel will report that it can't save it as the existing name (after a long spinning beach ball wait) it saves it as a randomly created file name that looks something like 743FA834 (a dialog box even tells them this happened) and the user then has to find than file and manually rename it back to what the name was before.

Again this last problem is hit or miss but if you have a 2nd Mac and have it try to open an already open file more than a few times (when it's already open by another Mac) it will eventually happen.

Dave