Office documents already being used?

[JBruyet]

Hi,

My General Manager has a new laptop that I have connected to our network. He is able to navigate and open and close files, but he just had a strange problem pop up. He opened a file, made changes and when he tried to save the file he received an error message stating that it had been opened in a different session, and that saving would erase changes (per his words). He called me to show me and when he opens his files on our Novell server he gets the following error:

S:\…\filename.doc is being used by GeneralManager. Do you want to make a copy?

If he says yes and subsequently tries to save it he gets the “can’t save due to other session” error. If he says no he can’t open the file.

He has full permissions for the folder the file is in. There are no locks on the file, and if I open it on my computer it opens fine.

I was looking in my switch log earlier and found that his laptop is puking up quite a few CRC/Alignment errors. Are these two different issues actually one issue??? Since it is the General Manager I feel somewhat motivated to get this taken care of, but I don’t really know what to look for. We’re running Netware 5.0 on the server, and he’s running XP Pro SP1 and Office97 (yeah, I know. I hope to upgrade our Office software next year). All Windows updates have been applied.

Help,

Joe Brouillette

 

[terry712]

firstly fixed the nic issues
set the speed as per the switch -get it off auto negioate

on the client (i'm assuming 4.83sp2 or 4.9) - if not get it up
in advanced - set client caching to off
i dont think 5 has this on server

also idea to check novell's forum
there are lots of weird issues with xp

 

[TheLad]

If memory serves, NetWare 5.0 SP6a offers the option to switch file caching off at the server. Command would be:

SET ENABLE CLIENT FILE CACHING = OFF

The NIC issues certainly won't help matters so as already stated, fix them before anything else.

-----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[JBruyet]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll get them taken care of.

As to the problem, I saved a copy of the file to the hard drive and we're still getting the same "already open" error. Now I'm thinking that it's not a Netware issue. I don't see how, but is it possible that some Netware attribute is still attached to the file even though it's saved locally?

Thanks,

Joe Brouillette

 

[terry712]

it's an xp issue to be truthful
but there should be options that are tweakeable to get it to work

i must confess despite the fact that i'm fairly anti ms
i really do beleive that xp sucks
nt and 2000 at least worked - xp is just a slug with severe issues with everything

 

[marvhuffaker]

Yes, XP sucks and I think it's great when it can be proven that it's not a Novell problem. I see it all the time, people blame Novell for everything.

Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com