Can't Save to Novell Server

Summary

Users of Novell Netware 5 and 6.0 servers have experienced numerous problems when trying to save Word X and Word 2004 documents to their servers. We believe that Netware 6.5 solves these problems and are waiting for confirmation of this. In the meantime, it appears that applying the Netware 6.0 Service Pack 5 does the trick for Netware 6.0 users and there is a workaround for Netware 5 users as well

These "can't save to server" problems and various workarounds are documented below by contributors to the microsoft.public.mac.office.word newsgroup. We thank them for their generosity in sharing their solutions and we welcome additional contributions or feedback.

Saving Word Files to Netware 5 Servers

Contributed by Shari Kubitz, LRDC Computing Services, University of Pittsburgh; posted April 2005

When OS 10.3.x users attempt to save Mac Word X files to a Novell Netware
5 server, the following errors and/or symptoms may occur:

In addition to the errors/symptoms above, when OS 10.3.x users attempt to save
Mac Word 2004 files to a Novell Netware 5 server, the following may also occur:

In all cases, files saved to the local computer do not result in the above
problems (although you may notice an abundance of Word Work files).

A patch from Novell (Technical Information Document (TID) 10094653 [Lene Fredborg, 13-Dec-2021: Removed outdated link to http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?/10094653.htm]) seems to
substantially improve the situation and you should also notice that you no
longer get inundated with Word Work files. This fix requires that "afp.nlm" file
be replaced with the same file from the Netware 6.0 service pack 5.

Following this fix, the only problem we see with Word X is that a file modified
about 50 times may provide a "too many files open error." This seems
to be resolved with the installation of Word 2004.

[NOTE: This advice is very version- and level-specific, please read the entire article before deciding on a course of action. You have the entire responsibility for assessing the suitability of this advice for your environment.]

Prosoft Workaround

Contributed by Dan Guadalupe; posted April 2005

Recently, Prosoft came out with NETWARE FOR OS X, IP edition,
for Novell Netware networks-- downloaded it and it's AWESOME! No more saving
or printing problems. This is a must for OS X users in a Novell/Windows network
environment. The cost is $149 for a one user license.

[NOTE: We contacted a Prosoft Customer Service representative
who was unaware either of the Novell/OS X server problem or of this potential
solution. For that reason, we suggest trying the free 30-day evaluation before investing your money [Lene Fredborg, 31-May-2022: Removed outdated link http://www.prosofteng.com/products/download.php?prodID=26].

Word and Netware 6 Issues

Contributed by Christopher Pryce; posted 2004

Workaround

Searching the Novell Web site yielded a Technical Information Document (TID) 10094653 [Lene Fredborg, 13-Dec-2021: Removed outdated link to http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?/10094653.htm] that described a similar error condition with Novell 5.1. The solution mentioned was to replace the AFP NLM ( Novell linked Library) in Novell 5.1 with the AFP NLM from the Netware 6.0 Service Pack 5.

In our environment, we applied service pack 5 to our Netware 6 server, and it eliminated the problem.

[NOTE: This advice is very version- and level-specific, please read the entire article before deciding on a course of action. You have the entire responsibility for assessing the suitability of this advice for your environment.]

The Issues

I can confirm that Word 2004 has more problems with Netware volumes than its predecessor.

With Word Version X (10.1.6) organization-wide we had occasional problems on most G3/G4/G5 machines saving work to the Netware server. The symptoms were the same as described below, but happened rarely and with no predictability.

With the copy of Word 2004 that I have tested (a fresh install and patched to 11.1.0 with the service pack from Microsoft's Web site) on a G4 1.25ghz with Panther 10.3.5 the problems were immediate and severe.

We set 'Allow fast saves' to disabled and 'Always create backup copy' enabled. All other preferences are the application defaults.  We also are running Extensis Suitcase 11.0.2. It is running, but it is not managing the fonts that Word installs. Duplicate fonts with the same name (i.e., Arial, Trebuchet MS) from previous Word installs have been deleted.

A user can create (save as) or open a Word file (any version) on our Netware server (Netware 6 sp 4). After any kind of alteration - as small as a single space - Word 2004 does one or more of five things. This happens every time save or save as (Word Format) is attempted.

1) Word hangs and it must be forced to quit.

2) The familiar dialog appears that reads: "Word cannot complete the operation because too many files are open <documentname>"

3) A dialog box appears that reads: "Word failed reading from file <documentname>". This dialog has a cancel and retry button. If the user is lucky, cancel brings up the dialog box in 2) and the user can save as to save the document as an RTF document to their local hard drive and continue.

4) The above as in 3) happens, but canceling brings up another dialog box that reads: "Word has lost data due to a bad network connection. Documents relying on this data are going to be saved and then closed."

Word creates a Rescued Document file in the same directory (doesn't matter if you've specified a different directory for auto recovery) and closes the current document. The current document has partial changes saved, but is marked as in-use. The user can unmount the Netware volume and mount it again to continue working on the document.

5) The current document is replaced with the Word Work file. The original is deleted from the server, and 2, 3, or 4 above happens.

In all cases, unless Word hangs or closes the document, it is possible to do a save as using RTF as the format. When this option is chosen, the only save error that is observed is the condition in 5) above. With Always create backup copy disabled, that error seems to go away, although we have not tested extensively.

Similar problems were not reported with a Xinet server running KA/Share version 12. Documents saved to local hard drives did not experience the problems either.

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