ReadyNAS 516, Microsoft Word, the Mac, and Read Only
I have a strange problem at the center of which is my ReadyNAS 516. It involves the Mac, Microsoft Word, and the NAS.
The problem: Every Word document (with the .docx extension) opens Read Only and essentially is useless unless you just want to read it.
This began happening a couple of years ago. I have no recollection of any precipitating event. Suddenly one day when I went to the server and double-clicked on a Word doc as soon as it opened there'd be a banner across the top just below the menu ribbon that said "Read Only - To save a copy of this document, click Duplicate."
I contacted Microsoft and worked with them for more than two weeks but they were never able to solve the problem.
Some details: 1. I'm running ReadyNAS firmware 6.10.4. I use smb to connect to the server. I'm on an ethernet network. The NAS has four 8TB drives, all from the approved list. 2. If I copy any of the files to my Mac it opens and functions as expected. Once I put it back onto the server, the problem is still there. 3. The problem does not exist when I try to open ".doc" documents, only ".docx" documents. 4. There is no problem with Microsoft Excel nor with Microsoft PowerPoint. 5. The problem seems to exist only on the NAS. When I open a Word document on my iCloud drive it opens fine. 6. I have an older ReadyNAS Pro also running 6.10.4 used as a backup. It too has the same problem.
NOTE: I found that there is a post here about similar problems ("Saving Microsoft Word files to ReadyNAS from MAC"). Two solutions were offered. One was to change the extension of every Word doc from .docx to .doc. For thousands of files (and peace of mind) that is not a workable solution. The other was to download and install an earlier version of Microsoft Office. I did that but to no avail. The problem remained.
Yesterday, I was feeling hopeful. I decided to upgrade my iMac (64GB RAM, 1TB SSD) to the latest macOS (Big Sur, 11.2.2) from Catalina. Once the upgrade was completed, before opening any other apps, I downloaded and installed Microsoft Office for Mac. Nothing changed. Same problem with Word (.docx) documents.
Before removing the Office suite again and deleting every trace of Microsoft software on my Mac, I thought perhaps someone here may have run into this problem and could offer a solution.
Re: ReadyNAS 516, Microsoft Word, the Mac, and Read Only
I don't own a Mac so can't do much testing for you here but I suspect the issue isn't "with the NAS" per se. I think the issue is more with the interaction between MS Word (for Mac) and loading files over the network. Reading around on Google a bit, this seems to be a long standing problem with MS Word for Mac. Pretty much seems to match your symptoms exactly.
I expect that this is some kind of oddity that happens when MS Office creates all its hidden temp files as part of how the application operates when opening/saving docs. If those temp files linger, you will probably see this issue.
Enable the option to see hidden files (not sure how to do that on Mac) and browse to the network folder where you docx files are. Do you see hidden temp files linger for those docx files, even when the document is closed?
A few links out of a sea of people having the same issues.
Your friend is Google here, I would say. Some ReadyNAS users might have same experiences and could possibly know how to solve it but I don't think it is a "ReadyNAS problem" in that sense.
Re: ReadyNAS 516, Microsoft Word, the Mac, and Read Only
I'm also not a Mac user, but I also suspect the problem is with the temp files Word creates. I have seen posts elsewhere of similar things occurring when a user has permissions in a sub-folder where the file is located but not the root folder for it. That's not a typical situation with a ReadyNAS, since permissions are normally created on a share basis instead of folder basis, though it is possible to create it. Have you tried resetting all permissions in the share?
One other thing that might set that up is if you are using the admin credentials and are accessing the file via the data (or whatever your volume name is) path instead of directly to the share. The NAS is not going to let you write files to the volume root, even as admin. So if you are using admin credentials (which is generally a bad idea for normal use), try with other credentials.
On the other hand, if you are not using admin credentials, try using them as a test to see if it fixes it. If it does, then that definitely points to a permissions problem.
Re: ReadyNAS 516, Microsoft Word, the Mac, and Read Only
I am the original poster and I have a surprising update.
I've searched the net for answers as well as attempting to go to Microsoft and Apple about this problem. (I attempted to contact Netgear but I wasn't able to get any response.)
So in my last attempt to figure out why this problem was occurring I tried a Hail Mary. I attempted to add AFP to the Services on my ReadyNAS.
As expected the ReadyNAS popped up a window telling me that AFP had been deprecated by Apple. Still I enabled it.
The problem disappeared when I connected to the server via AFP. When I disconnected and connected using SMB, the problem returned. I did this a few times and it confirmed this result.
Obviously it would be unwise to rely on an old and unsupported protocol for my ReadyNAS, the primary location for all of my files, and this problem needs to be resolved.
Given this new piece of information, would anyone have any other ideas on what the problem might be?
Re: ReadyNAS 516, Microsoft Word, the Mac, and Read Only
I think this final piece of information might be my last frustrating attempt at figuring this out.
When I'm logged into the server as admin via SMB from my Mac, this READ ONLY problem occurs.
If I use my browser to get into the Netgear OS interface, go Shares and browse there for Word docs, when I double-click on one I get a pop-up that says "You have chosen to open: ___________.docx. What should Firefox do with this file?" I select "Open with Microsoft Word (default)" and the document opens correctly. This works for every document I tested.
So, coult my problem be that there is a difference between opening a document via SMB and opening one via the Netgear OS interface?
