10.9 Server-hosted MS Office files getting stuck as "in use" on Win & Mac clients

[Makosuke]

I have a recent-model Mini at work running Mavericks server, acting as a file server for about a dozen Macs and half dozen Windows machines. I had major issues with Apple's SMBX server through 10.8, but 10.9 has mercifully resolved enough of the problems that it's now more or less usable.

However, I'm still getting one regular complaint, and it's from both Windows and Mac (10.9) users: While working with Office documents stored on the server, periodically Office will throw an error that the file is in use and cannot be modified, at which point the user has no choice but to save a copy and work from that.

These spurious locks aren't just Office temp files, they affect everything--you also can't use the Finder or Windows Explorer to delete the file until the server has been rebooted, although if you control the Server directly you can use its Finder directly to delete them without a reboot.

My assumption was that the Mac user I've been getting complaints from is connecting via SMB2 rather than AFP, but the default connection appears, at least when I've checked, to be via AFP, so I'm not 100% sure that it's SMBX to blame.

I could turn up a couple of people complaining about similar problems in searches, but no solutions, and not even any particularly good info. Is anyone else seeing this, and does anyone have a suggestion of what I might try to fix it other than waiting for Yosemite?

 

[AppleNewton]

I've seen this at a recent clients site. They have new SMB2 based servers, a user on a Mac can connect, use the Office file and it will get locked up. No solution yet as their IT team doesn't really do much tinkering if theres a Mac on their network, i just handle the Macs. so the only way we resolved it sort-of is through a VM.

But, I'd see if they're not connecting to smb://"sharedfileservername"

if it its through AFP then that could be the problem.

Are they all on 10.9.4?

How about if just the Mac users edit the same file?

 

[Makosuke]

The majority of the Mac-based complaints are coming from a single user, who is on 10.9.4 and certainly appears to be connecting via afp:// which is the same as everybody else. Given that Office document use is pretty widespread, it's confusing to me why that one user seems to be having more problems than everyone else on the Macs.

The Windows 7 clients, however, are pretty consistently having issues, and they're obviously connecting via SMB.

I suppose I could try forcing CIFS to get SMB1 on the Windows clients and see if that helps (I'm pretty sure that left to its own devices Win7 will default to SMB2). I guess another thing to try is as you suggest forcing SMB for that Mac user and see if it makes any difference.