Word cannot complete the operation because too many files open

Anonymous
2011-08-08T18:05:14+00:00

I've upgraded to Lion and am now having this error message every time Word 2011 tries to auto save:

word cannot complete the operation because too many files open

I click OK and then it says:

Word is unable to save the AutoRecover file in the location you have specified. Make sure that you have specified a valid location for AutoRecover files in Preferences, and that you have permission to write files to the location you specified.

I've tried changing the location for autosave and also made sure that the folder has read/write privileges for all users. I've done some Googling and not been able to find any other references to this problem since 2004ish.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-06-19T13:34:35+00:00

You should have added "for me" because that solution did work for at least 18 other users.

So let's try this, which I'm surprised we did not suggest before. It's called a safe boot. It's a simple procedure that will attempt to load in your Mac only software, add-ins, fonts, etc. etc. that are official versions of Apple software and other approved vendors. If Word works, it probably means that some software is interfering with it (i.e. software that was not allowed to execute under safe boot conditions).

  • Shut down you Mac
  • Turn it on
  • As soon as you hear the initial "boing" sound, press Shift (that's Apple's instructions; I press is as soon as I see the screen turn on)
  • Hold it down until you see the Finder and it seems to stop loading

Once the Finder loads, test Word. If it works, the problem is caused by non-Apple software added to your user account or your Mac.

There is a similar procedure involving the creation of a brand new user. This ensures the user does not have any additional stuff in their account. You could try that and then test word from that new user.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-01-24T05:34:14+00:00

    I have all my documents stored in Dropbox, and Word is set to Dropbox as the "document location". I wonder if that has anything to do with this problem?

    Thus it will be quite easy to find out if that is the case. Perhaps Word is attempting to save some temporary files in there. Not being able to do so within a certain time limit would make it think the disk is not responding, so try switching to your local drive for a while.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-01-24T00:03:55+00:00

    I am having the exact same problem. I am running Lion on an iMac with 16gb of RAM. I am getting both of the error messages you mentioned. I have closed Word and rebooted, and with even one document open I still get the message. It doesn't seem to matter which document. I have tried to repair permissions but it's grayed out. I rebooted using the snow leopard boot up disk and was able to repair permissions that way. I am still having the problem. 

    I have all my documents stored in Dropbox, and Word is set to Dropbox as the "document location". I wonder if that has anything to do with this problem? I checked on the Dropbox forums and didn't see any one else with this issue.

    Does anyone have a solution? It's driving me crazy!

    I also have been finding that when clients email me Word documents (probably created on a PC), I can't open them in Word for the Mac (but I can open them on a PC that I have.) This, too, is a new problem that I never had before.

    Any help will be appreciated.

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-10-24T02:23:04+00:00

    To zizany and Gritty:

    This problem could be caused by the Undo queue becoming full. A preemptive behavior would be to close and reopen the file before it happens (perhaps a Save As would also solve it).

    Here's a macro that clears the Undo queue, then saves the document: see Workaround #2 in Microsoft’s “Disk Full” Error Workaround.

    Other similar threads:

    For long files, heed the recommendation on enabling Word's backup option. AutoRecover is not useful unless Word crashes and sometimes it can the cause of the crash, particularly if set for short intervals.

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-10-23T08:13:04+00:00

    Repair permissions does nothing for me.  It was working for the last several weeks, but just started getting this error today.

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