Powerpoint 2013 unstable

Over a year later and this is still happening to me. I am about to loose 2.5 hours of work if I cant fix this!!!

When I add another chart onto the powerpoint slide after I try to save it comes up with the message we can't save because the file is read-only (it's not) and it tells me to save it under a different name or to a different place. However, when i try to save it under a different name/different place i get the error message we're sorry, something went wrong that might make powerpoint unstable. Please save your presentation and restart powerpoint. I can't save the presentation because of the previous problem.

Same problem with my users.

Single person editing a single 2013 PowePoint deck and they are cutting and pasting from a Word 2013 document or a even a 2nd 2013 PowerPoint deck and get the message:

"We're sorry, something went wrong that might make PowerPoint unstable.  Please save your presentation and restart PowerPoint."

But their deck is in read only so they have to do a Save As.

Please fix this issue, Microsoft.

All,

I found a way to reproduce this error message at will.  I'm not saying this is the only cause, but it might give Microsoft some hints as to how to fix this issue.

If I start with a PowerPoint Poster that is use 4:3 ratio.  And the size of the poster is 48in Wide, 36in high. If I then convert the poster to 16:9 (Design | Slide Size), I will see the Read-only message when I try to save the file.  This will happen every time.

I even know why it happens.  The original poster size was 48in wide.  When I convert to 16:9, this increases the poster size to 64 in wide.  And PowerPoint allows this increase as you can see in Design | Slide Size | Custom Slide Size.  However, PowerPoint 2013 has a maximum width size of 56 in.

So if I try and manually change the width size above 56 in, I will get an error message.  But if I use the 4:3 to 16:9 conversion of PowerPoint, then I can exceed the 56 in maximum.  But this will cause PowerPoint to give you the Read-only message and not let you save it.

This is clearly a bug in PowerPoint as it should not let the user exceed the 56 in width maximum when converting to 16:9 ratio.  The software should re-scale to a smaller size to stay within the 56 in max defined by PowerPoint 2013.

I suspect there are other limits just like this one that we are exceeding and causing the error.  MS needs to identify them all and provide a fix.

Hi Bella, I think your fix would really help, but in Windows 8.1 I am not seeing MSOSYNC in FIle Manager anywhere nor have I been able to find "Offline files" in the services.msc window.  Step 3 still works, though!  Any tips or screen prints would help, if you can still see those two items (MSOSYNC and "Offline files" in Windows 8.1 since success with Step 3 alone isn't totally helping eliminate the problem.

Today's theory, and I think this is very close if not the actual issue:

In Office 2010, I always saw a message at the bottom of the window when Office was auto-saving in the back ground.  When that message appeared, I would never try to do something important like save my own copy because it wouldn't work.  I don't think it would cause a file corruption, though.

In Office 2013, I am not seeing that auto-save message (in Ppt or in Word, probably not in Excel either but I haven't noticed yet.)

My theory is that when we happen to save at the same time Office is auto-saving a temp back-up file, the new Office 2013 mode is "oh, suddenly this is a read-only file and you can't save it unless you call it sthg else or save it somewhere else" and then when I have saved my work that way, I then get two fragmented files with the earlier version showing broken images & text that are different from the newer version broken images & text.  When I first encountered this I spent even more time trying to reconcile the changes I had made & still needed.  Twice the amount of time plus the stress time.  

Now, instead of following the "save as sthg else" advice (to much better results):

I close the file without saving, close out of the entire program, get up & walk away from the computer, take some deep breaths, get some water, and come back to open my latest-saved version of the file (with no problem and no loss of work, and keep working hoping I won't save at the same time Office is doing a back-up.  One tip that seems to work: wait until you see a delay in response from the program (that's probably when the auto-save is happening).  Then wait a minute and make your own save.  So far, so good.

So, Microsoft team, two requests:

1. How can I turn on that auto-save message?  I used to find it somewhat annoying, but if my theory is correct - I really need it now.  I've looked in the file Options and see other controls but not this one.
2. The Backstage takes a millisecond or two (or more) extra time in any Alt-S and I realize it can be turned off, but please make sure this is also not getting in the way of the background auto-save.

Still waiting for a response from MS team, please!