Grant File Access: Word cannot open the document: user does not have access privileges

Anonymous
2015-07-20T23:38:33+00:00

I am unable to open some Word documents due to permission issues.

I used Disk Utility to repair permissions and created a new profile and still have the following problem.  See three screenshots below:

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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John Korchok 235.9K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2017-11-30T22:29:05+00:00

You'll most likely find that you must repeat this every month, when you install an update. Every time I've tested the updating process, the fonts get reinstalled in the package.

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John Korchok 235.9K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2018-01-04T22:31:59+00:00

It's worth a try creating a new user account on your colleague's Mac, sign in to it and test Office. If it works, you know it's some degree of corruption in the old account's installation.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has never published really complete uninstall/reinstall directions for Office 2016 for Mac. I think it likely they don't know how.

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Anonymous
2018-03-21T21:14:20+00:00

After working with my client for over a year, I have finally got higher ups in Microsoft Mac Development to acknowledge this bug and they are currently working on it. At least in our instance, the issue stems from activating too many fonts with a 3rd party font manager like Suitcase of FontExplorerX. The amount of fonts is usually in the 3k range, which then causes Office 2016 to act all loopy and throw up random error messages.

If you aren't using a 3rd party font manager, then your issue could be different. For those that are using a 3rd party font manager, Microsoft Developers are working on this and they expect a fix in the next couple of releases. I'll keep this thread up to date as I find out more information.

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Anonymous
2018-02-02T16:13:48+00:00

I had this problem too and it comes back sometimes after an Office update, like the most recent 16.9.1.

What I do is clearing the MS-Office font caches with Cocktail and then restart my Mac immediately. Word then opens the documents without error.

Worked for me with 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El Cap / Mac Pro 2008. I'm using FontExplorer X Pro 6.

Hope it helps.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-10-29T00:52:48+00:00

    Thank goodness you're finally attending to this major bug. Here are my answers to your questions:

    Where is the file that you are trying to open located?

    It's nearly every single word file on my hard drive, located in hundreds of folders, accounting for literally thousands of documents.

    If it is located on a network folder, how is the network folder mounted (e.g. did you access it by using smb://)? What operating system is the server running on? 

    It's not on a network folder. They're on my local hard drive.

    Does this happen when you open the file with a double-click or does it happen when you open the file through the****File Open menu in Word (or both)? 

    Both

    Were you ever able to open this file with Word 2016? 

    I was never able to open any of the files with Word 2016

    Are there any messages from Microsoft Word in the Console when this problem occurs? (The Console is an application that you can start by typing "Console" in Spotlight) 

    Yes, the following:

    10/28/15 5:49:17.400 PM TOCGenerator[1049]: WARNING: The Gestalt selector gestaltSystemVersion is returning 10.9.5 instead of 10.10.5. Use NSProcessInfo's operatingSystemVersion property to get correct system version number.

    Call location:

    Was Word 2011 installed prior to Word 2016? 

    Yes

    Is Word 2011 still installed? 

    No

    **If Word 2011 is available, can you open the file in Word 2011?**N.A.

    **If Word 2011 is not available, does the file open in other programs (e.g.**TextEditor)? 

    The files open fine in Text Editor, Apple Pages and probably any other program except, amazingly!!! MS Word.

    Did you set any specific File Locations in the preferences? 

    No

    Do you use custom dictionaries?

    No.

    Please fix this ASAP. My current workaround is to open hundreds of word documents in Pages, then export them back to word.

    Thanks,

    Jonathan

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