There is a serious disk error on file ~Word Work File S{A1F41F30-FB84-B649-9F8A-F0A7D2698BBF}.tmp

Anonymous
2016-05-30T19:08:24+00:00

everytime i save a word file on my mac i get this message. 

i'm using ms office v15.22.1. 

Please advise. Thanks

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2016-10-04T03:10:48+00:00

I had this issue for many months and it was very frustrating--It was so frequent that I switched to Pages for a while. Since I have updated Word (running V 15.28 (160927)) for 2-3 weeks, I have not had 1 serious error. I am keeping my fingers crossed. 

I'm on a late 2013 MBA 11, running El Cap 10.11.6

I thought it might be helpful to read a post from someone who has had some good luck...

Was this answer helpful?

1 person found this answer helpful.
0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2016-09-14T17:39:21+00:00

Hi everyone,

On 9/13/16, we released update 15.26 (160910), the September feature update for Office 2016 for Mac. Please install the update by clicking Help > Check for Updates > Check for Updates. Our engineering team has been intensively working on the ‘serious disk error’ issue and feel that this latest update will resolve it.

If you continue to experience problems, please reply to this thread with the following so that we can further isolate the cause:

  1. A screenshot of the About dialog (that shows the Office build number).
  2. A screenshot of the serious disk error dialog.
  3. The output of running ls ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft/Temp from Terminal.
  4. The output of the command defaults read  com.microsoft.Word from Terminal if the issue happens in Word; or defaults read com.microsoft.Outlook if the issue happens in Outlook.

If you continue to experience the same ‘serious disk error’ issue that you did before installing the update, let us know and we will reach out to you in a private message to see if you’re willing to have an engineer speak to you directly to get it resolved.

If you experience any other file-related issues (other than the ‘serious disk error’), let us know that, too.

Again, we apologize for the frustration around this issue, and hope that this solves it.

Best,

-Erik, Office Newsroom

Was this answer helpful?

0 comments

251 additional answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2016-06-28T17:41:24+00:00

    I don't use Outlook - would it be advisable to just delete it?  It gets updated each time there is a new release but it just sits in my apps folder. 

    Someone said that we should say what version we are using of office - i have always updated with the latest one so 15.23.2.  But have had the prior versions during this whole issue.

    I have found it has calmed down since I installed a new operating system but I still have temp files sitting in my finder when I open a word document.  Also there are 3 older temp files sitting in finder for docs that are not speed and haven't been opened for a while.  They appear randomly and disappear sometimes but mostly they are there. 

    So far though no error messages when saving.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2016-06-28T17:58:05+00:00

    I don't use Outlook - would it be advisable to just delete it?

    Absolutely.

    Outlook provides mail, contacts, and calendar functions in a single app, and it's a first class Exchange client.

    Apple's own Mail, Contacts, and Calendar apps, and though they are three different apps, they are tightly integrated.  They can also connect to Exchange servers, but the in my experience, Contacts and Calendar have occasional compatibility problems with Exchange servers. (I haven't seen any problems using the Mail app to connect to Exchange.)

    How to decide if you should use Outlook:

    • If you don't need server-based contacts and calendars, then Apple's apps and Outlook are equally good.
    • If you do need server-based contacts and calendars, and your mail server is an Exchange server, use Outlook.
    • If you prefer having a single app for all three functions, use Outlook.

    At work we have an Exchange server, and my preferred client is Outlook 2016.

    At home I don't connect to an Exchange server, so I use Apple's apps.

    If you don't need Outlook, just delete it. Otherwise it's wasting disk space and — during updates — bandwidth and CPU clock cycles.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2016-06-28T19:09:36+00:00

    The serious disk error appears to be caused by Word, which is now the message composing editor for Outlook. 

    Just to clarify: The problem is in the programming code for Word's editor; that same code is also used for Outlook's editor.  But Outlook doesn't actually rely on Word.  I'm 99% sure you could delete Word entirely, and Outlook would continue to work normally.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments