Additional permissions are required to access the files (Word for Mac)

Anonymous
2019-05-06T07:05:57+00:00

Split from this thread.

Hello

I am trying to open a docx file and I keep getting a message that additional permissions are required to access the files. 

After selecting the grant access option I get the message "Word cannot open the document:  user does not have access privileges" and I cannot open the document.

My current version of office is 16.24

Version of Mac is 10.14.4

When I perform a computer restart I can open my Word docs then, after a while, I can't open any docs. 

attached is a screen shot of the error message.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2019-07-19T04:22:23+00:00

This is a fix, but the specific steps are a bit drastic by removing your whole keychain, which contains a lot of other useful things.

You can fix this in a different way without messing up your whole keychain.

Make sure the office Applications are closed.

Within KeyChain Access, just search for ADAL, remove the entries starting with 

MicrosoftOffice as the kind plus com.microsoft.adalcache

The 16.27 update release July 16 2019 should fix most of the issues with this Bug.

Additionally the following are some fixes that will fix this specific error and similar permission errors with Office Mac products

  1. Update Office to 16.27 or later (choose Check For Update from the Help menu in any Office Application)
  2. Remove Microsoft ADAL keychain entries (search for ADAL in the keychain and remove those items)
  3. Remove the securebookmarks preference files

Press Command+Shift+G in the finder then paste the following

~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Library/Preferences/

Within this folder remove the following file

com.microsoft.Excel.securebookmarks.plist

Press Command+Shift+G again and then paste in the following

~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/

Within this folder remove the following file

com.microsoft.Word.securebookmarks.plist

After any and all of the above steps, please reboot your machine (manually removing preferences and keychain items does not guarantee they will be recreated properly unless you restart)

Additionally if the files are located on a shared drive, the files may be open by someone else. The other users may also just have the files highlighted in the finder (whereby it is then generating a preview of the file and therefore the file is marked as open)

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-06-22T03:27:17+00:00

    You are not repeating the correct answer, you're repeating an answer that doesn't fix the problem.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-06-04T18:33:58+00:00

    "the only solution that works for sure for me, whenever Word starts acting up, is to quit and relaunch it.  It's a horrible kludge (especially since Word fails to reopen document windows automatically), but I don't see any other solution that works."

    I agree that this is what I do to clear the problem.  Please Microsoft, fix this problem

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-05-25T19:43:48+00:00

    When using office 365 Word 16.24 long file/folder names, opening 4 or 5 files in a row with long filenames will cause a freeze in the system and the program will not save (either save or save as) and will not open new files. The warnings are the same as you described Above. The only cure I have found is to turn off the word program  16.24 and then start it again.

    I really do not think this an acceptable fix.

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-05-09T06:46:45+00:00

    Hi ShaniGrewal,

    Did you try checking for any third-party font?

    Please try changing the permission of the affected document, check if this makes any difference.

    1.       Select the document in the Finder you want to edit permissions for.

    2.       Hit Command + i to “Get Info” about the selected document.

    3.       At the bottom of the Get Info window, you’ll see “Sharing & Permissions”, select the arrow to drop down the options.

    **4.**Change permission to read & write.

    Also, create a new copy of the affected document and then rename the document and save it in .docx format.

    In addition, please check if there are  any forbidden Characters (:+  *  "   '   \  |  /  <  >  <<  >> {  }  {{ }}  [  ]  [[ ]]) in the name of hard drive, directory name or any file. If so, please remove them.

    Thanks,

    Neha

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