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
    2019-05-06T09:41:24+00:00

    Hi ShaniGrewal,

    Please check if you have used any third-party font in the affected document. If you do have third-party font, please check the following thread for suggestions.

    "user does not have access privileges" when opening Word documents

    If the issue persists, please confirm the following information:

    1. Open new document, click File>Open, navigate to the location where the document is saved and then check if you can open the document now.
    2. Are you getting the error with the specific Word document or all the documents have the same issue?
    3. Did you make any change in the document recently that caused the issue? Were you able to open the document before?
    4. Are you the owner of the document or it is shared by someone else?

    Thanks,

    Neha

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-05-08T09:21:08+00:00

    Hi ShaniGrewal,

    Please check if you have used any third-party font in the affected document. If you do have third-party font, please check the following thread for suggestions.

    "user does not have access privileges" when opening Word documents

    If the issue persists, please confirm the following information:

    1. Open new document, click File>Open, navigate to the location where the document is saved and then check if you can open the document now.
    2. Are you getting the error with the specific Word document or all the documents have the same issue?
    3. Did you make any change in the document recently that caused the issue? Were you able to open the document before?
    4. Are you the owner of the document or it is shared by someone else?

    Thanks,

    Neha

    Hello

    Thanks for your reply. In answer to your questions above:

    1. No, I can't open the document.
    2. Yes, the error message is the same.
    3. No, I didn't make any changes that would cause the issue.
    4. I am the owner of the document and it is not shared with anyone else. 

    Attached are some more error message photos. 

    Please get back to me soonest as this has just started happening and is really irritating! 

    Thanks. ![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/7227530e-f787-4b25-9409-65affcdb2954?platform=QnA

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  3. 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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  4. Anonymous
    2019-05-09T18:05:16+00:00

    Hi ShaniGrewal,

    Please check if you have used any third-party font in the affected document. If you do have third-party font, please check the following thread for suggestions.

    "user does not have access privileges" when opening Word documents

    If the issue persists, please confirm the following information:

    1. Open new document, click File>Open, navigate to the location where the document is saved and then check if you can open the document now.
    2. Are you getting the error with the specific Word document or all the documents have the same issue?
    3. Did you make any change in the document recently that caused the issue? Were you able to open the document before?
    4. Are you the owner of the document or it is shared by someone else?

    Thanks,

    Neha

    Hello

    Thanks for your reply. In answer to your questions above:

    1. No, I can't open the document.
    2. Yes, the error message is the same.
    3. No, I didn't make any changes that would cause the issue.
    4. I am the owner of the document and it is not shared with anyone else. 

    Attached are some more error message photos. 

    Please get back to me soonest as this has just started happening and is really irritating! 

    Thanks. ![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/7227530e-f787-4b25-9409-65affcdb2954?platform=QnA

    Don't listen to anything Microsoft people say. They don't have a clue and they'll waste your time.

    This is clearly a newly introduced intermittent bug introduced by incompetent Microsoft developers in recent builds of Word for Mac. I have the same problem here.

    My fix is usually to quit and relaunch Word. After that, I am able to open the files that Word said I didn't have permission to open. All of a sudden, I have permission to open them! What does that tell you?

    Clearly it's not a file permissions problem, not a font problem, not a file name problem, and not a problem with YOUR or YOUR COMPUTER at all.

    It's a problem with Microsoft's developers being incompetent and Microsoft's support staff being clueless. Since I haven't updated my OS in a while, I suspect it's linked to Microsoft having changed their app to make it Mac App Store-compliant. The Mac App Store requires compliance with strict sandboxing rules, and Microsoft's developers probably don't know how to do it properly. It'll take them at least six months to figure it out.

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