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
    2019-07-06T20:48:50+00:00

    Thanks so much for the assistance. Quitting Word and restarting solved the problem.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-07-04T09:46:48+00:00

    Hi Carole,

    To raise awareness to the related team, you're welcome to provide feedback in-app. This is the best way to let them know, as the feedback goes directly to the developers.

    If you have time to record a video, we would also like your help to collect it and provide it to us via private message.

    Regards,

    Sheen

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-07-03T02:55:07+00:00

    Hi Everyone,

    Private message was jut sent out. Please let me know if I you have a video and did not receive the private message.

    Regards,

    Sheen

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-07-03T02:47:55+00:00

    Hi Everyone,

    We're getting multiple reports about this issue. First, please make sure that your Office is up to date; the latest version for Office 2016 for Mac is 16.16.11 (190609).

    If you are on Office 365 for Mac or Office 2019 for Mac, the latest version is 16.26 (190609).

    For your reference:

    Update history for Office for Mac

    Meanwhile, for those of you who are on the latest update and you're still getting the issue, we would like to get a video of the issue when it's happening, as well as the behavior where you can save after you restarted Office.

    When you start getting the error when saving the file, please record your screen and reproduce the error, then restart whatever Office app you're using, open the same document and re-save it. According to most users, this should fix the error momentarily.

    We will send each of you a private message to collect the video.

    Regards,

    Sheen

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