[MacTUG] N-drive (Fileu) Excel and Word files failing to open on a Mac: FIXED

[Keith Peck]

I have found a fix for not being able to open Excel or Word files directly on the N-drive on my MacBook (Mac OS X 10.10.1 Yosemite) since the December upgrade to “fileu"…

1 - Open the Terminal application.
2 - Type in “sudo umount”
3 - Type in your admin password when prompted.

This specific problem is caused by having multiple mount points for the same volume.

I had switched the drive mounting protocol I was using from SMB to CIFS for Fileu as I was trying to fix a problem with my N-drive mounting at a different folder level after the upgrade to the server.

For step 2 you may prefer to first type in “mount” to see a list of all the network drives you are currently connected to. I then did a logout and restart of my machine; these steps may not have been required but I did them as I wanted to confirm that at login my N-drive was still mounting properly using the Automator script.

--

Here’s what was happening on my MacBook before I applied the fix…

An attempt to open an Excel file resulted in the Error:

“Excel could not open [file name].xlsx because some of the content is unreadable. Do you want to open and repair this workbook? If Excel cannot repair the file, some data may be lost. [Cancel] [Open and Repair]”

[cid:C7D43863-2EA4-4E0F-95F0-10A6FB179A13]

Clicking the “Open and Repair” option resulted in Excel trying to open the file for about 30 seconds and then responding with the Error:

“The workbook cannot be opened or repaired by Microsoft Excel because it is corrupt."

[cid:CFBFD357-8446-407F-BCB9-A5647FBB2AD1]
--

Copying the Excel file from my N-drive to any local folder on the Mac and then trying to open the file succeeds.

--

An attempt to open a Word document resulted in the Error:

“Word cannot open this document. The document might be in use, the document might not be a valid Word document, or the file name might contain invalid characters (for example, \/). ([file name].docx) [OK]"

[cid:509F4306-236C-4AEB-8A94-A85F586AF301]


- OR -

"[file name].doc uses a file type that is blocked from opening in this version… [OK]"

[cid:2F4B2FDE-14F9-42EE-BCA0-D600F8575E87]

Again, copying the file(s) from my N-drive to a local folder on the computer would then allow the file to be opened.

— Keith
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