Documents becoming "locked for editing" by self, when no other edits are happening
On our SharePoint 2007 SP1 farm, intermittently, when a user opens a Microsoft Office document (usually Excel) for editing by single-clicking its name in IE, the following error dialog mysteriously occurs when Office opens:
File in Use
myfile.xlsm is locked for editing
by 'domainname\yourname'
Open 'Read-Only' or click 'Notify' to open read-only and receive notification
when the document is no longer in use.
The problem is, nobody else is editing this document, and the identified user ('domainname\yourname') is the name of the current user (the person opening the document right now)!
This is not "user error", e.g., the same user editing the file from two different computers, or the file being checked out. This is a real, intermittent problem. If the same user opens the same file again 1 minute later, the problem might be gone, even though nothing changed.
It's almost as if some kind of intermittent race condition is happening, where the document gets locked too early...?
We are completely stumped. Any ideas?
Other details:
- SharePoint servers (1 front-end, 1 query, 1 indexing) are all Windows 2003 Server
- SQL Server 2008 on database server
- Clients are mostly Windows XP
- Our versioning model is:
--- Content approval: not required
--- Document Version History: Create major versions
--- Require Check Out: No
All Replies
- Another clue:
Many times when this happens to users, they have access the file using WebDAV. They place a shortcut on their desktop to:
\\nameofserver\folder1\folder2\folder3\myfile.xls
double-click it, and the problem occurs immediately.
But the problem is still intermittent. It doesn't happen every time, and it goes away by itself (sometimes just seconds later). Hi,
This is because when a document is opened by a client program, Windows SharePoint Services puts a write lock on the document on the server. The write lock times out after 10 minutes. Users cannot modify the document during the time when the document is locked. To work around this behavior, wait 10 minutes before opening the document again.
I think this KB article can help you: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899709
Let me know the result.
Xue-Mei Chang- Thank you Xue-Mei: Let me see if I understand this correctly.
Just now, I opened a Word document, made a small edit, and saved. I did it 5 more times in a row, quickly. Nothing stopped me: I did not see a "locked for editing" message. I assume the write lock is being removed when Word exits... correct?
Based on the KB article, it sounds like this 10-minute write lock applies only if the editing program has terminated abnormally, leaving the write lock in place. This I understand.
However, my clients are not saying anything about Word or Excel crashing. They're just opening a SharePoint file and getting the "locked by yourself" error. I have not seen any evidence that our users are experiencing a crash beforehand.
Perhaps even when the application exits normally, sometimes the write lock is left around, i.e., a Microsoft bug.
That being said... when my users encounter the problem, sometimes a few seconds later (not 10 minutes), the problem goes away. So I'm not completely convinced this is the cause... but it's the likeliest story I've heard so far.
Any other thoughts? - I have exactly the same problem, but it seems only via the external access to the site. I think the problem is related to authentication in some way althouh I've yet to prove it. Have managed to find a resolution to your problem yet?
Hi,
You Can try this:
When User clicks Edit in Microsoft Word in a SharePoint document library
Word launches and tell SharePoint that a document is opend for editing (locked for other users)
A copy of the document is downloaded and stored in a hidden system folder on your local computer. By default, this is located in:C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.MSO
Normally, when you close the Office product, the file is removed from the Content.MSO folder
If someone occurs that prevents the document from cleaning itself up(such as Network connectivity Lost etc.,) , it is possible that Office will continue to tell you the file is locked for editing.The solution to the problem is to simply delete all the files out of the Content.MSO folder and attempt to open the document again from SharePoint.Make Sure U take backup before deleting :)
Let me know the results....
Thanks,
Anu- Thanks for the suggestion on how to clean up if the problem occurs... but I am looking for a way to stop the problem from occurring. Documents that are suddenly "locked by yourself" are a real turn-off to our users, since this problem never happens on a share drive.
- any progress with this issue other than waiting for 10 mins or deleting the contents of the mso folder ?
Derek - No. This seems to be a basic, unsolvable shortcoming of SharePoint.
- Has anyone fixed this? The more people in our organization start using SharePoint the more often this is happening and the more I am getting yelled at by users.
Deleting the content.mso is unnacceptable since usually they have saved a more recent copy and it is in the drafts folder. Waiting 10 minutes is not acceptable either. I don't know what could be happening or if connectivity is actually dropped because I never notice losing connectivity to anything at any other time nor do your sysadms see anything.
I know that the interal lock is the problem since when I use the sharepoint administrator software to go look up the document i can see the internal lock. I was wondering if I wrote something to use the object model to remove this lock would it work? Then I can instruct the site administrator how to use it.
Edit: that won't help much now that I think of it, they'll still have to upload the latest version again.
I am telling people to try this solution as a workaround, but haven't heard from anyone if it works: http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault/archive/2006/03/31/9546.aspx the business side is not happy with giving users a complicated workaround when most of them are not very computer savvy.
The other idea I am trying is have them change the "Save" setting under Word/Excel Options from local drafts to web site. Maybe it will keep saving there and that will cause it to stay in communciation with the server. - To the best of my knowledge, this timeout is a documented feature. I haven't heard anything about plans to fix it.
- Have you tried changing you settings in Word/Excel/Powerpoint for the save location for checked out files? In Word, you go to Word Options, Save, Offline editing options for document management. Check the option for web server. This eliminates the save to the drafts folder on your computer, which we've found tends to cause the most issues.
- In our case, we've configured our document libraries not to require checkouts, so I believe that means there are no files being saved in the Drafts folder.
