Word very slow to open some files on workgroup network as svchost.exe referencing invalid network path
Hello Experts
I hope you can help me with this one as I am losing my sanity with it!!
I have a customer with a small workgroup network.
All files are stored on a workgroup server called Server, which is also used by a secretary to create Word documents.
The files are stored in a shared folder on Server and network drives are mapped from clients to the share.
They have been having a problem over the last few months when trying to access certain Word documents (not all).
Word begins to open and then hangs for anything up to several minutes before the document eventually opens.
Even if the files are accessed by the secretary on the server itself, there is still the same problem.
So I do not think it is a conventional network problem.
I have been using Filemon from Sysinternals to see what is going on and have found the following problem:
When trying to open a problem document Filemon shows the following error while Word is hanging:
13:32:44 svchost.exe:1152 OPEN \\Reception\my documents BAD NETWORK NAME Options: OpenIf Access: 00100000
Now, I believe before I got involved that the files were originally on another pc in the office called Reception.
So it seems Word is looking to find something in this original location on Reception, but I don't know what.
If I now share the My Documents folder on Reception it solves the problem and the document opens immediately!
Unfortunately different problem documents are looking for different locations on Reception that no longer exist and/or are not shared now.
I have tried removing Office XP and reinstalling, installing a different version of office, 2003, which makes no difference.
I have checked the registry for references to these paths and they are not found, so I do not know where Word is picking up these references from, or how to get rid of them.
I do not know enough about how svchost uses dlls to run processes to go any further now.
Does anyone have a clue why this is happening?
Thanks for your efforts in advance.
Paul
I hope you can help me with this one as I am losing my sanity with it!!
I have a customer with a small workgroup network.
All files are stored on a workgroup server called Server, which is also used by a secretary to create Word documents.
The files are stored in a shared folder on Server and network drives are mapped from clients to the share.
They have been having a problem over the last few months when trying to access certain Word documents (not all).
Word begins to open and then hangs for anything up to several minutes before the document eventually opens.
Even if the files are accessed by the secretary on the server itself, there is still the same problem.
So I do not think it is a conventional network problem.
I have been using Filemon from Sysinternals to see what is going on and have found the following problem:
When trying to open a problem document Filemon shows the following error while Word is hanging:
13:32:44 svchost.exe:1152 OPEN \\Reception\my documents BAD NETWORK NAME Options: OpenIf Access: 00100000
Now, I believe before I got involved that the files were originally on another pc in the office called Reception.
So it seems Word is looking to find something in this original location on Reception, but I don't know what.
If I now share the My Documents folder on Reception it solves the problem and the document opens immediately!
Unfortunately different problem documents are looking for different locations on Reception that no longer exist and/or are not shared now.
I have tried removing Office XP and reinstalling, installing a different version of office, 2003, which makes no difference.
I have checked the registry for references to these paths and they are not found, so I do not know where Word is picking up these references from, or how to get rid of them.
I do not know enough about how svchost uses dlls to run processes to go any further now.
Does anyone have a clue why this is happening?
Thanks for your efforts in advance.
Paul
Hi - do the users that are experiencing this issue have a mapped network drive to the old location (Reception)? If there are mapped network drives to Reception, delete them and see if that solves the issue.
ASKER
Hi thinkpads user,
Good idea but I forgot to mention in the question that I have checked for persistent mappings, and there are none.
So mapped drives are not the cause, I think.
Paul
Good idea but I forgot to mention in the question that I have checked for persistent mappings, and there are none.
So mapped drives are not the cause, I think.
Paul
Interesting. Here are a few other items to try:
http://howtotroubleshoot.b
http://howtotroubleshoot.b
Thanks.
http://howtotroubleshoot.b
http://howtotroubleshoot.b
Thanks.
ASKER
Hi Rob132332
I have tried all of the suggestions in the links and I'm afraid it has made no difference.
I mean, none of the suggestions changed the behaviour of Word, when used one by one or using all the suggestions combined.
I have attached the output from File Monitor to see if anything there throws anymore light on the subject.
As I said in the quesition the relevant line is 659 where Word searches for \\reception\my documents which isn't available anymore.
But if I do share that folder on Reception pc then the document opens as normal.
Thanks for the suggestions
Paul
Filemon.LOG
I have tried all of the suggestions in the links and I'm afraid it has made no difference.
I mean, none of the suggestions changed the behaviour of Word, when used one by one or using all the suggestions combined.
I have attached the output from File Monitor to see if anything there throws anymore light on the subject.
As I said in the quesition the relevant line is 659 where Word searches for \\reception\my documents which isn't available anymore.
But if I do share that folder on Reception pc then the document opens as normal.
Thanks for the suggestions
Paul
Filemon.LOG
ASKER
A follow-up to my previous post.
I have installed and run the Support Template tools from Microsoft and found something strange.
When I select the utility to rename the normal.dot global template I get the following error:
Bad file name or number
\\reception\my documents\templates\normal
Attempt to verify existence of this file failed due to:
The i have to click OK.
This then says:
c:\documents and settings\sara\application data\microsoft\templates\1
Backup of this file already exists.
Overwrite it?
I select Yes.
Then it says:
c:\documents and settings\sara\application data\microsoft\templates\n
Copied to
c:\documents and settings\sara\application data\microsoft\templates\1
So I have gone back into the registry and removed any references to \\reception\...
It hasn't actually made any difference to the problem though!!
Paul
I have installed and run the Support Template tools from Microsoft and found something strange.
When I select the utility to rename the normal.dot global template I get the following error:
Bad file name or number
\\reception\my documents\templates\normal
Attempt to verify existence of this file failed due to:
The i have to click OK.
This then says:
c:\documents and settings\sara\application data\microsoft\templates\1
Backup of this file already exists.
Overwrite it?
I select Yes.
Then it says:
c:\documents and settings\sara\application data\microsoft\templates\n
Copied to
c:\documents and settings\sara\application data\microsoft\templates\1
So I have gone back into the registry and removed any references to \\reception\...
It hasn't actually made any difference to the problem though!!
Paul
Word documents (like others) have properties.
Open a troubled document. Then (depending on Version of Word) look in the Save Options, and see if any of Auto Recovery, Drafts, Default location and such like are set for the Reception machine. I did not see those options on a quick scan on my part of the suggestions offered.
... T
Open a troubled document. Then (depending on Version of Word) look in the Save Options, and see if any of Auto Recovery, Drafts, Default location and such like are set for the Reception machine. I did not see those options on a quick scan on my part of the suggestions offered.
... T
ASKER
Hi T..
OK, the options selected are:
Allow background saves
Embed linguistic data
Save AutoRecover info every 10 mins
Embed smart tags
I just checked the registry for AutoRecover and Background and found no references to the \\reception.... path.
Paul
OK, the options selected are:
Allow background saves
Embed linguistic data
Save AutoRecover info every 10 mins
Embed smart tags
I just checked the registry for AutoRecover and Background and found no references to the \\reception.... path.
Paul
ASKER
Some more info that may help.
I have realised that the documents that are having the problem are ones created using one of the Workgroup Templates this company has setup.
If I try and open up any of these documents on a completely independant pc at my home I can still see the references to the \\reception\my documents\templates folder.
If I open up a document that was created using the normal.dot template then the file just references the normal.dot template in the appropriate location on my home pc.
So the question now is:
How do get these documents to change the reference for the templates and start looking in the correct location on the server?
Obviously I have setup the path to the new Workgroup Templates stored on the Server location in Word on the client pcs.
But the documents persist in looking for them in the old location.
Weird!
Paul
I have realised that the documents that are having the problem are ones created using one of the Workgroup Templates this company has setup.
If I try and open up any of these documents on a completely independant pc at my home I can still see the references to the \\reception\my documents\templates folder.
If I open up a document that was created using the normal.dot template then the file just references the normal.dot template in the appropriate location on my home pc.
So the question now is:
How do get these documents to change the reference for the templates and start looking in the correct location on the server?
Obviously I have setup the path to the new Workgroup Templates stored on the Server location in Word on the client pcs.
But the documents persist in looking for them in the old location.
Weird!
Paul
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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See if you can determine what the mapping may have been, and in any event, try using the NET USE command to delete mappings and select the PERSISTENT: NO option.
So: NET USE Z: /Persistence:NO where Z: is the mapped drive
Then: NET USE Z: /Delete
Then restart the computer and see if the problem still occurs.
... T