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Troubleshoot Alfresco Office Services

Use this information to troubleshoot common Alfresco Office Services issues.

Issue with protected view (Office 2016 for Windows)

There is a known issue with Office 2016 for Windows, when switching from the protected view into editing mode. Microsoft Office falsely detects file changes on the server and attempts to merge local changes with server changes. After discarding a check out, Office does not reload the file from the server and still displays the version of the file that has just been discarded.

We recommend that you turn off the protected view, by adding your server in the trusted sites or local intranet zone, or alternatively by deactivating the protected view in Office. You can deactivate the protected view by selecting Options, and Word Options, then Trust Center. Select Trust Center Settings and Protected View, and deactivate all settings. Save your changes.

Issue with immediate editing after checking in a file (Office 2016 for Mac)

There is a known issue in Office 2016 for Mac, if you edit a file immediately after checking the file in. You’ll see an error message saying that the file cannot be modified. The workaround is to wait a minute, and try the edit again.

Issue with Online Editing

There is a known issue where Online Editing is not available using the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer. See Plan browser support (SharePoint Server 2010) for more information.

Error message: “The address is not valid” when connecting to http://server:port/alfresco/aos

If you have installed Alfresco manually or upgraded from a previous version of Alfresco, you might not have installed the Alfresco Office Services AMP file. If that is the case, you will receive an error message “The address is not valid” when you try to connect and authenticate with the address: http://server:port/alfresco/aos. You will also see the following error message in the server log:

Blocked a directory listing request from MS-Office. This indicates a broken MS-Office
deployment. Please check that the ROOT and the _vti_bin webapps are deployed properly and
reachable from the outside!

To fix this problem, ensure that you have installed the Alfresco Office Services AMP file, and deployed the _vti_bin.war file that is required for AOS to work correctly.

See Install Alfresco Office Services for more.

Missing version history and check in/ check out options in Office

If you cannot see certain fields in the Document Panel in your Microsoft Office applications; for example, version history, check out and check in history, or you cannot see a directory listing for a file, it might be that your ROOT and _vti_bin files have not been deployed properly, or you have not applied the Alfresco Office Services AMP file, if you have installed Alfresco manually.

To check whether this is the case, try to open the ROOT and _vti_bin files from a browser. In these examples, replace server:port with your server and port details.

If you type:http://server:port/, you will see a message Welcome to Alfresco!.

If you type: http://server:port/_vti_inf.html, you will see a blank page. Select Show page source in the browser to see _vti_bin ScriptUrl information.

If you type: http://server:port/_vti_bin/, you will see a message Welcome to Alfresco! This is the /_vti_bin application. This application does not provide a web interface in the browser..

If these files and messages are not available from the browser, then AOS has not been deployed properly.

See Install Alfresco WARs for information on where the deployed ROOT and _vti_bin WAR files need to be located. If _vti_bin.war does not exist, you’ll need to reinstall the Alfresco Office Services AMP.

Extra files created when mounting AOS using WebDAV and Mac Finder

Do not mount the AOS repository root (alfresco/aos or any sub folder) as a WebDAV folder with Mac Finder. Otherwise you might see extraneous files in Alfresco Share; for example, files prefixed with the characters ._.

Microsoft path length limitation

Microsoft Office has a general path length limitation of 250 characters. This affects any external application interacting with Office, not just AOS. Office can handle more than 250 characters in many cases, but Microsoft does not provide official support in these circumstances. These are problems that you might encounter if you use long paths:

  • Office reports that a document cannot be registered and OLE linking is deactivated (due to the path length limitation in OLE)
  • The browser plug-in does not open a document

Avoid deep folder structures and path lengths over 250 characters, or if you must use long path lengths, test extensively with Office before deploying to a production environment.

File dialog in Microsoft Office shows file listing instead of graphical view

For untrusted servers, Microsoft Office blocks the graphical web view of files and instead shows the files as a list.

To solve this problem, either:

  • On each client machine, in Internet Options or Internet Accounts, add the server in the list of trusted sites
  • On your local intranet, modify the rules used to identify servers to include your server

Check in failure

There is a known problem if property mapping is activated and, in a single MS Office session, you create a new file with the Save As option, then check it out and check it back in. The check in will fail in this situation.

To avoid this problem, upgrade to Alfresco, or exclude read-only mandatory properties from the property mapping.

The problem is caused when some mandatory fields are not filled out, but are declared as read-only. This is typically caused by system properties (for example, Creator or Modifier) that come with some system aspects. You can avoid this by overwriting the includedAspectsPatterns configuration to include specific custom aspects only.

Property mapping failure with Office 2013 and Windows

If you are using Office 2013 and are working with an OLE file (for example, .doc, .xls, or .ppt files), and the Protected View is activated for the document, then property mapping can fail even after switching into Editing Mode.

To resolve this problem, you need to prevent the Protected View in Office by adding the repository server to the list of trusted sites.

Values of date fields in OLE documents not stored

Values of Date and DateTime fields are not set in OLE documents (for example, .doc, .xls, or .ppt files) if the time zone of the client machine is greater than UTC+1. If these Date or DateTime fields are declared as mandatory, then you will not be able to save document changes.

To resolve this problem, you need to either set Date and DateTime as optional fields, or ensure that the time zone is not greater than UTC+1.

Problems deploying AOS on JBoss

If you use the JBoss application server, you must customize the web.xml file in the Alfresco ROOT.war, _vti_bin.war and share.war files to include this code fragment:

<context-param>
   <param-name>
      org.jboss.jbossfaces.WAR_BUNDLES_JSF_IMPL
   </param-name>
   <param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>

This ensures that the JSF deployer in JBoss uses its own bundled JSF version.

Fixing ‘Edit in Microsoft Office’ Issue with AOS when SSO is enabled

Problem:

After installing AOS module (amp), when user clicks on ‘Edit in Microsoft Office Action’ (Inline Edit) from ‘document-browse’ action menu or ‘document-details’ action menu, following behavior has been noticed:

  • User will see a blank Office application (Word or Excel application without content being displayed)
  • User might be able to open document but will see an error popping-up saying ‘Cannot download requested content’

Cause of the issue:

When user tried to open a document, Microsoft Office Application (AOS) tries to establish a connection from client machine to the alfresco repository server and tries to validates the client certificate that matches with alfresco repository server. This uses Crypto API calls to match certificate using certificate fingerprint.

Solutions:

Follow the steps outlined below to fix the aforementioned issue:

Generating the PKCS12 certificate using JKS certificate:

  • Download certificate from server which is used to configure SSL in tomcat (If certificate has a password then get the password for the root certificate from your certificate provider).
  • Execute command given below to generate the PKCS12 format (.p12) which needs to be imported into client personal certificates:

     keytool -importkeystore -srckeystore {path_to_JKS_cert} -destkeystore {desired_path_for .p12} -srcstoretype JKS -deststoretype PKCS12 -deststorepass {your_password}
    
    1. During the course of the process, you will be prompted to provide the root certificate password (only for the first time). Please provide the root certificate password.
    2. Secondly, you will be prompted to provide a password for .p12 certificate (that is being generated). Provide a desired password as per your password policy.
    3. Certificate will be generated and saved to the location of your choice. Keep the newly generated .p12 certificate handy for next steps.

Installing the certificate:

  1. Use .p12 certificate that was generated in previous steps to import into the client machine.
  2. Search for Run Application in your system or press windows + r to open run manager.
  3. Enter command certmgr.msc and press OK/Enter. You will see certificate manager dialog. See screenshots below.

    AOS Certificate Fix

    AOS Certificate Fix

  4. Click on Personal -> Certificates
  5. Right click on Certificates -> All Tasks -> Import , To open the certificate import wizard.

    AOS Certificate Fix

  6. Select .p12 certificate from your computer and click on Next. See screenshots below.

    AOS Certificate Fix

    AOS Certificate Fix

  7. At this step, you will be see an option to provide a password in certificate import wizard. Provide the password you choose during the PKCS12 certificate generation step (see 2nd point in the generate certificate section) and click Next.

    AOS Certificate Fix

  8. Keep the selection as is to place the certificate in Personal store.

    AOS Certificate Fix

  9. At this step, the dialog will show the selected .p12 certificate path and Personal store as you selected above. Click Finish to complete the import process and then Click OK to close the prompt. See screenshots below.

    AOS Certificate Fix

    AOS Certificate Fix

  10. You should be seeing the “The import was successful” message and newly imported Certificate will be visible in the certificate manager.

  11. Test the ‘Edit in Microsoft Office’ and it should be working again.

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