EOALPHABETICARABIC message

Question

Hi All

The developpers in my department have build a document generator that generates documents using the OpenXML standard. These documents are made available via WebDAV to our users worldwide that are connected via our internal network. They can then be modified locally (using Word 2010) and saved again on a central location.

Some (not all) of our users report a very anoying message when they save the document after making modifications to the docucument. See the message below:

Note that the first line of the message is from our own error handling mechanism. Note also that we get this message when saving the document.

I can reproduce the error as follows:

1) Open a document on the central share via WebDAV (http)

2) Leave the machine unattended

3) wait until the machine locks itself (in our organisation after about 15 minutes)

4) unlock the machine again by logging on

5) try to save the document

6) result: the message above.....

The user that originally reported this error to us, experiences the error at other moments that I do. It also occurs when people do not wait until the machine locks, but I can only reproduce the problem on my machine as describes above

 

Help is appreciated ;-)

 

Thanks

SImon

 

Answer 1

Hi SImon,

I will involve other engineers to see whether they can give you some suggestions about the problem. There might be some delay about the response. Appreciate your patience.

Best Regards,

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Bruce Song [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

Hi Simon,

This error looks like results from the document. The document generate process is likely to relates to the error.  Are you able to create a simple document reproducing this error and share with us?  We need a document to diagnose where the problem is from. Skydrive is an idea place for sharing documents.

best regards,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 3

Hi Forrest

Thanks for your reply. A bit difficult to send you the document itself. The template and its content is somewhat confidential.

One thing that I think is so strange, is that it goes fine in most cases. It is only so now and then that we get this message. But when we get it it is very anoying as we have to explain the user that his work cannot be saved. Sometimes this could mean loss of hours of work for the end user. We then explain the user to create a new local document and copy/paste the content into the new document. But for users with limited experience that is not that easy.

A thing I can also add, that ,might help is:

- The document generator (a .net service) generates the document on a share on a central server

- The url to the document is send back to a web front end.

- The web front end opens the document using WebDAV.

- We have added the error number to the error message. The error message that I get (after waiting a while so that my machine locks, and unlocking it again) is number 5096.

- I searched the web for this number related to WebDAV and read something about access rights. But why does it then sometimes works and sometimes not....

Hope there is someone who can help.

Regards

Simon van Leeuwen

Answer 4

Hi Simon,

To reduce the business impact, you could configure the auto save frequency in Word Options, Save section. 

However digging the root cause of the error falls into professional phone support category. More in-depth analysis is required, Please visit the below link to see the various paid support options that are available to better meet your needs.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?id=fh;en-us;offerprophone

best regards,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 5

Hi Simon

I've seen this before, many years ago... The ALLCAPS text you're seeing are field code switches. I agree with other opinions in this thread that feel the problem may be due to damaged file content. From the little I can recall of the incident I saw so long ago, that was the cause...

Are you unable to save the file at all when this occurs? Or will File/Save As to a different file format work?

Since this is a *.docm file it contains macros? If the document can only not be saved in certain scenarios, does it help at all if you have a macro that forces a File/Save As to some (preferably local) location as soon as the document is opened? Forcing a Save As could "clean up" whatever small error your Open XML generator is building into the file, perhaps.

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Cindy Meister, VSTO/Word MVP

Answer 6

Hi Cindy, Forrest

Thanks for your replies.

Problem is still there. As out application is now getting used more frequently, the problem does also pop up more frequently. Bad marketing for our application as our business users loose time as they are unable to save.

There are possibilities that the actual content may indeed be incorrect.

I can explain a little bit more how are application works.

1. User invokes a web method on a .NET server from an IE web page.

2. The web method is part of a service built in C# that uses OpenXML to produce a document on a folder.

3. When the doc is generated, it returns the url to the doc back to the browser page.

4. Browser redirects to the url. This forces Word to be opened on the client side in read/write mode.

5. WebDAV is used to send the doc to the client. We used to use a shared windows folder but moved to WebDAV as poor performance was a serious issue for some remote locations. Performance with WebDAV is much much better.

6. User now modifies the content using the full Word functionality.

7. When user is done, the doc is saved again via WebDAV to the central web folder.

In about 10% of all cases, we get the ALPHABETICARABIC error in step 7.
It is not machine dependant, as sometimes the user can work with this OK, and other times not.
I have to say that we trap the errors using an On Error in the SAve method of the Word doc. Part of the On Error is showing an error message that shows the Error.Description field. And this field contains the actual ALPHABETICARABIC error. May be we should get rid of the On Error. Just to see what kind of message Word will show in case of an error.

We did have issues earlier with our C# code that did not create a proper word file. This resulted in documents that Word cannot open. So I thought that once Word can open the file, the file is not corrupt or so. In you previous post, the message can be thrown because of a corrupt file. But how does it get currupt then? Or micht there be errors in the Word doc, while Word is capable of opening the file but not saving it....

Thanks

Simon van Leeuwen

Answer 7

Hi Simon

I'm not familiar with WebDAV, but I'm not sure it pertains to this problem. However, one thing to test would be whether you see the problem if you test via the old method of saving the file to a Windows folder. If you can't reproduce the problem, then WebDAV would be a route to pursue. If it also crops up using the other save system, then you have to search elsewhere.

All you can do is experiment, to see if you can track it down. My gut feeling is still that we're dealing with a damaged file - as you say, one that Word can open, but that's somehow tripping Word up when saving.

You can try commenting out "on Error" to see what's returned, as you propose.

Have you tried my suggestion about manually using File/Save As to try saving to various file formats, such as the old *.doc, *.rtf or as a web page? Sometimes, those converters are able to handle something a newer one chokes on. If that works, then you're almost certainly dealing with a damaged file.

My brain is nudging me that the damage usually was in the "header" part of the file when this error occurred - the place where the "pointer tables" (lists of styles, that kind of thing) are managed. If those get "addled", nasty things can result. My experience with this was always with the old file formats (*.doc), though, so I've no idea how the internals of the XML file look in this situation.

Another thing you could do would be to extract the Document.Content.XML and drop that into a text file. That should give you the underlying Open XML in the "flat file package" format. Someone intimately familiar with how the Open XML should look might be able to detect the "badness"...

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Cindy Meister, VSTO/Word MVP

Answer 8

Hi Cindy

Plenty of things to test. Thank you very much and I will drop a message about the results.

Simon

Answer 9

We did some additional tests.

As I explained in my first post, I can reproduce the problem by letting my machine enter a locked state (Machines in our organisation lock themselves after 15 minuts. I think this is forced via a Windows server policy). I then unlock the machine and when I hit the Save button, the error pops up.

This is what I discovered. The document is retrieved from a WebDAV folder using just the server name (hence not the FQDN). E.g. "http://<servername>/Foldername/DocumentName".

When Word is in the state where it gives me the EOALPHABETIC... error, I can open a VB box and enter the following command in the Debug window:

ActiveDocument.SaveAs "http://<servername>.ourdomain.com/Foldername/DocumentName"

Strange enough: This saves the document to the WebDAV location WITHOUT any errors. It also resolved the error situation. I could now close the VB box and return to Word. I can not continue to make changes to the DOC and save them using the Save Icon in Word.

So.... I though it had to do with the lacking domain name in the http reference. I then changed the web based front end, so that we open the documents with the FQDN. However, same problem after lock of my machine and unlock. Again EOALPHABETIC.... error

Now, I openend VB again and saved the document using only the Server name and voila, problem solved again.

Is there anybody that has a clue, whats going on here ? I start to think it is not a malformed document that is causing this. I already suspected WebDAV, and start to think we should look for the cause in that direction. E.g. Does WebDAV on the server side forgot who the user was that opened the document, and after that is unable to save the document on the server. Folder access on the server is  restricted to only a certain group of users. Maybe saving the doc using some other reference, re establishes the connection again?

Simon van Leeuwen

Answer 10

I just got this error message. I wouldn't normally mention it as I get the error by messing with the internals of documents, or, more precisely, the internals of VBA Projects, but when I saw it thought of this thread.

 

I note that you say that your documents are created by a document generator using OpenXML. However, your documents appear to be macro-enabled, and macros are held as binaries, not xml. So I must ask how you are generating your documents and whether you may be generating the VBA Projects incorrectly, in particular the PROJECTLCID records.

 

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Enjoy,
Tony
www.WordArticles.com

Answer 11

My apologies. Further investigation leads me, now, to believe, that my problem was caused by incorrect compression of the dir Stream - still potentially a problem for a generator, of course.

 

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Enjoy,
Tony
www.WordArticles.com

Answer 12

I tripped this error when I attempted to save an MS Word document with the same file name as one that had already been opened programatically.

I resolved this issue by closing my word document object with the "close" command as shown below.  Problem resolved.

dim wrd as object
dim doc as object
'
wrd=createobject("word.application")
wrd.application.documents.add()
doc=wrd.activedocument
'
'Process your document settings here.
'Save your Word document
'Show and maximize your word document
'
'Clean up
wrd=nothing
'  
'Without the following close command, 
'An error will trip the next time I run 
'this function if the document is still 
'displayed on my PC.  
'
doc.close()  '<---this resolved the error.

I hope this helps!

Brian Jasmer

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Brian Jasmer