"Sorry, this document can't be opened for editing" error creating a document in Office Web Apps
Published Jun 01 2020 08:38 AM 21.6K Views
Microsoft

Problem: You receive a "Sorry, this document can't be opened for editing" error when you try to create or edit an Office document in Office Web Apps.

 

Issue 1:

In some situations, users that are members of Active Directory (AD) Security Groups may be unable to edit documents in the browser. The solution is to ensure the User Profile Service Application (UPA) is properly configured and fully synchronized with user and group memberships. For more information, see the KB article SharePoint 2013 Unable to edit Office Web Apps 2013 files with users that are members of security gr....

 

Issue 2:

This error will also occur if co-authoring is disabled on the web application. For more information, see the KB article Disable co-authoring in SharePoint Server. Make sure that co-authoring is enabled ($web.DisableCoauthoring = $false) on web applications using Office Web Apps.

 

 

asnp *sh*

##RUN THIS TO SEE WHAT STATE IT SET TO
$web = Get-SPWebApplication <webapplication>
$web.DisableCoauthoring

##RUN THIS TO SET CO-AUTHORING TO ENABLED
$web = Get-SPWebApplication <webapplication>
$web.DisableCoauthoring = "False"
$web.Update()

 

 

Note: Disabling co-authoring via PowerShell ($web.DisableCoauthoring = "True") will break Office Web Apps functionality for Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word Web Application requires Co-authoring to be enabled to function properly and is enabled by default.

 

For more information see: Configure Office Web Apps for SharePoint 2013

3 Comments
Microsoft

Nice article if you wanted to disable co-authoring for some reason. Default is set to False to allow co-authoring.

Copper Contributor

As conclusion, Is this first issue related to user access right?

 

Microsoft

Hello Seray. The short answer is no I do not believe so. Long answer is I got that first issue from here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/webappsserver/configure-office-web-apps-for-sharepoint-2013 where it explains that the groups (rather than the users) do not have access to edit and therefore to ensure UPA is set up to properly synchronize. Also in that article more information was provided here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/learn-about-microsoft-365-groups-b565caa1-5c40-40ef-9915-60... 

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Last update:
‎Aug 27 2020 03:48 PM
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