Save changes to Word document (Microsoft Office 2004) appears to break ssh connection

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?

1) Use Word 2004 to edit a Word document that's on an sshfs-mounted volume. 

2) Save changes, Quit. 

3) Make additional edits to the same document (second launch of Word since 
editing something 
on that volume). 

4) Save changes. 

At this point, both Word and Finder appear to lose their connection to the 
volume. 

Other investigations/symptoms at that time
------------------------------------------

[macbookpro03:~] gjp22% ls /Volumes/
MBP ndrive.uscs.susx.ac.uk unix.central.sussex.ac.uk

[macbookpro03:~] gjp22% ls -l /Volumes/
-- would NOT return a long listing of the directory
-- control-c to cancel

Finder not responsive.

sshfs application would not allow me to (re)connect to the same server

Overall, system/application behaviour (beach balls) was comparable to 
loss of connection to a disk, but no I/O error was presented.

I opted to
sudo reboot

After the event
---------------

An alternative view (Cyberduck) of the corresponding area revealed the 
following files, 
modification times coinciding with the apparent loss of connection: 

._Word Work File L_4
Word Work File L_4
._TemporaryItems/folders.19236/TemporaryItems/._Word Work File D_3
._TemporaryItems/folders.19236/TemporaryItems/Word Work File D_3

The latter appears to be the saved document, its entirety, albeit with the 
wrong path/name. 

Environment
-----------

MacFUSE-Core-0.2.1
sshfs-0.1.0 (unsupported)
Microsoft Word 2004 versin 11.3 (070131)
Mac OS X 10.4.8 on a 17" MacBook Pro

Two ssh connections: 

a) gjp22@ndrive.uscs.susx.ac.uk:/IBIS/HOME1/gjp22

b) gjp22@unix.central.sussex.ac.uk
which defaults correctly to my home on that server, 
/home/g/gj/gjp22

The document being saved at the time of the problem was 
/Volumes/unix.central.sussex.ac.uk/Supplementary Information Form.doc 

Original issue reported on code.google.com by grahampe...@gmail.com on 24 Feb 2007 at 12:15

Attachments:

• [[sussex.ac.uk #10664] Word Work files.png](https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-attachments/macfuse/issue-113/comment-0/[sussex.ac.uk #10664] Word Work files.png)

[GoogleCodeExporter]

My reference for this issue: [sussex.ac.uk #10664]

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 24 Feb 2007 at 12:17

[GoogleCodeExporter]

http://groups.google.com/group/macfuse-devel/browse_thread/thread/
b874e5e048136de7/03ae3e384d2adc3b?lnk=gst&q=save&rnum=1#03ae3e384d2adc3b is 
reminiscent. 

In that case, Excel did quit on request. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 24 Feb 2007 at 12:18

[GoogleCodeExporter]

In my two cases (I have reproduced the problem) Word does not quit. 

Word's progress bar (relating to the save) stalls very near its end. 

I can not force quit Word. Symptomatic of an I/O error. 
command line sudo reboot is required. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 24 Feb 2007 at 12:21

[GoogleCodeExporter]

http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/issues/detail?id=113 (...rename followed by 
write...) draws my attention but 
in my case, no kernel panic. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 24 Feb 2007 at 12:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

A minor correction to my initial report: 

It was the *second* save following the second launch of Word (not the first 
save following the second launch 
of Word) that appeared to cause the problem. With reference to my local notes: 

> Opened one of the Word documents
> 
> Made a few changes without saving. 
> 
> Put the computer (MacBook Pro) to sleep for around five minutes. 
> 
> Woke the computer. Both sshfs connections were apparently OK. 
> 
> Closed/saved the Word document, Quit from Word. 
> 
> OK so far. 
> 
> At or around Word save time, I noticed a new a directory 
> .TemporaryItems 
> and a file
> ._TemporaryItems 
> 
> Re-opened the same Word document 
> (first launch of Word since appearance of the .TemporaryItems directory). 
> 
> Made a few changes, saved. 
> 
> In the Finder window to the document's directory, I noticed the rapid 
appearance and 
> disapparance of a Word Work File. 
> 
> OK so far. 
> 
> Made a few more changes to the Word document, saved. 
> 
> Brought Finder to foreground whilst Word was saving. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 24 Feb 2007 at 12:29

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Highlight: 

> In the Finder window to the document's directory, I noticed the 
> rapid appearance and disapparance of a 
> Word Work File. 

This was *visible* during a *successful* save. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 24 Feb 2007 at 12:30

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It would be worth checking if your issue is a manifestation of issue 103. When 
you successfully save a file, can 
you check (not on the ssh server, but through sshfs--say, through the Terminal) 
if the tail of the file is OK? If it's 
not (it's a bunch of zeros, for example), Word might be getting thrown off.

This "tail appearing as a bunch of zeros" upon reading is a nasty bug that will 
be fixed in the next release, which 
should happen soon.

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 24 Feb 2007 at 7:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

grahamperrin:

If your issue is indeed the same as 103, you might have to try a few file sizes 
before you run into it. The bug 
shows up as a result of the interplay between the sizes of several buffers 
involved, as well as the file's size. It 
won't show up always.

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 24 Feb 2007 at 7:05

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi

Since the problem first occurrred, I have never successfully saved changes to a 
Word document that's on an 
sshfs volume. 

Every time the problem occurs, 
sudo reboot 
is required (because Finder stops responding, and can not re-launch). 

Now using version 0.2.2 of MacFUSE, still the same symptoms. 

It seems that on each occasion, the saved version of the document remains as a 
Word Work File... at 
.TemporaryItems/folders.19236/TemporaryItems/ 
at the root of the sshfs-mounted volume. 

Would it be worth me trying to reproduce the problem after a safe boot?

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 27 Feb 2007 at 3:38

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I created a small text file using TextWrangler, edited, saved (named 'test'), 
then edited the same file using 
Microsoft Word. 

I made a few changes, keeping the file very small, saving repeatedly, in text 
format (not allowing Word to save 
in Word format). 

OK so far. 

Then, copied a fair amount of formatted content (including revisions and a 
table) from a document on my 
local disk, into the text only document on the sshfs-mounted volume. 

As I did so, without attempting to save, Word immediately responded: 

> There has been a network or file permission error. 
> The network conneciotn may be lost. 
> (test)
> OK

Interesting that even when working with a text-only file, Word creates a dot 
underscore companion, 

test
._test

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 27 Feb 2007 at 5:09

[GoogleCodeExporter]

After I OK'd that dialogue, Word *did* allow me to 
Save As... 
to the same volume. I opted to save as 
test.txt 

Quit from Word, re-launched Word. 

I can open, edit and save
test.txt

I can open its predecessor 
test 
but not for writing. 

Microsoft Word can open the file read only. 

TextWrangler presents the following error when I attempt to save changes: 

> This file could not be opened for writing, probably 
> because it is in use by another application (MacOS Error code: -54)

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 27 Feb 2007 at 5:14

[GoogleCodeExporter]

If it's relevant, 
.Spotlight-V100/mds-lock-dir/master-status
at the root of the sshfs-mounted volume 
was modified at or around the same time as Word's report 

> The network connection may be lost. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 27 Feb 2007 at 5:17

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I continued to edit and save
test.txt

Italicised a word, then applied bold to the entire document, saved, OK so far. 

Then: 

* enabled the Track Changes feature in Word

* deleted some text

* un-bolded some text

* attempted to save

-- the problem recurs. Word and Finder not responding. 

At this point, it seems to me that the problem occurs consistently when 
Track Changes
is enabled in Word. 

I used Activity Monitor to force quit the 
sshfs-static 
process, after which Word responded: 

> Word cannot save this document due to a naming or 
> permissions error on the destination volume. 
> (test.doc)
> OK

After OK'ing that dialogue, Word responded to 
command-s
by saving the document, without prompting, in the 
Microsoft Office 2004 application directory, naming the document using the two 
words in the first line of the 
document. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 27 Feb 2007 at 5:31

[GoogleCodeExporter]

> the problem occurs consistently when 
> Track Changes
> is enabled in Word. 

Further testing reveals that the problem is not limited to tracked changes. 

Open a document from a local disk. 

Saved as text only to the sshfs-mounted volume. 

Make considerable changes (text only) save, edit, save, OK so far. 

Format the first word of the document bold, 
save, follow the routine to save in Word, success,m 
format the second word of the document italic, 
attempt to save, failure. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 27 Feb 2007 at 5:45

[GoogleCodeExporter]

grahamperrin:

Can you please try this on a non-sshfs MacFUSE file system and see if you can 
make this happen? That'll help in 
isolating this issue. In the FUSE user library, there is a "pass through" file 
system called fusexmp (it's in the 
examples subdirectory; compiles as a binary called fusexmp_fh). It'd be 
instructive to see if this problem occurs 
with fusexmp_fh as well. Thanks.

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 27 Feb 2007 at 7:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Answering my own question: I can reproduce your issue with sshfs, but not with 
fusexmp. Looks like the sshfs 
user daemon is deadlocking when running multithreaded. The sshfs_rename 
operation wants to take a lock 
that is currently taken by sshfs_fsync. The fsync is waiting for the sftp_write 
to finish, and in this case, the 
write doesn't seem to end (the "end" function is not called).

You should be able to work around this (at least for the time being) by running 
the sshfs user daemon in 
single threaded mode (the "-s" option), or, perhaps better, to have it do 
synchronous SFTP writes (the 
"sshfs_sync" option). So, something like the following should "fix" this issue:

sshfs user@host:/dir /mnt/point -oping_diskarb,volname=SomeName,sshfs_sync,...

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 28 Feb 2007 at 11:35

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I have used sshfs.app GUI but I'm not familiar with sshfs on the command line, 
sorry. 

> sshfs user@host:/dir /mnt/point

I understand that part of the command. 

> -oping_diskarb,volname=SomeName,sshfs_sync,...

Please, can you expand/specify?

is man sshfs online somewhere?

In the meantime I'm reading around <http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html>...

Thanks

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 2 Mar 2007 at 3:35

[GoogleCodeExporter]

By "..." I meant any other commnad line options you might have. If you have 
none, use something like this:

sshfs user@host:/dir /mnt/point 
-oping_diskarb,volname=SomeName,sshfs_sync,reconnect

Typing "sshfs -h" will give you one-line descriptions of these options. Not all 
of these are cross-platform, so you 
won't find everything on the fuse.sourceforge web site.

If you still have doubts, please post them on the macfuse-devel mailing list.

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 2 Mar 2007 at 6:07

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Re <http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/wiki/MACFUSE_FS_SSHFS> 
I had omitted to create a symlink to 
sshfs-static

All sorted now. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 3 Mar 2007 at 1:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Great, thanks, the suggested options 

    -oping_diskarb,sshfs_sync,reconnect

*do* seem to work around the issue :-)

Connected to two servers a few miles away. 
Upload speed, ADSL at home, was ~35 KB per second. 

Copied a 1.9 MB Word document to one server. Word 2004 edited and saved changes 
without difficulty. 

Copied a 3.7 MB document to the other server. Word edited and saved changes 
without difficulty. 

Word quit without difficulty. 

During and after the save, I had plenty of opportunity to see 
Word Work files 
and 
._Word Work files 
appear, grow and ultimately disappear at two paths: 

/private/var/tmp/folders.19236/TemporaryItems

/Users/gjp22/omnium/.TemporaryItems/folders.19236/TemporaryItems

(volume mounted via sshfs at /Users/gjp22/omnium )

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 3 Mar 2007 at 1:21

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Howdy,

Posting here because I think it's probably the same issue.

Description: While editing a file on an sshfs volume in emacs, I attempted to 
save
the file, and this caused emacs to hang.

Subsequently, I tried to perform an ls -la of the directory containing the sshfs
mount point in a Terminal window, and this caused the Terminal window to hang.  
I
was, however, able to open new Terminal windows and use those.

Attempting to access the sshfs mount from within the Finder caused the Finder to
beachball.

Issuing a kill <sshfs-pid> did not fix things, but kill -9 <sshfs-pid> managed 
to
unhang emacs, the stuck Terminal windows, and the Finder.

I was able to subsequently remount the sshfs mountpoint by invoking sshfs 
again. 
Before the volume mounted, my ssh-agent (I use SSHKeyChain) asked me for my
passphrase again.

sshfs Version output:
batou:~ cubes$ /Applications/sshfs.app/Contents/Resources/sshfs-static -V
SSHFS version 1.7
FUSE library version: 2.6.3

sshfs invocation:
/Applications/sshfs.app/Contents/Resources/sshfs-static pride:/nail/pg/cubes
~/pride.corp.slide.com -ocache=no -onolocalcaches 
-oreconnect,ping_diskarb,volname=pride

My guess as to what's happening here is that sshfs is trying to reconnect, but
failing because my ssh-agent has expired my passphrase.  Ideally, when sshfs 
tries to
reconnect and a key's passphrase has expired, it should trigger the user's 
ssh-agent
to ask for a password again.

Original comment by cubese...@gmail.com on 7 Mar 2007 at 3:08

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Can people try the updates to MacFUSE (0.2.5) and SSHFS (0.2.0) and see if the 
Microsoft Word file saving issue is 
fixed?

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 19 Apr 2007 at 9:45

[GoogleCodeExporter]

First tests with the new version: LAN connection to a server: OK so far. 

Great work!

I'll test again with a WAN connection to three different servers. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 23 Apr 2007 at 2:01

[GoogleCodeExporter]

test 1

sshfs.app connection to unix.central.sussex.ac.uk
upload speed ~55 KB/second from home (UK Online broadband)
1.2 MB Word document uploaded to server
edited, saved, edited, saved
quit from Word
-- no problem.

The .doc is coincidentally reduced from 1.2 MB to 536 KB.)

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 23 Apr 2007 at 6:28

[GoogleCodeExporter]

test 2

sshfs.app connection to omnium.freeman-centre.ac.uk
upload speed ~55 KB/second from home (UK Online broadband)
1.2 MB Word document uploaded to server
edited, saved, edited, saved
quit from Word
-- no problem.

Again, the .doc is coincidentally reduced from 1.2 MB to 536 KB despite there 
being no substantial change to 
its content. 

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 23 Apr 2007 at 6:32

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Cross reference 
http://code.google.com/p/macfusion/issues/detail?id=5&can=2
I see comparable symptoms with MacFusion 1.0

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 23 Apr 2007 at 8:27

[GoogleCodeExporter]

grahamperrin: By "coincidentally reduced" I take it you mean that there wasn't 
any data loss etc.? Is there similar 
size reduction when you repeat the operation(s) on a non-MacFUSE volume?

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 24 Apr 2007 at 7:33

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by si...@gmail.com on 27 Apr 2007 at 7:37

• Changed state: Fixed

[GoogleCodeExporter]

No data loss of which I'm aware. 

I'll guess that Word was coincidentally taking the opportunity to optimise the 
file's contents (could be that the 
file had previously been fast saved - which tends to produce larger files).

---

BTW if you're awaiting my responses to anything within issues, please let me 
know ... I *assumed* that I'd 
receive notifications by e-mail of comments to issues that I had starred. But 
unless I'm missing something, no 
such e-mails. I have now upgraded my group membership from 'Abridged Email' to 
'Email'. Fingers crossed :-)

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 27 Apr 2007 at 9:18

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The issue notification problem has been re-addressed to the codesite-discuss 
group: 
<http://groups.google.com/group/codesite-discuss/browse_thread/thread/820f10a890
032fc4>

Original comment by grahampe...@gmail.com on 6 May 2007 at 7:23