E-mailAttachments in Word - "The document name or path is not valid."

[slicari]

I start out by apologizing for the length of this...but I wanted to give as much info as possible in the hopes someone will have an answer and solution to this issue.

Basically in a nutshell, we (my company) are having issues opening Word attachments through e-mail. We are receiving the error:
"The document name or path is not valid.Try these suggestions...
*Check the file permissions for the document or drive.
*Use the file open dialog box to locate the document."

This just started happening to us within the past few days.

Here is some background info:
*We are running Windows 98SE
*Microsoft Office 2000
*Internet Explorer 6.0...the most recent version.
*We use a third party web based software that holds our database and information online. Our e-mail accounts with our ISP are set to be automatically forwarded to this account as well. I have been in contact with tech support from our online database also to find a solution and will share what we have done so far.
I have taken the following actions and they haven't solved the issue:
*Updated Norton AntiVirus and ran scans on our systems. Everything is clear of viruses.
*Ran Windows Update and Office Update.
*Cleared out cookies, history and deleted all offline files.
*Restored Default level under Internet Options... and even tried to change the security levels.
*We don't have any pop up blockers running or personal firewalls.
*I have tried some of Microsoft's suggestions via their support page which has not helped. Also saved the documents as .txt and have opened in Word Pad but I can't continue to do that for every document we receive! (Also this won't work for various forms)
*Some word documents have been able to open. Seems to "possibly" be documents that have macros or html or something else other than just plain regular text.
*Tech support for our online database was also unable to open the documents. They mentioned it sounded like a malicious code or virus that their system is picking up. This is where we left off...."It appears that something is corrupting some of your file attachments, however it has been difficult to determine what. I would suggest running Windows Update as well as Office Update to ensure your systems are up to date, however Windows 98 may no longer be supported by Microsoft. (which I have done) I'd also suggest installing and running SpyBot and AdAware"
This is the only thing I have not done yet...spybot and adaware which I will try on Monday. I have also advised my coworkers to take the following actions at their homes: Virus Scan, AdAware and Spybot. (thinking maybe its coming from their home computers??)


Could it be an issue of receiving different versions of Word? Although like I mentioned, this wasn't an issue a week ago.
Seems to be the files are getting corrupted through the e-mail transmission into our inbox on the third party online software. I have been able to open "some" of the corrupted files directly through my ISP e-mail in Outlook Express.
Also looks like they might get corrupted when the attachments are forwarded to other people. I had tried to send out 4 word attachments to one of my coworkers and 2 of word documents got cut off and never made it, although I blind copied myself at my home e-mail and I received all 4 word documents.

I am REALLY hoping someone has suggestions and what to do. Again, I apologize for the length of this...Thanks for hearing me out!

 

[fumei]

Just a few more details please.

1. When you say "open" them, PRECISELY, what are the steps you are doing to open them? Are you opening them FROM the email?

2. Are you saving the files (attachments) and opening THOSE?

3. Are you opening them from the Recent Files lost in Word?

All of the above are very relevant to what may be happening.

Gerry
See my Paintings and Sculpture

 

[slicari]

Hi Gerry,
Thanks for the quick response!
The way I most often open the files is through the e-mail inbox via our web based software. I select the attachment, select download, then open. We also have the option to "View" the attachment which will open the document in a browser, which is how my coworkers usually open them.
I have also tried saving the document to my desktop and network before opening them. And would go to Word and try to open the file there.
I'm unsure about what you mean by "recent files lost in Word". I did however try to open the files by selecting "recover text from any file", which did not work. And I have made sure that I changed back to the setting of "all files".
Thanks!

 

[fumei]

OK, versions?

Often, but depending on how your network is set up, when you open an attachment from the email message what actually happens is an actual file (NOT a pointer) is written to disk. Often this is in a folder named OLKxxxxx. It is THIS file that is opened, NOT the attached file itself.

Sorry, I have no idea what my phat fingers were typing with the word "lost". I meant the Recent Files list in Word. This is the list of files that Word has opened recently. It is at the bottom of the Files menu. Check there if there is any fikle with:

Document and Settings\blahblah\OLKxxx\filename.

If there is, then the file was opened from a WRITE to that OLK folder. Again, deopending on how your network is set up, it is possible that the files in that folder were deleted as a clean up function. In which case, the files no longer exists, and the opath is, of course invalid.

I select the attachment, select download, then open.

Just to confirm, does that mean you actually SAVE the attachment to a local (or network) folder, then open THAT file. You do NOT open it directly from the email message?

I suspect that if your users are "Viewing" in a browser, it is very possible that they are in fact viewing a file in an OLKxxxx folder. Check for them.

Gerry
See my Paintings and Sculpture

 

[slicari]

We are using Microsoft Word 2000 and I have updated all of our computers with the Microsoft Office Update as well as Windows 98SE update.

I am opening them directly from the e-mail. Here are the 2 common ways we open attachments in e-mail and examples of how they open.

Clicking directly on the attachment, we have an option to view, save to the online database, open. My coworkers usually choose “view” (bullhorn is the name of the software). A new window will open with a similar address such as this.

http://www.bullhorn.com/BullhornStaffing/GetFile.cfm?filename=blah

blah blah%5F%5Fblah blah blah%2Edoc&id=22158&fileType=UserMessageFile&directory=UserAttachments%5CInboundMail%5C168%5C2005%2E4%5C&extension=%2Edoc&key=%3C%27RS%28T%40%5BVNH6%3EZ9I7E8V7GOGPA%21%2E%5BR%3C%272%5C%40%3DZ%5B%40%20%20%0A

When directly clicking on the attachment and choosing bullhorn's “download” option and then choosing “open” from the windows “file download” screen/popup. (“would you like to open or save”) C:\Windows\TemporaryInternetFiles\Content.IE5\ and then a folder with a group of letters and then the file name with ~ and a number.
Usually after I open the document this way, I will then "save as" it onto our network.

I DID see the folder with OLKxxx....under Temporary Internet files as well, although there were only 4 items in there. Most of the attachments are under various folders under Content.IE5.

As of right now we haven't received any Word Document attachments so I don't know if it's working or not after I updated all the machines. Also this isn't just an issue that I'm having, it's been happening to all of us even on our home computers.

I "think" and "hope" I answered what you were asking for.

Thanks so much!

 

[fumei]

I am confused.

From your FIRST post:

Basically in a nutshell, we (my company) are having issues opening Word attachments through e-mail.

From your LAST post:

As of right now we haven't received any Word Document attachments

Seems a bit conflicting there......or I am very very dense and not figuring out what is going on.

Also, further, you mention this is happening on your home computers. Do those have the same document management system?

Gerry
See my Paintings and Sculpture

 

[slicari]

Sorry to be so confusing. In my most recent post, I meant to say that I can't tell if we are STILL having problems. We have not received any e-mails with attachments "today" that have caused any problems. In fact, out of the 3 of us, only one of us received an e-mail with a word attachment and it opened up perfectly fine. "Murphy's Law" But I am hesitant to say it has miraculously fixed itself, because the other Word documents that we were trying to open had tables, macros, etc. And those files we still can't open.

At home, one employee has Win98SE and Office 2000
the other WinXP and Office2000
and I have XP and Office2003. (I rarely open documents from Bullhorn at home and tried it for the first time this weekend in about a month)

I hope this sort of cleared up the confusion?
Gerry...thanks for taking so much time to help me...MUCH appreciated!

 

[fumei]

And your Security level?

Let me iterate what seems to be happening.

You get email. They have attachments. You sometimes can open them, and sometimes you can not. That is, opening them FROM the email.

ALSO, you can can save them to disk, and can NOT open them from disk.

Is this correct?

Gerry
See my Paintings and Sculpture

 

[slicari]

Security level under Internet Explorer is set as the following:
Internet: Medium
Local Intranet:Medium-Low
Trusted SItes: Low
Restricted SItes: High
(I changed my levels to default as one of my attempts in fixing the problem)

Yes - that is correct to what is happening.

And yes, to the saving to disk and NOT being able to open.

 

[Atmosfear]

I am having the same issue with only one user so far, except he gets that exact error when trying to SEND an attachment. He has an excel file (in a network share) and when he attempts to attach it, he gets the error:

"Can't create file: file name here.xls. Right-click the folder you want to create the file in, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu to check your permissions for the folder."

At first I figured it's a rights issue, but it isn't as he can send/open files from the same folder. Then I tried making a copy of the file with a different name, and that worked fine, so it's not a corrupted file.

My conclusion is that it's a temp file stuck somewhere (Article 296416:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986/EN-US/)

but we've cleared the temp folder we know of, and he still gets the same error.

Finally, I made a copy of the file, renamed the original, and put the copy in it's place with the same name, and still he gets that error. I think it's a temp folder I've missed, but I don't know what all the various temp folders could be that I should check.

 

[slicari]

Update:
I wish I could say HOW the issue was resolved but I honestly don't know!
I wanted to share the steps I took in case this should ever happen to anyone.
I updated and ran SpyBot, Adaware, Norton Antivirus, Windows Update and Office Update. After I ran those programs, I continued to do so until everything was "current" with no additional updates or critical updates to download. (A few times after I ran Windows Update or Office Update, it would prompt me that I had new updates to download.) I continued with all the scans until it said I was "up to date" on everything.

We haven't had any additional issues since then...knock on wood!

(I still can't open the files that were "corrupted", but I have been able to open them in Word Pad and clean them up. Then I would save and open them as .txt files in Word.)

Thanks again for trying to help me out!

 

[Atmosfear]

Well, I've resolved the issue here as well. It turns out that one particular email caused it:

Uninstalled and reinstalled Office all together, that fixed the issue until the user went to reply to the email that first started it. As soon as he did, the symptoms came back. Luckily a reboot was all it took the second time and he could still write emails to other addresses. Came to the conclusion it was a corrupt email, so we noted the address, deleted the email (which also took a long time) and the problem has not resurfaced.