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An error occurs while Powerpoint is saving a file to network drive

Teesh Yalamanchili 6 Reputation points
2021-03-04T23:31:55.55+00:00

Link to the original issue which I was asked to report here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_powerpoint-mso_win10-mso_2016/an-error-occurred-while-powerpoint-was-saving-the/6a367f12-c644-4b54-936b-833d5615c19e?messageId=edb98a06-bd72-4f6d-a69e-dc8189978449

I recently got a new laptop and just installed Office 2016 on it. I also have a Surface Pro 3 with Office 2016 on it.

I proceeded to map a network drive from my SAN which is on my home network and is also mapped the same way on the SP3.

Whenever I open a PowerPoint file and then try to save it, I get this message:

"An error occurred while PowerPoint was saving the file" and then it is followed by "We're sorry, something went wrong that might make PowerPoint unstable. Please save your presentations and restart PowerPoint."

I am the only laptop on this network as I live alone so there's no other connections to that drive or those files.

This even happens if i open the file and just hit the save button without making any changes to it.

Some suggestions were already offered and all tried (Please see original posting) and nothing has worked. Please help as this is happening on 2 separate installs of PowerPoint and no other Office 2016 application that I can see is affected (Excel and Word work perfectly).

Windows 10 Network
Windows 10 Network
Windows 10: A Microsoft operating system that runs on personal computers and tablets.Network: A group of devices that communicate either wirelessly or via a physical connection.
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Office Management
Office Management
Office: A suite of Microsoft productivity software that supports common business tasks, including word processing, email, presentations, and data management and analysis.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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PowerPoint Management
PowerPoint Management
PowerPoint: A family of Microsoft presentation graphics products that offer tools for creating presentations and adding graphic effects like multimedia objects and special effects with text.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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  1. Teesh Yalamanchili 6 Reputation points
    2021-03-08T17:22:16.42+00:00

    So I found and interesting behavior with Windows. When I unmapped the network drive as a drive letter and instead of "Mapping a Drive" I instead tried "Adding a Network Location", Powerpoint now seems to work just fine writing to that location.

    So something about what Windows Networking is doing behind the scenes with a mapped drive vs a network location is causing issues for Powerpoint. It's odd that only Powerpoint is affected (although I didn't try Microsoft Access) but Word and Excel have no issues going either way.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  2. Emily Hua-MSFT 27,551 Reputation points
    2021-03-05T08:23:59.733+00:00

    @Teesh Yalamanchili
    Are the version numbers of Office 2016 on on 2 machines same?
    Please go to PowerPoint > File > Account > Product Information, check the version number of Office 2016.

    Does this issue occurs with the ** new created blank presentations** when saving them to the network drive?
    If these presentation you opened on your computers are stored on the network drive, you may uncheck Protected view options to have a check.
    Besides, please save the presentations on local computer, then move it to the network drive for a test.

    I find your reply on original posting as following image, please make sure the “Allow Trusted Locations on my computer” is ticked before you add the network drive to Trusted Locations.
    74717-capture13.png

    74666-capture14.png
    Please enter a full UNC path when adding a new trusted location, like the "\SAN\Share-Name\Folder\File.PPTX" instead of using mapped drive letter.

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