Losing NTFS File Permissions

Question

We have one file that is causing us some problems with permissions on our file share server. The user is running Windows 10 1909 and Office 2016. When goes to save a particular Excel spreadsheet, it makes her the owner, and erases all permissions the file may have, even though inheritance is still enabled.

The only permissions she has on the file itself under normal circumstances are as follows:

Traverse folder / execute file
List Folder / read data
Read attributes
Read extended attributes
Create files /write data
Create folders /append data
Write attributes
Write extended attributes
Delete subfolders and files
Read permissions

She does NOT have permission to change permissions or take ownership, and yet that is exactly what happens every time she makes changes to the file and saves it. I've even checked her effect access to make sure there are not any weird conflicts, and the permissions are exactly as the should be.

Update (3/4/21): We are seeing this more and more, and so far, it has only affected Excel spreadsheets. That appears to be the only common factor. We are using on-prem Office as well, with a mixture of 2013, 2016, and 2019. But there appears to be no pattern other than it only affects excel spreadsheets.... so far.

The only workaround I have found is to just have the end-user completely rebuild their excel spreadsheet from scratching, saving it directly to the network share. I will fix the permissions on the bad file so they can copy data, and then rename the old file. Otherwise, no fix has been found since this was first reported in September

Answer 1

I have stumbled across the same issue seemingly only affecting Excel files. I can replicate the issue by correcting all the permissions at the server level and then having the user save a change to the excel file.

Once the save is process you can view the permissions and see they have not only taken ownership of the file but all other inherited permissions have disappeared.

Answer 2

Anyone found solution to this issue?

Answer 3

Here are the steps I did for the work around.

1. Rename the offending file and fix the permissions
2. Create a brand new blank worksheet and save it in the same location as the old file, using the same name
3. Copy the data (including macros if any) to the new file, then save it.

So far, that has worked for every file I've ran into that has had that problem. I am not aware of any fix that Microsoft has sent out for this issue yet, so I am stuck using this workaround.

Answer 4

For the moment the ticket opened at Microsoft does not give anything.
In my case, the files that lose their NTFS rights were systematically located at the first level under the directory; I added a "level" by moving the files down into a subdirectory. I don't have any problem with these files now. On the other hand, the Excel files which had macros, could not be " moved down " in the tree structure (too many modifications), still have the problem.

It's a workaround.... that works in my case. There is no official solution, however, I think the problem might be in the network access...

Answer 5

Hi all we have the same issue.
Excel macro some times create folder without premission.
Some one have