27 December 2007
Sharepoint Locked for Editing
Posted by Barnabas under: How To; Security .
While I was working on a document through our new Sharepoint team site at GWC, Word crashed due to some permission changes. After trying unsuccessfully to open it again many times, I came across this MS support article:
You receive a “(Filename) is locked for editing by ‘another user’” message when you try to modify a document in Windows SharePoint Services even though you are the user who previously opened the document
…
CAUSE
When a document is opened by a client program, Windows SharePoint Services puts a write lock on the document on the server. The write lock times out after 10 minutes. Users cannot modify the document during the time when the document is locked.
In a scenario where the program that opens the document unexpectedly quits or crashes and you try to open the document again before the write lock times out, the message that you receive says that the document is locked by another user. This behavior occurs even though you are user who previously opened the document.
WORKAROUND
To work around this behavior, wait 10 minutes before you click Edit in ProgramName to open the document again. (dismayed emphasis mine)
God Bless Microsoft, and bless their arbitrary 10-minute timeout that protects me from myself. I have six minutes and counting. (Hums impatiently to self)