Office files on SMB creating empty folders - Ventura

hermenegildah wrote:

If this is a known bug, is there more information about it?

Kinda. The default document behaviour in macOS uses folders like that for its "atomic" writes. They are supposed to be automatically deleted. I gave up trying to use a network share from a Mac in 2016.

There are lots of variables to consider. These kinds of things get really complicated, really fast. For example...

What version of SMB protocol version are you using?

Is this a true Windows share or Linux emulating it with Samba?

Is this a NAS server?

What do you mean by "fully patched"? Microsoft now has various levels of "insider builds" that may fix some problems and cause new ones.

Can you reproduce the problem with Apple's own TextEdit? Pages? Numbers? Yes, I know you are using Office. But you still need to identify where the problem is. That means exploratory surgery. Please don't fight me on this.

Can you reproduce the problem using a Mac acting as the file server? Same disclaimer as above.

Can you reproduce the problem in Safe Mode, as described here: How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support.

Sometimes people load up their Macs with all manner of system modifications. While they will install the latest version of macOS the day it gets released, they won't upgrade those 3rd party modifications for years. You mentioned "AD-bound" so that means enterprise environment. Nobody loves 3rd party software written by people who have never even used a Mac more than enterprise people. In particular, enterprise customers love 3rd party "industry-leading endpoint security" apps written by people who have never seen a Mac, and last updated in 2014. Safe Mode will disable all of this and run your Mac in more of a factory-fresh, but horribly slow, configuration.

Since you do seem to be an enterprise customer, I strongly recommend being in the official Appleseed for IT program so you know about these issues before you update all of your computers. Even if you don't want to official join that beta program, you still have to do the same legwork. Don't dare upgrade all computers without testing.

To get back to your direct question - no, I haven't seen anyone report this specific problem. It does seem like something people would notice. Given the network flakiness that I am already familiar with, the epidemic of ransomware and the inherent risk that a network share creates, these days I'm recommending that people use some kind of collaboration software instead. Back in 2016, I didn't bother ever trying to directly open a networked file, or even use Finder on a network share, but I was very impressed with Atlassian Confluence.

hermenegildah wrote:

It would be great to know how different Ventura is in this regard. That's pretty much it.

There is very little documentation of these kinds of differences. I could say there is "no documentation" but that would be false since every 3 or 4 years, Apple does sometimes publish some throwaway sentence about a system change somewhere. But I really want to emphasize how extraordinarily rare that event really is.

I haven't seen anyone else mention anything like this. Ventura was released 7 months ago and is starting to wind down now. If a problem this noticeable hasn't been noticed outside your organization, then it is probably unique to your organization. Ergo, you will have to be the ones to find out what is unique about yourselves.

In most cases, people just call up their Apple reps and some kind of IT magic happens. This is a user-to-user support technical support forum. There are a few IT people around, but very few.