This is one of our quick resolution posts, just the facts, no fluff.
Today, we received a support request from a user who works daily on a Word document containing over 100 links. For her, not being able to open the document in Word Online was a serious issue.
She sent us a screenshot of the error in Word Online. We asked for the document’s URL to test it ourselves.
- My boss tried, but it also failed.
- I tried the same URL, it worked.
Troubleshooting steps
We suspected a configuration issue, especially since this document could be accessed using multiple URLs. These URLs are all mapped to the same DNS name using AAM (Alternate Access Mappings) and correctly bound in IIS.
Only one of the URLs caused the problem.
I checked Credential Manager (under both “Web Credentials” and “Windows Credentials”) and found a stored credential associated with the non-working URL using a SharePoint application account.
That was the problem.
After deleting the stored credential, the document opened successfully in Word Online for my boss.
About the end user
But this is not the root cause in the user’s case, as there is no way she is connecting using an application account.
She also does not appear to be receiving any authentication errors, which we confirmed by checking her permissions on the document library. Nevertheless, we advised her to try accessing the document using an alternate URL.
We are waiting for her feedback and will investigate further if the issue persists. This blog post will be updated accordingly once we have more information.
Additional note
The failing URL still had “13” in its path, a leftover from their migration from SharePoint 2013 to 2019. This is something we strongly advise against: avoid including version numbers (like years or “2013”, “2016”, etc.) in your web application URLs. It creates long-term maintenance issues.
