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Excel corruption "Excel found unreadable content...", Removed Feature: View from /xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml part

Anonymous
2014-05-13T07:58:04+00:00

Problem:

User saves an Excel file, and receives the following error (corrupt file) on opening:

Excel found unreadable content in 'FILENAME.xlsx'. Do you want to recover the contents of this workbook? If you trust the source of this workbook, click Yes.

Clicking Yes generates:

Removed Feature: View from /xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml part

Log file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

<recoveryLog xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main">

<logFileName>error102200_05.xml</logFileName>

<summary>Errors were detected in file 'FILENAME.xlsx'</summary>

<removedFeatures summary="Following is a list of removed features:">

<removedFeature>Removed Feature: View from /xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml part</removedFeature></removedFeatures></recoveryLog>

Note:

The sheet number refers to the codename of the affected sheet. (can be revealed by renaming the file ending .zip and using a zip-extractor to look into /xl/worksheets/)

Repairing causes:

Gridlines reappear on the affected sheet (if they were originally hidden) and frozen panes are removed.

Cause:

After much pain and suffering, I have identified a cause that generates this error. It is easily reproducible.

  1. Freeze some top rows using freeze panes, e.g. rows 1:6.
  2. Move to the bottom of the sheet (using CTRL+down)
  3. Use the mouse to scroll down so that you see less rows below the frozen pane than in the frozen pane itself (e.g. show 5 or less rows if you have frozen 6 rows)
  4. Save and close the file
  5. Open the file and voilá, it is corrupt.

Spreadsheet users may accidentally generate this error especially if the bottom rows are hidden and they use the mouse to scroll down.

The same also happens with frozen columns and moving to the right. 

Cause in the code:

Using a text difference editor, I was able to pinpoint the problem.

Not corrupt file:

<sheetView showGridLines="0" zoomScaleNormal="100" workbookViewId="0"><pane ySplit="6" topLeftCell="A7" activePane="bottomLeft" state="frozen"/><selection pane="bottomLeft" activeCell="D34" sqref="D34"/>

Corrupt file:

<sheetView showGridLines="0" zoomScaleNormal="100" workbookViewId="0"><pane ySplit="6" topLeftCell="A1048576" activePane="bottomLeft" state="frozen"/><selection pane="bottomLeft" activeCell="D34" sqref="D34"/>

The topLeftCell property of the frozen panes in the corrupt file refers to the last cell in column A, which means that the bottomLeft -property does not have anything to refer to because there is nothing below A1048576

Solution:

This is a bug in Excel 2010. I don't know of any workaround other than not using freeze panes. The probability of causing the bug is reduced by not hiding the bottom rows (or rightmost columns) of the sheet, because it is unlikely that the user will accidentally scroll to the end of the sheet with the mouse if there are thousands of rows/columns.

This problem appears to have been solved in Excel 2013.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T23:24:18+00:00

    I recently encountered this exact issue with one of my excel files after adding some enhancements. After finding this thread I discovered the problem but was also able to find a solution. Well at least it worked for me so I'd like to share. 

    It was definitely the freeze panes and hide rows related. I discovered it was the method i used to freeze the panes and hide rows (I.e being in page layout view and changing multiple sheets and/or selecting multiple sheets to do this). Without going into the specifics of my order, all I did was unhide the rows for the affected sheets (noted in the error log) resave the file under a new name (will automatically prompt you after you unhide the rows and save). I then reopened the new file and hide the rows I originally wanted hidden and were causing the errors (doing this for individual sheets) and voila!...the error message was gone plus I still keep my original formatting. 

    I hope that helps and you can make the message go away when you open your file!

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-07-05T11:44:07+00:00

    Posting for the benefit of anyone reading. I had the same issue with file corruption but a different cause....

    I had a some code that was adding cell validation (drop down list) to specific cells. If the string of text for the validation list source was over 256 characters (including the comma separators) then corruption would occur.

    Dim ValidationListSource as String = "a,b,c,d......."

    '^ if this is over 256 characters then the file saves OK but when its re-opened the file is corrupted.

    With objWbTemplate.Sheets(DropDownSheetRef).Range(DropDownCellRef).Validation

     .Delete()

    .Add(Type:=Excel.XlDVType.xlValidateList, AlertStyle:=Excel.XlDVAlertStyle.xlValidAlertStop, Operator:=Excel.XlFormatConditionOperator.xlBetween, Formula1:=ValidationListSource)

    .IgnoreBlank = True

    .InCellDropdown = True

    .InputTitle = ""

    .ErrorTitle = ""

    .InputMessage = ""

    .ErrorMessage = ""

    .ShowInput = True

    .ShowError = True

    End With

    Resolved this by adding a check for "Len(ValidationListSource) <= 256" prior to adding the validation.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-05-18T16:40:17+00:00

    Is there any fix for Office 2010?

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-05-18T18:08:55+00:00

    I see the same issue in Office 2013 as well.

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-05-18T17:45:48+00:00

    I NEED HELP I CANNOT OPEN MY EXCEL AND OTHER IMPORTANT FILES.

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