Excel Status Bar

Question

When I open one of my Excel workbooks, the status bar displays this message:  "Linking:  January 2011 Prepay.xlsx."  This message remains for about five minutes!  The problem is that I cannot find this file.  I searched all my connections without success.  I also searched within the workbook being loaded but the reference does not appear.  January 2011 Prepay.xlsx does not show up under the "edit links" menu under connections.

Given the time it takes to load, I want to skip this step.   Can anyone tell me what Excel is doing and how I can remove this linking process?

Answer 1

Example Microsoft supplied VBA code to delete hidden range names here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/119826

Answer 2

I have had something similar and it turned out to be some hidden range names.

You cannot unhide hidden range names using the Excel Name Manager, you will need to write a VBA script or use a third party add-in to do it.

It appears that when a hidden range name contains an external link, it does NOT necessarily show up in "Edit links" as an external link.

This is just one of many Excel bugs.....

Answer 3

Hi Rufus,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Office Community.

Please provide more information before we proceed.

1. Where is the file stored? Is it on local drive or network drive?
2. Where did you search for links?

I look forward to your reply to assist you further.

Thank you.

Where the file is stored is the problem.  I searched local and network drives but could not find the file Excel is trying to open on any drive.  It is like a phantom file. When the process completes [after five minutes] there is no error message.   

As far as where I search for links, I did data ---> connections ---> edit links.  As I said, the file name does not appear on the list of linked files.

Answer 4

Use this free add-in to find your links and see if you have taken care of all the links -

http://www.manville.org.uk/software/findlink.htm

If you don't want to use add-in, use below article for finding links (This article doesn't take care of Conditional Formatting links which you will have to do manually. Findlink add-in takes care of this)

https://support.office.com/en-ca/article/Find-external-references-links-in-a-workbook-fcbf4576-3aab-4029-ba25-54313a532ff1

Answer 5

Hi Rufus,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Office Community.

Please provide more information before we proceed.

1. Where is the file stored? Is it on local drive or network drive?
2. Where did you search for links?

I look forward to your reply to assist you further.

Thank you.