Excel attempting to connect to a source I have not linked to the file

Question

I have uploaded three Excel files to our company sharepoint. One file is a report users access and two others are data sources for the report.

The report copies values from the two data files simply by referring to them with

='https://companyname.sharepoint.com/sites/groupname/Shared Documents/foldername/[filename.xlsb]Sheet1'!B2

The data files are the only ones I can see listed under Data -> Edit Links:

However, when I open the report file directly from the sharepoint, I get this error message:

And this:

All seems to work fine in the report, but how do I get rid of these errors?

Answer 1

Hi Tommi,

Please firstly try the following steps:

1. Open Excel>File>Account>sign out the existing account>quit Excel.
2. Open Control Panel>navigate to Credential Manager>remove all Microsoft related credentials in Windows Credentials and Web Credentials.
3. Restart your computer. Open Excel and then sign in with the account which is related to that Excel file.
4. Open the file to check the outcome.

If the issue persists, please let us know the following things:

1. Do you run into the error each time you want to open that file? Or just when you find other users are editing or just edit that file?
2. Open Excel>File>Account>capture a screenshot of all info under Product Information. Please mask your account info in the screenshot.

Best regards,

Tim

Answer 2

Hi Tim,

Unfortunately the four steps above didn't work. Still get the error messages. After removing the credentials, my work laptop configuration forces the login back to Excel, but I completed the steps as above.

I don't need to enable editing of the file to get the error message. However, I need to enable updating of links in order to get the error message.

In the green popup when opening the file, I can see that the file giving the error is shown as "Opening..." after the report file itself.

Also, nobody else is trying the edit or open the file same time as I am. The web address of the error message refers to my company ID.

I tested and it has something to do with the fact that I'm linking to the other data files I have in the SharePoint, as when I remove the links and try opening again, I don't get the error message.

Here's my product information.

Answer 3

Hi Tommi,

Could you share with me these thread worksheets in private message? I want to test with the same file from my side. Meanwhile, do you store them in the same folder in that SharePoint Online document library?

Regards,

Tim

Answer 4

Hi Tommi,

If the issue  persists, please feel free to share with us those related worksheets when you have time. We can discuss further in the thread. 

Regards,

Tim