Name Cannot Resemble a Reference

Question

Hi,

I am an advanced excel user and I am suffering from regular crashes. When I reopen Excel after a crash, I am always presented with the following error message:

"Name cannot resemble a reference"

"_xlcn.LinkedTable_Table11"

This error occurs even when working in new workbooks. Another user posted about this issue in 2014 (see below) but went unanswered. Can anybody please help? 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-excel/excel-pitch-addin/0fd83f15-a4f4-463d-863f-84a626f899a7

Thank you!

Answer 1

Under test if you attempt to rename a table _xlcn then it will not accept it. The table can be renamed just xlcn (without the underscore).

The interesting thing is that the error message that I get indicates that the name must commence with a letter or underscore.

I do not know why the name is not accepted with the underscore. Possibly Excel uses _xcln somewhere that we cannot see and that is where the conflict occurs.

Suggest a work around of changing the name _xcln  to something else.

Answer 2

Thanks for the response. When I am presented with the error, I am not renaming any ranges / cells / tables. It simply occurs through regular Excel use which then immediately crashes my excel.

Answer 3

I am an advanced excel user and I am suffering from regular crashes. When I reopen Excel after a crash, I am always presented with the following error message:

"Name cannot resemble a reference"

"_xlcn.LinkedTable_Table11"

After a crash, anything can happen when Excel tries to recover damaged files. So the first step for a developer is to turn off all AutoSave settings. This might be useful for normal users, but annoying for developers.

Sometimes, when working on difficult projects, I often crash my Excel.

After that, I always open Excel, discard all recovered files, close Excel, and reopen Excel.

I found out that this procedure only makes Excel stable.

Unfortunately I've never seen your error after a crash...

I've searched the web and found an interesting article, maybe it's helpful:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31683150/update-a-table-linked-to-a-powerpivot-datamodel-using-epplus-and-it-corrupts-the/31727732

Andreas.

Answer 4

Thanks for the response. When I am presented with the error, I am not renaming any ranges / cells / tables. It simply occurs through regular Excel use which then immediately crashes my excel. 

I suggest that you perform the test that I did. Create a dummy table in a new workbook and attempt to rename the table with any name starting with _xlcn and tell me if you get the message as per the screen shot below. I have tested in Xl2007, XL2010 and XL2016 (all on separate computers)  and they all return the same error message. It is maybe possible that you have managed to create the name by some means and later that is what is causing the Excel crash.

It is interesting that the link provided by Andreas also refers to the same prefix in a name. As per my previous post, I suggest that _xlcn is reserved for some other use somewhere in Excel.

I suggest that you change the name of the table to something that does not include the _xlcn and see if it fixes the problem.