Excel Data Types Not Working

Question

Updated 12/19/2022

Data Types are currently not working as expected for all users of Microsoft Excel. The work-around I recommend is to revert to version 16.64.

If you are affected and haven't already done so, please take a moment to notify Microsoft that you are affected by this problem. The way to do it is to use the Menu Bar and choose Help > Feedback > I Don't Like Something. Microsoft uses the Squeaky Wheel method to prioritize bug fixes. The more reports, the higher up the priority list the bug gets. Please do this from the current update of Excel before reverting to 16.64.

To revert to version 16.64:

Use the Menu Bar and choose Help > Check for Updates to launch AutoUpdate

In AutoUpdate, set updates to Manual to prevent AutoUpdate from automatically updating after you revert to the older build.

In Finder, navigate to the Applications folder

Right-click on Microsoft Excel.app and choose Move to Trash

Restart your Mac

Empty the Mac OS Trash

Use this installer to install build 16.64 of Microsoft Excel: Excel

Some users may be able to find a work-around, which is why I am posting this discussion. Some users will be blocked from this due to licensing or IT department restrictions.

There are third-party solutions available. I don't know which ones are great and which ones are less good. I'm hoping people will try them out and reply here with their results and recommendations.

On the Insert tab of the Ribbon choose Add-ins > Get Add-ins.

In the resulting dialog enter the word Stock in the Search field then click the spyglass icon. There are a lot of add-ins available. Let's chat about them in this thread.

Answer 1

Thanks for this Jim, in a bizarre way I’m (not so) happy to see it is not just me and a recognised issue reflected in the community.

I’ll do as you suggest and send the feedback directly to MS.

On a secondary note, I’ve already been down the ‘add-in’ route and applied an alternative which isn’t as detailed, simple to apply or convenient but at least I’m able to update the sheet with ‘some’ live (delayed) data.

Thank you very much for your time. It IS appreciated.

Answer 2

My thanks as well. Stock prices started erroring for me last week. I found lots of suggestions that didn't help but falling back to 16.64 did the trick. And of course, I have auto update turned off for now so will keep checking here for you to say we should be OK to update once again.

Answer 3

Thanks, Jim Gordon MVP!

I tried simply reverting to 16.59, after moving the 16.65 apps to Trash, but that didn't work.

Only after the Uninstall Office for Mac process, linked above, did I get the Stock data type to work. The key seems to be removing the listed Containers files.

I may go forward "towards" 16.65, but if the error occurs again, I now know how to revert successfully to a working version.

Update:

After finally getting Stocks not to error-out with 16.59 (and after the full Office uninstall, including Microsoft Containers wipe), I decided to try the latest Excel-version 16.67. Result: Fail!! So, I did the full uninstall and reinstall with 16.64. So far, it's fine.

By the way, the problematic Mac is running Big Sur. I have a newer Mac running Ventura and I've not had a problem with 16.67

Answer 4

Still annoying the bug exists in Excel when it used to work just fine.

There are third-party solutions available. I don't know which ones are great and which ones are less good. I'm hoping people will try them out and reply here with their results and recommendations.

I did try the "Stock Connector" add-in just now. It has price and %-change, but not a spectrum of other metrics like 52-week low/high, dividend info, etc. So this won't work for me.

Answer 5

How do you do a "Microsoft Containers wipe"?

Please ignore! I found it

Remove Microsoft files in ~/Library/Containers

This link has the details: https://nektony.com/how-to/uninstall-office-365-mac