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

It looks like 16.69 has dropped. Anyone update yet?

Answer 2

>

>I do not see the failure when you using a web browser running Excel. Sounds like you are

>using that in combination with One Drive.

>

Yes, exactly.

>

>I am not willing to go that route. I have paid for native apps running on my devices, not

>just online thru a browser.

>

Sorry to hear that....fortunately for me OneDrive works well, though I don't have heavy use.

Off course I also want to use only the native apps, and don't want to use workarounds that became "the solution". Microsoft must fix it.

Answer 3

Thanks for that suggestion Noriel.

My problem is that my Excel file using Data types gets totally corrupted if I open it locally in Excel 16.68. Once I open it, I cannot do anything else in it. I can only quit Excel 16.68, not save, and open it in Excel 16.64. Excel Online doesn't have all the key features I need to do the rest of the analysis. I have a bunch of VBA macros I have custom coded that run on XLSX files. Excel online cannot run VBA macros.

Answer 4

Seems like we have had very similar experiences with both Excel and Onedrive.

My Onedrive experience was fine up until it randomly deleted a lot of my critical data in a Onenote Notebook. As a result of the MS Support teams making me to, on multiple occasions, uninstall Office and Excel, remove all licenses, re-install, re-activate using my same M365 subscription license, somewhere in that journey, Onedrive arbitrarily decided to delete my OneNote notebook. I have the file clearly showing up in my Recents list in the OneNote app, but the Onedrive escalation team can find no trace of it. And since it was in Onedrive, I have no backup for it. Onedrive should have been my backup. Otherwise my Time Machine makes hourly backups of all local files.

Critical data loss is well beyond crossing the line for me. The fact that Microsoft support has no idea what happened to the data tells me Onedrive is dysfunctional and untrustworthy.

Answer 5

No surprise, 16.69 still has the stock data issue.