Cannot open Excel files from OneNote if Excel is already open

Question

We have run into an issue where if you already have Excel open, then navigate to a OneNote notebook, find an Excel file that is stored in said notebook and then try to open the excel file you get an error.

However, if we close Excel, and then go back to the file in the OneNote notebook and try to open it, it will open just fine without any error.

Is anyone else experiencing this, or has experienced it in the past?

Any suggestions for a fix?

Answer 1

Hi Chris, sorry to say I'm unaware of any proper fix for this issue, however I did chance across a workaround.

Not sure it will work for you as I only tested it in one case, but it appears click/dragging the file from OneNote in the Excel window will open it and allow editing to be enabled without getting this error message.

Hopefully that works for you as well.

Thanks,

Marcus

Answer 2

I'm a little late to the game here, but I had a user at my company report this same issue. This just doesn't even sound like a best practice. I know you can attach a file to a OneNote page, but... should you? Why would you store the Excel file on a OneNote notebook page? Why not use a link to a cloud storage location (such as SharePoint, OneDrive, etc.) instead?

Storing a file within the OneNote page, you won't get the benefits of file recovery, file versioning, or multi-user editing for the Excel files like you would if the Excel files were in the SharePoint library (or OneDrive, or Box, or pick-your-cloud-storage solution). Also, Excel can have many more simultaneous edits whereas OneNote is limited in the number of simultaneous edits to a OneNote page.

Instead, store the Excel in a SharePoint library that everyone has access to and link to the file in OneNote.  From the sheer file size bloat of the OneNote notebook file alone, this will improve performance for everyone - and would likely resolve the issue.

Answer 3

Hello All.

For my side i had the same issue but, it was solved by deleting the cache file of the OneNote App

and it worked. Please make sure you have the location of the OneNote before its been deleting.