Hyperlinks not working as expected

Question

Hi,

One of my clients have an issue with links embedded in an excel file.

I am not able to recreate the issue, however let me try to demonstrate it give more clarity on the issue.

Suppose I have two files stored in my OneDrive.

I open A.xlsx and insert a link to the other excel file B.xlsx. Fo that I copy the link and paste it into A.xlsx as shown below

So now the expected behavior is that, no matter where I store this file, be it a SharePoint location, locally in my system or anywhere else in my personal OneDrive, the hyperlink should remain intact and when I click on it, it should open the file in the respective location.

However, in my client's case, what is happening is that, on clicking on the links, the error below appears

On inspecting the link, I found something a bit more weird, the links starts of with the root of the souce location.

Suppose if the file in which I have embedded the link is stored in a personal OneDrive location, it looks like below, the link auto resolves somehow to this format

https://comanyname-my.sharepoint.com/personal/:w:/r/personal/username_com/Documents/filename.xlsx

Or Suppose if the file in which I have embedded the link is stored in a sharepoint location https://companyname.sharepoint.com/sites/sitename/libraryname/foldername/../../../:w:/r/personal/username_com/Documents/filename.xlsx

Any idea on why above might be happening ?

Regards,

Nebu Thomas Mathew

Answer 1

Dear Nebu Thomas Mathew,

Good day!!

Apologies for the inconvenience caused and please don’t worry, let’s work together on your concern and move towards a resolution path.

I understand your concern and I would like to convey that I have tested the behavior at my end where I am not able to reproduce any problem when accessing the hyperlinks of the shared links in the Excel workbook.

Since you are not able to recreate the issue and the problem happens with the specific user, I would like to confirm whether the problem happens with the specific device or even on another device.

If the problem happens only with the specific device, I would like to suggest you follow the below steps and see whether the same problem happens:

Quit all Office apps and browsers> Open the Command Prompt as administrator> Enter ipconfig /flushdns> Now check whether you are having the same issue.

If the same problem happens, I would like to confirm the following scenarios which will help us to better understand and guide you further:

1. Screenshot of the complete error message encountered.
2. Does the same problem happens when switching to the different network connection?
3. Does the shared links can be accessed directly instead of opening it as hyperlinks?

Our sincere apologies for not resolving the problem is first reply but answers to above queries will help us to better understand your situation and guide you in the right direction.

Appreciate your patience and understanding. Have a great day!!

Best Regards,

Sophia

Answer 2

Hi,

The issue that I have highlighted as seen in screenshots is from excel online opened from OneDrive via the browser, so the issue shouldn't be device specific for which troubleshoots should be done from device or excel desktop application perspective.

Let me explain the issue in the simplest way. Suppose I am having two excel files ( A and B ) in my personal OneDrive. Inside A.xlsx, I want to insert a link which when clicked redirects me to B.xlsx. So, what I normally do is copy the link and paste it into A.xlsx as shown below

However, I don't know what the user has done. User has also created a link to another excel file. However, user is obtaining error as seen below. User has confirmed that there was no issue previously.

On seeing this error, we all might think, some action must have been performed by user like movement or renaming of the file or the resident folder due to which the link becomes invalid.

Now what I am going to tell next makes it more interesting. When I inspect the embedded link by clicking on "Edit link" as seen below, the URL dynamically changes based on the location in which it is residing.

Suppose if the file in which I have embedded the link is stored in a personal OneDrive location, it looks like below, the link auto resolves somehow to this format https://comanyname-my.sharepoint.com/personal/:w:/r/personal/username_com/Documents/filename.xlsx

Or Suppose if the file in which I have embedded the link is stored in a sharepoint location https://companyname.sharepoint.com/sites/sitename/libraryname/foldername/../../../:w:/r/personal/username_com/Documents/filename.xlsx

The black bold highlighted back is the location in which A.xlsx resides and the reamining path is where B.xlsx resides.

Regards,

Nebu Thomas Mathew

Answer 3

Dear Nebu Thomas Mathew,

Thanks for writing back to us and appreciate for sharing detailed information with us.

As per the further updates, I have performed the test again by adding the links into the Excel workbook as hyperlink where the sharing link added didn’t auto resolves to the format as happening at the user end.

I agree with you the behavior encountering is not an expected and I believe the problem should be further investigated by the related development team via collecting HAR logs because there is not any related service incident reported at the Microsoft Service Health dashboard.

I do feel regret for not resolving the problem and redirecting you to the related development team but the fix to your concern can be find out through the HAR logs and suggest you raise a support ticket from the Office 365 admin center, where the related team will investigate the problem further by collecting the HAR logs.

Reference: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn

Note: To create a support ticket, you need to have admin privileges and if you aren’t admin of your Office 365 organization, please contact the admin of creating a new ticket. How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support

Appreciate your patience with us and have a wonderful day!!

Best Regards,
Sophia