Missing data in excel files

Question

Hi,

This is a crucial problem for me.

I have 11 excel docs with accounting records that I update regularly.

Of the 11 I have, today I find when opening them, 5, all of a sudden are missing entries going back to August.

In one, the last entry was 2nd August, in another the last entry was 5 August, in another last entry was 30 August. All of these files I regularly use and save at least on a monthly basis, the majority on a weekly basis, they were all showing all entries up to this week before today.

I notice when opening my OneDrive online, (rather than accessing through "my documents), that all the excel sheets with the missing entries, when I click on "catch up" it says "Activities for you. There is no comment activity directed at you right now" Below that I can click on the "show changes" it says "We didn't find any changes to show. When you make new changes, you can view them here.

Why are some changes not shown?" When I click on the "Why are some changes not shown" A Help box appears and it is blank, nothing written there at all.

On the sheets that are not affected, when I click on show changes, every edit is there.

I just don't understand. My head is buzzing. How can some sheets be up to date and others, all of a sudden be missing around 10 weeks of entries?

Now I am in so much trouble, because I do not know where I am with my accounts for 5 of these sheets.

Please can someone help me?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Hello, PaulineYV

Thank you for you reply.

I am glad I was able to provide your some advice so help the issue. To help other customers who may be facing the same issue, please click ‘Yes’ or "No" underneath the post that had the solution for you. This highlights the information for other customers. Thanks for your cooperation.

Feel free to post back if you need further assistance.

Thank you for your understanding and patience and I look forward to hearing from you.

Allen L - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

Hi Allen

Thanks

When I wrote about my problem, I also opened a report to Microsoft.

They responded by email, and pretty much said what you said, and following their advice using the onedrive website and version history, I was able to recover my lost entries on the excel docs.

Thanks again

Pauline

Answer 3

Hi,PaulineYV

I understand that you have lost data from your Excel file, I am sorry to hear this and will try to help you find it.

Because the Microsoft community only provides technical support for the software and no community member has access to the server's back-end data to help you recover your data，So I will do my best to answer your questions about software strategy and technology.

We have noticed that there are changes within your EXCEL sheet that you can try to fix by following the steps at this link.

Get help with Show Changes in Excel - Microsoft Support

We also noticed that you seem to have saved all of your files in onedrive, which normally saves a history of changed files after you upload them. Please go to the web version of onedrive and see if you can find them in the file history.

onedrive.live.com

If you don't find it then it's a real problem. You can try OneDrive recovery for earlier versions of files.

Restore a previous version of a file stored in OneDrive - Microsoft Support

If you are a Microsoft 365 subscriber and have not tried Recover OneDrive, which helps Microsoft 365 subscribers undo all actions on any files and folders in the last 30 days, we recommend you try: Restore your OneDrive - Microsoft Support

If you still can't find your files after trying the above steps, we recommend that you contact OneDrive's support team to help you locate your file data in OneDrive's cloud servers, where they can help you access the data information and view it at a higher level

You can send an email to OneDrive via the following link : https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=528676 

Sincerely hope you can retrieve the file data, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Allen L -MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist