Excel file with Pivot table gets corrupted in latest version

Question

Hi,

In the latest Excel update, We are experiencing corruption issues with Excel files that include pivot tables. Further analysis has indicated that the count attribute is missing from the XML tags in the related XML files for pivot field items. This issue did not exist in earlier versions of Excel, where these files functioned properly. Unfortunately, in the most recent version, the files have become corrupted.

Answer 1

Hi! sorry to hear that you have troubles with this, the error message confirms that Excel repaired the file by removing the PivotTable, likely due to unreadable or invalid XML. Commonly this is the results of the fact that Excel’s internal PivotTable XML structure requires: <items count="N">, older Excel versions, the count attribute was optional or ignored. However, now, Excel expects it to be explicitly defined. If it's missing or incorrect, Excel flags the file as corrupt and attempts recovery by removing the entire PivotTable.

If you're comfortable working inside .xlsx ZIP contents please try this:

1. Rename the .xlsx to .zip.

Extract the contents.

1. Navigate to /xl/pivotTables/ and open pivotTable1.xml in notepad.
2. Locate: <items>...</items>
3. Manually change it to: <items count="N">...</items>
4. Where N is the number of <item> entries inside.

Save changes, re-zip, and rename back to .xlsx.

Answer 2

I'm having the same problem since last version. Tried the solution above but in XML there were no records without "count=N>" so this was not the issue..