Excel found unreadable content in "……………".

[springbrook]

I have received and error message:

Excel found unreadable content in "……………". Do you want to recover contents of this workbook?

This workbook has been used for quite some time now.
There are 3 of us who use this workbook nearly every day.
It opens fine on my pc but not on the other 2 (we all run 2007)

Now when they open the workbook it comes up with the following error.
If they open an older version its ok, however if I open it, do nothing to it, save it and then close it, the error appears.

It seems to be since Thursday last week when my 'automatic updates' were done.
Some thing has changed !

Nothing has been altered at all.

I need of desperate help.

Thanks in advance
Springbrook

 

[BrianB]

Looks like the file is corrupted. Need to remake it. Try making a new file by copying sheets acroos one at a time, saving, and testing. Hopefully you find the faulty one and only need to remake that one. Select everything,copy/paste to a new sheet.

 

[springbrook]

Looks like the file is corrupted. Need to remake it. Try making a new file by copying sheets acroos one at a time, saving, and testing. Hopefully you find the faulty one and only need to remake that one. Select everything,copy/paste to a new sheet.

Hi Brian,
It cant be a corrupt file as the same thing happens with all versions of this file including some (more than 5 files) that are 3 months old.

Is there some sort of auditing program for flushing out any issues available.

I think it may be a security issue that has changed in the latest 2007 update ?? not sure.

Still in need of a solution.

Cheers
Springbrook

 

[springbrook]

This problem only happens when the file (template) is opened directly (not via shortcut) then saved and then closed.
The next time some one tries to open it it fails and gives the error message.

If the file has not been opened and saved, then every time it is opened (via shortcut) it works, however this means that no editing can be done.

 

[springbrook]

Fixed issue - My suspicions were correct

I have now fixed the problem.
My suspicions were correct, the update from mircosoft changed some working files in office 2007.
To make the work book open properly on the other PC's running office 2007, copied the following files:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12

This has rectified the issue.

Note: I first updated one of the other PC's to include the update on office 2007, but that did not fix it either, so copying the above files was the only way.

 

[tcheng]

I've got the same problem. Spreadsheet was working fine up until recent.

When you say copy files, do you mean copy everything from C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12? If not can you clarify? Thanks.

 

[springbrook]

No,
To make the work book open properly on the other PC's running office 2007, copy the following files from the PC that is working correctly and replace the files on the PC that is not working:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12


NOTE: Ensure that both PC's are running the same version of Office

Hope this helps

 

[RogerInThailand]

I think M$ have screwed up. I am using Excel 2003 and I have the exact same problem which has started some time after the 7th March.

I have an Excel file which I created in 2003 and is now 13 Mb in size, has multiple worksheets and graphs. So, for the last 5 years, every time I finish editing the file, I save it under a different filename. I have literally hundreds of these files.

I can open all of the files I created up to and including the one I saved on March 7th, but the file I saved on March 20th (an edit of the March 7th file) has this problem. Excel says the file is corrupt, but I don't believe it.

I think this problem will not go away and M$ will come up - eventually - with a fix.

I do remember an Excel "security update" being applied very recently. You can be sure I'll be experimenting with some "System Restores" very soon....

I'll let you know what happens, but this may not be for a week or so as I have to travel to the other end of Thailand tomorrow.

Get your act together, M$!

 

[secretagentbill]

Was a solution to this problem found yet? I have a user here that was having the same problem March 22 when this discussion was going on. She is experiencing the problem again today and I was wondering what was done to solve this, if anything. Thanks.

 

[RogerInThailand]

Thanks for the reminder. I really must pursue this further.

My problem suddenly disappeared for several weeks. I had done nothing to the "faulty" worksheet - the one that wouldn't accept another entry without producing the "unreadable content" error when re-opened.

I had hoped that the problem had gone away permanently. But it hadn't - it came back again a couple of weeks ago after I had added a lot more data to the worksheet. But the only investigation I have done so far is to determine that no matter how many worksheets I delete from the spreadsheet, the file stays at about 10 Mb. So I believe there is something wrong with the file structure.

So my next move will be to copy each worksheet into a new spreadsheet and check the size of the file each time and whether I get the error message.

I'll post back what happens.

I have heard of no other "fix" for this problem.