Excel 95 import fails without an error message

An attempt to create a project from an Excel 95 file produces the traceback 
below.  The UI hangs spinning at "Inspecting selected files."  We need to give 
the user a reasonable error message.

16:23:35.479 [          org.mortbay.log] /command/core/importing-controller 
(182ms)
org.apache.poi.hssf.OldExcelFormatException: The supplied spreadsheet seems to 
be Excel 5.0/7.0 (BIFF5) format. POI only supports BIFF8 format (from Excel 
versions 97/2000/XP/2003)
    at org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook.getWorkbookDirEntryName(HSSFWorkbook.java:221)
    at org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook.<init>(HSSFWorkbook.java:268)
    at org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook.<init>(HSSFWorkbook.java:248)
    at org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook.<init>(HSSFWorkbook.java:192)
    at org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook.<init>(HSSFWorkbook.java:174)
    at com.google.refine.importers.ExcelImporter.createParserUIInitializationData(ExcelImporter.java:91)
    at com.google.refine.importing.DefaultImportingController.doInitializeParserUI(DefaultImportingController.java:230)
    at com.google.refine.importing.DefaultImportingController.doPost(DefaultImportingController.java:91)
    at com.google.refine.commands.importing.ImportingControllerCommand.doPost(ImportingControllerCommand.java:62)
    at com.google.refine.RefineServlet.service(RefineServlet.java:177)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:820)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:511)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1166)
    at org.mortbay.servlet.UserAgentFilter.doFilter(UserAgentFilter.java:81)
    at org.mortbay.servlet.GzipFilter.doFilter(GzipFilter.java:132)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.handle(ServletHandler.java:388)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.security.SecurityHandler.handle(SecurityHandler.java:216)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.SessionHandler.handle(SessionHandler.java:182)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.handle(ContextHandler.java:765)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.handle(WebAppContext.java:418)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:152)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.Server.handle(Server.java:326)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handleRequest(HttpConnection.java:542)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection$RequestHandler.headerComplete(HttpConnection.java:923)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseNext(HttpParser.java:547)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseAvailable(HttpParser.java:212)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handle(HttpConnection.java:404)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.bio.SocketConnector$Connection.run(SocketConnector.java:228)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)
Original issue reported on code.google.com by tfmorris on 1 May 2012 at 8:26
ChengjunWu / google-refine

Excel 95 import fails without an error message #564
