Issues on loading add-in affect loading custom functions of another add-in

[SlavkaKnoema]

Our customers are having trouble when using our Knoema Data Finder add-in with another add-in from Excel, f. e. ‘Euro Currency tools’.

Your Environment

PC, Excel, Microsoft 365 Version 2107(Build 14228.20250) 64 bit, Windows 10

Steps to reproduce

1. Create the new file.
2. Install Knoema Data Finder add-in
3. Insert custom function KNOEMA.VERSION()
4. Go to Insert -> My Add-ins -> Manage Other Add-ins -> Add-ins -> Go -> Select Euro Currency tools

After the above steps, we have the error message “One or more add-ins failed to install custom functions” and our Add-in becomes unloaded and custom functions of our add-in in the file have a strange naming: instead of “KNOEMA.VERSION()” we see “_xldudf_KNOEMA_VERSION()”. And when we execute the functions we have “#NAME?” error in a cell. Note not all Excel add-ins from the list cause error, Also our customers use theirs own same add-ins some of them also cause an error. And after reopen the file all works fine.

Useful logs

OfficeAddins.log.txt

[akshay70]

@donlvMSFT - thank you! Seems like it's working so far! Will keep you posted if we see it come up on our end again.

[4tti]

Hey @donlvMSFT, @Wenjun-Gong, @grangeryy

Our customers are extremely angry about the situation around this. We told them like 3 times it is fixed and always it was incorrect information. This time I receieved requests from big customers to give them link to KBA related to this issue and the resolution, etc. GitHub won't do unfortunately.

Can you please share link to KBA related to this issue, or request new KBA creation to cover that and share it here?

[donlvMSFT]

@4tti, could you help share more information about their scenario? As I mentioned above, the fix couldn't totally resolve the existing corruptions which are already persisted, but could stop further corruptions as you mentioned.

I'm not familiar with the KBA, do you mean if there's any Post or Blog?

[4tti]

Hello @donlvMSFT

They have the scenarios discussed here, i.e. having com/vba add-ins corrupting the formulas. As you know, there were similar github issues (with similar symptoms) and they were closed as fixed, that was then communicated but the issues reappered. Therefore now the customers asked if we can provide any link to Microsoft page like Knowledge Base Article where the issue is described with the resolution, etc. Obviously they are extremely annoyed which is something I totally understand because these issues are extremely painful. Imagine you have some monthly report prepared and it works for weeks and then - just because it was opened by some user with COM/VBA Add-in - it got corrupted for you just the day you need to get up-to-date figures and provide it to your management or there is budgeting deadline....

Post/Blog would work too of course.

[donlvMSFT]

Hi @4tti ,

Sorry for the inconvenience, and our fixes needs time to roll out for customers for validation. Currently we don't have posts for this issue...

As explained above, there're descriptions about the root cause, fix solution with version Id, also the limitation. Could you share these with the customer first? Also could you help verify this?

Sometimes, the custom functions would be registered into the local .xla/.xlam as these file types are also considered as workbooks. In some cases, after save and re-open the document, there would trigger corruption or confliction and then failed. This fix changed the way of custom function registration aiming to resolve this issue. So, I mentioned that the fix couldn't totally resolve the existing corruptions which are already persisted, but could stop further corruptions as you mentioned.

Thank you!

[hdwatts]

@donlvMSFT We have users on the below build still encountering this issue:

Our addin function (cx.get) is getting corrupted by and prefixed with FUNCRES.XLAM:

='C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\LIBRARY\Analysis\FUNCRES.XLAM'!_xldudf_CX_GET

Is the fix you noted rolled out in this build? If so, then the fix does not seem to resolve the problem.

[donlvMSFT]

Hi @hdwatts , thanks for reporting this and sorry for the delay.

As I mentioned above, This fix changed the way of custom function registration aiming to resolve this issue. the functions in old files may got corrupted because they are registered in a not proper way. Could you try to re-install the add-in and get the functions re-created to see the result?

Thank you!

[donlvMSFT]

As the fix already rolled-out, I'd like to close this issue.

Thanks for all the discussion in this thread!

[hdwatts]

@donlvMSFT This appeared to be resolved last month, however we are now seeing an increase in this error cropping up again. Can you look into this and reopen this issue?