Any issue with Scribe writing to MS Excel 2013

[KarlLaw]

I was wondering if anyone has noticed any issue using Scribe to populate and save an Excel 2013 spreadsheet.  I had previously created this FileMaker application for my client that gathers and aggregates data for selected reports and then uses Scribe to populate and save predefined Excel templates with that data.  To get the final Excel reports, FileMaker then kicks off a VBScript file that runs an Excel macro to handle the appropriate formatting steps for each report.  The process was created using FileMaker 12 and Excel 2010 and has been running for quite some time without any problems.

 

We are currently in the stages of upgrading to a new server utilizing FileMaker 13 and Excel 2013 and have run into an intermittent issue.  When the problem occurs, FileMaker gathers the data correctly, and Scribe populates the Excel template as designed.  However, when the Excel macro tries to open the newly populated template file in Excel 2013, it hangs.  If I manually try to open the template file in question, it gives me an error message stating "We found a problem with some content in xxxxx.xlsx.  Do you want us to try to recover as much as we can?  If you trust the source of this workbook, click Yes."  If I select Yes, it opens the workbook and displays another message stating "Excel completed file level validation and repair.  Some parts of this wrokbook may have been repaired or discarded."  It doesn't give any specifics on what "parts" it is talking about, and the file looks like I would expect it to.  If I then copy the corrupted Excel file to a different machine and try to open it in Excel 2010, I get a similar message.  This process has been tested succesfully using FileMaker 12/Excel 2010 (Mac), FileMaker 12/Excel 2010 (PC), and FileMaker 13/Excel 2010 (Mac).  But it breaks when using FileMaker 13/Excel 2013 (PC), so it seems to me the issue might be something with how Scribe populates or saves the initial Excel file.  And, as I mentioned above, the problem only happens intermittently.  Sometimes the process correctly in FileMaker 13/Excel 2013 (PC).  But then other times it breaks when run under the same conditions for the exact same dataset.

 

Has anyone encountered this situation or something similar?  On the new server, I have set the folder that houses these template and macro files as a Trusted Location in Excel.  And I have even tested it out after disabling Protected View but haven't yet been able to come to a successful solution.  Any help you all can give is most appreciated.  Thanks.

[Joe Pampalon]

Could you send me a test file that demonstrates this issue? I would like to reproduce this in our office and debug the plugin to see what is happening. Please email [email protected] and put a link to this forum post in the description.

[KarlLaw]

Joe, are you looking for a test file of the Excel file or the FileMaker one?

[Joe Pampalon]

Both preferably, but just a test Excel file will work fine.