Excel Worksheet and backups suddenly get Unreadable Content Message

Anonymous

I have a 400 line Excel 2007 single worksheet spreadsheet.

Each row has a Comment inserted in one of the cells. The Comment has been formatted as follows: "Size" has been adjusted, "Colors and Lines" has been adjusted by choosing "Color", "Fill Effects", "Picture", "Select Picture" and a .jpg file from a certain folder is selected.

The result is that when I hover over this cell in any given row, the .jpg file that was placed in the Comment appears. There are other simple text comments in several other cells in the worksheet.

This all was working fine for me for several months, and I was making backups just to be safe.

Suddenly, I started getting "Excel found unreadable content in..." and it offered me to "recover the contents of this workbook". When I choose to recover, I get my entire worksheet back without any comments (ones with .jpgs and ones without), and I am told "Excel was able to open the file by repairing or removing the unreadable content".

I also get a chance to view the "log file" and this is its contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>

**-** <recoveryLog xmlns="**http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main**">

<logFileName>error053200_01.xml</logFileName>

<summary>Errors were detected in file 'C:\Users\Bruce Kay\Desktop\Documents\DOCUMENTS ON iPhone\All Casino Chip Collection.xlsx'</summary>

**-** <removedParts summary="Following is a list of removed parts:">

<removedPart>Removed Part: /xl/drawings/vmlDrawing1.vml part. (Drawing shape)</removedPart>

</removedParts>

</recoveryLog>

The same thing happens with all of my backups of this sheet, and those were backups of working versions of this sheet.

This is all unbelievably frustrating.

Does anyone think this was due to an automatic update by Microsoft?

Do you have any suggestions for recovery?

Thanks

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55 answers

Anonymous

2017-01-30T09:34:34+00:00

Simply amazing! I have 27 sheets, all with picture comments, and most with well over 100 records each. This little tidbit fixed every one in seconds! Needless to say, I'll keep this little script handy from now on. I can't even imagine how long it would have taken to edit each one...

Hopefully this will get taken care of seeing as how it's been happening, apparently, for well over 2 years.

Thank you!

Thanks dlauzon that was exactly what I needed. I created a vbs to clean up my VML file since it was pretty extensive, and here it is in case it helps anyone else:

' drag and drop the .vml file onto this script, new file is saved to the same location with a Fixed_ prefix

' bring in drag and dropped file

Set objArgs = WScript.Arguments

Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set oFSO2 = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

sFile = objArgs(0)

Set fileinfo = oFSO.GetFile(sFile)

' create new file

sFile2 = fileinfo.parentFolder & "\Fixed_" & fileInfo.name

If oFSO.FileExists(sFile) Then

Set oFile2 = oFSO2.CreateTextFile(sFile2)

Set oFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile(sFile, 1)

Do While Not oFile.AtEndOfStream

   ' read through input file one line at a time

   sText = oFile.ReadLine

   IStartPos = 0

   iStartPos = InStr(sText, "o:relid=")

   ' if an o:relid is found we do special processing

   If iStartPos > 0 Then

    ' keep appending lines from the input file until we reach o:title

    iTitlePos = InStr(sText, "o:title=")

    While iTitlePos = 0

     sText = sText & oFile.ReadLine

     iTitlePos = InStr(sText, "o:title=")

    Wend



    ' find the LAST o:relid if there are more than one

    iNextPos = InStrRev(sText, "o:relid=")

    If iNextPos > 0 and iNextPos > iStartPos Then

     ' this is the last o:relid

     sItem = Mid(sText, iNextPos, iTitlePos - iNextPos)

     ' replace the multiple o:relid with only the last one

     sText = Left(sText, iStartPos - 1) & sItem & Mid(sText, iTitlePos)

    End If

   End If

   oFile2.WriteLine(sText)

Loop

oFile.Close

WScript.Echo "Done"

End If
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Anonymous

2016-09-27T19:15:14+00:00

I've got this prob too with embedded photo in cell comment (Office Plus 2010 Excel). Something happens, the file is unreadable, recovery and then comments with photo are removed. I tried the OpenOffice routine and got some photos back. I want to try and run this, but do not know how to do it. Any baby step instructions are greatly appreciated!! Thanks!
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Anonymous

2016-05-03T14:55:42+00:00

Thanks dlauzon that was exactly what I needed. I created a vbs to clean up my VML file since it was pretty extensive, and here it is in case it helps anyone else:

' drag and drop the .vml file onto this script, new file is saved to the same location with a Fixed_ prefix

' bring in drag and dropped file

Set objArgs = WScript.Arguments

Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set oFSO2 = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

sFile = objArgs(0)

Set fileinfo = oFSO.GetFile(sFile)

' create new file

sFile2 = fileinfo.parentFolder & "\Fixed_" & fileInfo.name

If oFSO.FileExists(sFile) Then

Set oFile2 = oFSO2.CreateTextFile(sFile2)

Set oFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile(sFile, 1)

Do While Not oFile.AtEndOfStream

   ' read through input file one line at a time

   sText = oFile.ReadLine

   IStartPos = 0

   iStartPos = InStr(sText, "o:relid=")

   ' if an o:relid is found we do special processing

   If iStartPos > 0 Then

    ' keep appending lines from the input file until we reach o:title

    iTitlePos = InStr(sText, "o:title=")

    While iTitlePos = 0

     sText = sText & oFile.ReadLine

     iTitlePos = InStr(sText, "o:title=")

    Wend



    ' find the LAST o:relid if there are more than one

    iNextPos = InStrRev(sText, "o:relid=")

    If iNextPos > 0 and iNextPos > iStartPos Then

     ' this is the last o:relid

     sItem = Mid(sText, iNextPos, iTitlePos - iNextPos)

     ' replace the multiple o:relid with only the last one

     sText = Left(sText, iStartPos - 1) & sItem & Mid(sText, iTitlePos)

    End If

   End If

   oFile2.WriteLine(sText)

Loop

oFile.Close

WScript.Echo "Done"

End If

OMG! Thank you for writing/posting this vbs. I can't tell you how much work this saved me. Awesome.
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Anonymous

2016-04-28T16:38:34+00:00

Thank you dlauzon! These instructions worked perfectly for me, like a charm. Even the name of the corrupt file was the same. Awesome!
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Anonymous

2016-02-02T05:48:50+00:00

Easy solution that has worked for me many times with this unreadable content error.

Open the file in OpenOffice calc.

Save as a new name and then open it in Excel.

Often its back to normal.
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