Excel Worksheet and backups suddenly get Unreadable Content Message

Anonymous
2010-04-20T15:54:27+00:00

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

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

55 answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2015-04-23T18:07:29+00:00

    Could you please explain what you mean by "drag and drop the .vml file onto this script"  I extracted the vml file but I'm stuck on this step. Thank you.

    The script needs to be a vbs file. So it needs to be pasted into a new text document or notepad, saved, then make sure that file has a VBS extension by renaming it from .txt to .vbs.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2015-04-23T18:37:57+00:00

    Just to follow up on my experience up thread - 

    I had this same problem almost two years ago.  I had over 50 pivot graphs that would blow up and not be recovered whenever this error occurred.  It was a huge setback.  What ended up working was to simply save the workbook as a previous (pre2007) version of an excel file, close the file, reopen it and save back as a 2007 file (xlsx in this case).  I have had no problems with the file ever since I tried this fix.

    I realize that we probably have several problems within this thread that all come up with the same error but the bottom line is that this fix is so simple to try that I would make it your first stop before going the coding route.  With any luck it is helpful to folks.

    Good luck.

    Dan

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2015-04-24T14:21:39+00:00

    The script needs to be a vbs file. So it needs to be pasted into a new text document or notepad, saved, then make sure that file has a VBS extension by renaming it from .txt to .vbs.

    scadam, Thank you for the reply.  I got i to work.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2015-06-03T17:13:42+00:00

    I am having a similar problem, with the following error code

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2007-excel/excel-worksheet-and-backups-suddenly-get/507bba4c-d77d-4315-a696-566662992315?page=4

    When I recover the file all of my images are lost.

    When I check for syntax errors following step 9 above, no errors are detected.  How were you able to identify which section of the code contained the problems?

    Thank you!

    ~Kate

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2015-06-05T23:05:51+00:00

    When the problematic sub-file of step 9 is opened in Notepad, you can still do ctrl+F to try to find and correct the bug described in step 10 and 11.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments