No longer able to digitally sign VBA code in Excel 2016

Anonymous

Hello all!

I have a DigiCert issued code signing certificate that I have been able to use from January 2017 up until two weeks ago (about the time of the Creator's Update for Windows 10 Pro). The Cert is valid through 2020. Unfortunately, I when I try to sign VBA code with it now, I get the error message "There was a problem with the digital certificate. The VBA project could not be signed. The signature will be discarded.

Is anyone else getting this message when signing VBA code with a Cert that previously worked?

I was able to test on a co-worker’s computer running

OS: Windows 7 Pro SP1

Office: Office 365 ProPlus Ver 1701 (build 7766.2076).

I was able to successfully sign a macro file on this machine.

My computer is running

OS: Windows 10 Pro version 1703 (build 15063.250)

Office: Office 365 Ver 1701 (Build 7967.2139)

I am not able to successfully sign a macro file on my machine. I am able to successfully import the certificate though.

DigiCert of course blames the issue on Microsoft, and given that I can successfully sign on my co-worker's Windows 7 machine with a slightly older build of Office 365, I wonder if something in the newer version of Office 365 broke the ability to sign VBA macros.

Thanks - Nate

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Anonymous

Hi StephenGibb,

My re-installation must have missed the August updates you mention by a whisker. I forced an update just now, 1707 Build 8326.2062 is now my version. And, thankfully, it works!

Some extra info about when the problem was occurring for anyone else who might come across this thread:

As well as the failure to sign a project, Office was silently disabling all signed macros, not just those in the locations I mentioned above.

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Anonymous

2017-08-03T10:36:25+00:00

To be absolutely certain I have just built a brand new VM and installed Office from the Portal. As that installs v1706 I verified that code signing didn't work then updated to v1707 via File | Account | Update Options and ran my tests again.

v1707 fixes the issue - even after a restart!
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Anonymous

2017-08-03T10:51:07+00:00

I've now installed this month's Office updates on the problem computer and can confirm the issue is now resolved.

Thanks!
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Anonymous

2017-08-03T12:41:07+00:00
I had to reinstall Office 365 for other reasons the day before yesterday. The installed version is

'Version 1706 (Build 8229.2103 Click-to-run'.

I found this thread because I am experiencing these problems.

The symptoms that initially happened were:
1. Word did not recognise the digital signature on a project in its startup folder.
2. Outlook did not recognise the signature on VbaProject.OTM.
When I say 'did not recognise' I mean that although the publisher is Trusted, the macros are disabled. The signature is a Comodo one.

Attempts to re-sign failed with the message "There was a problem with the digital certificate. The VBA project could not be signed. The signature will be discarded."

Attempts to resign with a selfcert.exe-generated certificate fail with the same message.

I posted this thread on social.msdn.microsoft.com, but no replies so far. I hope to make more progress on this one!

Stephen Gibb, please note how recent my installation was and the version numbers. Were yours the same?
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