Forum Discussion
Linking Access to Excel does not work
I have created a simple Access that is connected to a linked table to an Excel file as a data source.
I can run the Access without any problems. It accesses the data and everything is fine. But when my colleague wants to run the Access, she gets the following error message
"Microsoft Access “C:\Users\User\[Source Path].xlsx” is not a valid path. Please ensure that the path is entered correctly and that you are connected to the server where the file is located."
We use OneDrive/SharePoint in our company and the colleague has access to the folder where the Excel and Access files are located. But it doesn't work. I think it's the path, as it seems to be local. But I don't understand why.
This Access in turn serves as a source for another Excel (the target file). There it has a similar error message:
‘’Microsoft Excel [DataFormat.Error] “[File Name].accdb” is not a valid path. Please ensure that the path is entered correctly and that you are connected to the server where the file is located."
I can open and run both the Access and the target Excel without any problems.
Thanks a lot in advance. I appreciate your help a lot.
3 Replies
i think the error occurs when the linked worksheet is already opened by another user and another user is trying to open it again using his/here FE.
Linked excel cannot be shared.
This problem sounds familiar for Access 365. Access 2013 and 2016 were much less stubborn when it came to naming file paths.
It's probably not just an Access issue, but an Office wide issue. I can only recommend describing the problem in a way that it can be easily reproduced and submitting a bug report via Windows Feedback (Windows key + F).If you state the topic line, i will try to find and upvote it.
Please verify the permission and try share in common path since OneDrive syncs files to different user directories (C:\Users\[YourUser]\OneDrive vs. C:\Users\[ColleagueUser]\OneDrive), which can result in broken links when someone else tries to access the file.
