Forum Discussion
Excel cant open file because the file extension is invalid
You wrote:
My PC crashed and auto rebooted while i jut saved my file in microsoft one drive and i cant seem to reopen it again.
Hard to diagnose without a bit more data (and even with more data, the cause may be elusive). But let me ask a few diagnostic questions:
- Has this happened before?
- Have you done a cold re-boot (not just the auto-reboot you mention)?
- Can you open other Excel files currently? (i.e., is it just this one file?)
- What (generally) is different or distinctive about this file compared with others that you typically work with? (size, nature of data, presence of absence of VBA, macros, etc.)
- What about other MS Office applications and files? Are they all working normally, files can be saved, re-opened.
- How about non-Office files.
- What edition of Excel are you using?
- What PC and windows OS?
To your subsequent question about posting files, it can be difficult at times. If it becomes necessary, you would be able to grant access to folks to your file on OneDrive (if you use it) or DropBox, or other such file sharing systems. But let's start with answers to those questions. (And if there's other information you can provide, please do)
- 1. Never happened before
2. Yes, i did
3. Yes, the other files can be opened normally
4. No difference from the other files in the same folder. It only uses simple formulas.
5. Yes, everything else is working normally
6. It's just this one file that is not opening
7. Excel 365
8. HP Pavilion & Windows 11In the header to this all, you do mention the words "because the file extension is invalid"
I should have asked, (or you could have provided as well) --
- what is that invalid file extension? Is Excel giving that as a reason for not opening?
- Could you make a copy of the file and then change the extension to a valid extension (.xlsx)
- and see if that opens
- The extension is xlsx. I tried to change it to xls as per an online recommendation but it doesn’t work.
