Forum Discussion
Excel Protection vanishes
Team,
We have a strange issue. From past 2 weeks the protection option in excel is not working as it should be.
> User protects an excel file and save it in SharePoint
> The second person opens the file, the protect workbook would be turned off automatically
> We are loosing the data
> Automatic formulas are switching to manual
> Many users are accessing the file simultaneously
> Same issue has been observed when users open the file on browser and also through desktop app
Please help if there is any recent known issues reported or any MS updates caused the issue.
11 Replies
- Hate to revive an old thread, but I've only found one other about this and it looks like the MS rep gave up and locked it so they wouldn't be bothered about it anymore.
I'm seeing the same issue and it doesn't seem to be resolved with any updates.
We have about 5 employees accessing the same sheet saved in Sharepoint. Typically they access through Teams, but occasionally some may access through the web app.
As best I can tell when someone inputs data in an unlocked cell on a protected sheet it just turns off the protection entirely. All sheets are password protected, and no one knows the password other than myself, but that doesn't seem to be an issue with the app turning off protection.
Is anyone else still seeing this behavior? I'm needing a good fix for this or at least an understanding of what causes the problem to see if there is a workaround. If there's no solution it may render the entire application unusable. Can't be dealing with someone accidentally deleting the entire worksheet because they didn't know they could do that.dcg00 I'm having a similar problem and I'm starting to think it's a bug. If I lock my sheet in excel and spam click on locked cell, eventually it allows me to type in (and see) the locked cell. This shocked me and was a bit embarrassing (I was only spam clicking to show a colleague that the cell could not be erroneously edited by a user), but what was more shocking was that when I looked up to the top, my spreadsheet had become unprotected without me entering in a password. That absolutely blew my mind. I have repeated this several times as well as saved the worksheet and it still does it. This is not possible in the older versions of the worksheet before I enabled macros. There are 3 macros that do a bit of formatting thus the first line of the macros unprotects the sheet, then it executes, then it reprotects it at the end... but all of the macros require pushing buttons and the cell in question is nowhere near those buttons, nor is it directly or indirectly referenced in any of the macros (it's not even in a range in the macro). I cannot for the life of me figure out what is happening.
Thankfully, this is only happening in the developmental version of the spreadsheet; clicking the same cell repeatedly in the live version takes you to the middle of the spreadsheet. THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM because I frequently have to deal w/ client budgets, and I've had issues w/ them sending me their own spreadsheets which don't properly work and with them inadvertently editing formulas in my spreadsheets. This spreadsheet is ~25x250 cells and 90% of them either include formulas, are used in formulas, or determine which formulas are used. I absolutely cannot take the time to review every single formula in the spreadsheet every single time someone sends me a budget; that's the whole point of protection. I would really, really appreciate some input here. This really feels like a bug.
Santhoshbs I am having the same issue. Workbook protection was working fine until 3-4 weeks ago. Has there been some sort of update that has caused this to change?
- The online Excel version 16.0.15401.31876 appears to have been fixed
Following...same issue here. Workbook Protection settings are removed if SharePoint Excel workbook is opened in Excel Desktop application from web browser version of Excel. Workbook is saved and uploaded to SharePoint originally with Workbook Protection settings configured.
- I'm having a similar issue. I protect my workbook, and when I open it again it's unprotected.
Hilda_Munoz we worked around the issue by forcing our users to open the files in Excel application only rather than Excel web version. Web version is where the password protection is stripped. In SharePoint, go to Library Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Open in client application. I believe you need to be an administrator.
