Excel - 'cannot connect to server' (NAS is switched off)

[Padaung]

Hi All,

I hope someone out here can help me as this is driving me insane!

I have a QNAP NAS that I connect to in my home office from my Mac Mini. However, I often take the Mac Mini to a workshare space to work out of the house.

Whenever Excel starts and the NAS is not connected it will crash, and then this error will be displayed (also attached as a screen grab):

'There was a problem connecting to the server"192.168.1.20" The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again.'

This happens even if the file is located on the Mac's disk drive or OneDrive (ie I'm not trying to open a file on the NAS).

Any thoughts on how I can stop this from occurring?

Basically, Excel is currently unusable unless I'm connected to the NAS via a local network connection.

TIA

 

[techwarrior]

Just a guess, I think Word Preferences sets the startup and auto-recover paths for all of the Office Apps. Preferences > File Locations.

If you set this to the NAS, it tries to open the folder when you start Excel, and if it fails, it apparently doesn't have a way to recover.

 

[phairphan]

Is this a problem that you started having recently? If so, I'm experiencing the same.

About three weeks ago, after an Office update, I'm no longer able to open Word or Excel without first connecting to my network drives at work. Otherwise, the programs lock up, repeatedly try to connect to network locations they can't reach, and eventually I have to force quit them. Definitely new behavior. All of my computers are experiencing this, so it's not limited to a particular machine.

I reported the problem using the built-in MS error reporting tools, and I suggest that you do the same. The only workaround I can find is to reconnect the network drives before opening the programs. It's a real PITA.

 

[Padaung]

Just a guess, I think Word Preferences sets the startup and auto-recover paths for all of the Office Apps. Preferences > File Locations.

If you set this to the NAS, it tries to open the folder when you start Excel, and if it fails, it apparently doesn't have a way to recover.

Thanks for the thought.

Word hasn't been having the issue described in the original post. I have been able to open Word and work on documents without being connected to the network drive first. The issue is only occurring when I start Excel.

All the same, I have checked Word > Preferences > File Locations just in case as I agree that a setting there may have set a global option. However, they were all set to the default values, and I reset them just to be sure

 

[Padaung]

Is this a problem that you started having recently? If so, I'm experiencing the same.

About three weeks ago, after an Office update, I'm no longer able to open Word or Excel without first connecting to my network drives at work. Otherwise, the programs lock up, repeatedly try to connect to network locations they can't reach, and eventually I have to force quit them. Definitely new behavior. All of my computers are experiencing this, so it's not limited to a particular machine.

I reported the problem using the built-in MS error reporting tools, and I suggest that you do the same. The only workaround I can find is to reconnect the network drives before opening the programs. It's a real PITA.

Yes, definitely a new problem. I would think I first had it around 2 weeks ago? I have Office set to update automatically so I didn't notice that it had updated itself.

Your description matches my experience. I too need to Force Quit Excel. I run Office on a Windos laptop too and I've been opening the spreadsheets on that instead as a workaround - the Windows machine has not been having this problem.

Interesting that you have the same problem with Word. I've been lucky and have been able to continue using Word.

I've checked the Recent Documents list in both Excel and Word and they both have documents listed that are on the network drive. I have just cleared the Recent Documents list in Excel (right click each line and select 'Remove from Recent' and the result is...

I can use Excel without being connected to the network drive!!! ))

HOWEVER: I've just done a test by reconnecting the NAS, opening a file from it, then closing Excel, disconnecting the NAS, and then trying to open a different file located on OneDrive. When it opens the file there is a pause (and the spinning beach ball), and then I see that the NAS volume is remounted to my Desktop. The OneDrive document then opens.

I've just repeated the above test with the NAS physically disconnected from the network and Excel is crashing again with the original 'There was a problem connecting to the server...' message showing again.

With the NAS still physically disconnected, I reopened Excel, removed the document on the NAS from the Recent Documents menu (this menu has always been available before the crash occurred - it is only after a document is opened that I've had a crash)

So my current conclusion is to not have any documents listed in the Recent Documents list if I'm not connected to the NAS.

I hope this helps you too phairphan. I'll report my findings to Microsoft (I'll make Excel crash and submit details via the crash report).