how to resolve this issue: The Excel archive is corrupted: shared strings root=x:sst ??

Hi all,

I have an excel file with SAP BW Query in it. After the schedule refresh I take that file as an input to the Alteryx workflow.

I'm getting some strange error in Dynamic Input tool as below. But, I'm able to open the excel file without any issues.

Error: Dynamic Input (4) The Excel archive is corrupted: shared strings root=x:sst

Due to this, Sheet name is not showing as 'Sheet1$' in the Table or Query tab in the Dynamic Input tool.

I cannot attach the file or the workflow as it is confidential.

Kindly check and help me with the solution.

Thanks and Best regards,

Teja.

Workflow

Datasets

Error Message

Accepted answers

All comments

gabrielvilella

Try opening the Excel, save it and then read in Alteryx again.

wdavis

Hi @stj1120

A couple of things just to clarify first;

From the Directory Tool are you just looking to take in one file? Or is it multiple?
Are you able to open that Excel file on it's own within Alteryx?

Can you test bringing in the excel file as a standard input, but selecting to read in a list of sheet names and then to also show full path as shown below. Then build the connection string to feed into the Dynamic Input

Let me know if that still populates the same error.

Thanks

Will

alexnajm

+1 on this issue. Dynamic Input does not resolve this issue

leofrancia

Hi, everyone. Conscious that this is almost a necro-post but thought of documenting the solution for other folks.

Excel sheets with SAP BW Queries (BEx Analyzer) have a lot of VBA macros in them. Uploading those to Alteryx will cause issues. Please save the sheet as normal Excel (thereby deactivating any macros), check whether the content from your refresh remains unaffected, and then upload it to Alteryx.

PDempsey

Why does this happen and how does saving a file without changing it solve the issue?

leofrancia

Hi @PDempsey, by saving it as a normal Excel (XSLX or even CSV), the macros get disabled which will allow Alteryx to read the file correctly. A macro-enabled file may not be read correctly with the Input data tool as it reads the contents of the files, and not the macro or VBA code within them.

bertal34

I am getting the same error message "The Excel archive is corrupted: shared strings root=x:sst". I have no VBA macros and the excel extension is a normal .xlsx. Opening the Excel and re-saving does resolve the error, however I would like to better understand why it's happening to prevent it in the first place.

leofrancia

Hey, @bertal34, would you be able to attach an anonymized version of your sheet, e.g. no finance or no PII data, so we can take a look? Thanks!

bertal34

@leofrancia

I had my coworker create the attached Excel file (Excel.xlsx) which opens and looks fine in MS Excel. However when I drag this file onto the designer canvas, I click OK and the Input tool gives me the error "The Excel archive is corrupted: shared strings root=x:sst". This file was created by an RPA "bot" however that should not matter. Please test and let me know what you think. Thanks!

Excel.xlsx

leofrancia

Hi @bertal34 ,

Found the gremlin I think. This is because the XLSX is generated and has a prefix x: in all the tags in the Shared String XML embedded in Excel. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/open-xml/working-with-the-shared-string-table

In simpler terms, Alteryx is not able to read generated Excel sheets which has the prefix "x:" (e.g. from a bot). See below for some more investigation on this. The second file which has been opened and saved in Excel manually can be read by Alteryx correctly - but I do get that the open and re-saving step is inconvenient.

I would suggest to open a support case or have this added as an "Idea" (https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Ideas/idb-p/product-ideas).

bertal34

Hi @leofrancia ,

Thank you for getting back to me quickly and for the clear explanation! How did you go about viewing those XML tags in notepad?

leofrancia

Hi, @bertal34. You can open the XLSX file as a zip archive by changing the XLSX extension to ZIP. You will get a warning that it may become unusable but you can ignore this.

Then you can navigate to .\xl\ directory where you can find sharedStrings.xml. See below for how it would look like when you are navigating the ZIP file. An XLSX file is essentially a zip archive with various contents.

Still

you may try to change xlsx to xls and see. That's how I solve this error on my laptop

jsun_06

If you are generating the .xlsx file from UiPath (rpa bot) then use the Excel activities (Excel Process Scope, Use Excel File, Save Excel File As) instead of read range/write range activities.

Rajendrasharma

There were multiple files. Saved each one of them again in xlsx format and rerun was successful. Worth trying it

ChrisK

This is a helpful example. Can we get a larger example with more rows and columns, and some different data types?

What tool is producing these files? I've heard that they're produced by "a bot" but what software is in the bot?

JoeCat

Old post but i dont see any firm solutions so just sharing what resolved mine. I had the same error, it was an XLSX file that is generated by and synced with Office Forms, it lives on OneDrive (which likely doesnt matter). But I am unable to do any other fix that suggests to modify the file, because the file is synced. The same error for me seemed to be caused by simply having the file open. I unknowingly had it open in Browser, not in Excel. If open in Excel you get the typical error about it being unavailable. But when it was open in the browser I got this same error. Closing resolved it.

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