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Alteryx Designer Desktop Discussions

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Excel Input Error

Pat_Purcell
5 - Atom

I'm trying to input an excel file (.xlsx) but I keep getting the following error 

 

"Corrupt File: XML parse Failure  cell has no column definition"

 

If I open the file and delete the first row, I'm able to input the file.  While this isn't that inconvient when dealing with one file, I have dozens of files in the same format that have this issue.  Is there any way to bypass the first row on input? 

6 REPLIES 6
AlexKo
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Hi @Pat_Purcell - Could you try checking this option on?

check.PNG

Alex Koszycki
Program Manager, Community Platform
Pat_Purcell
5 - Atom

Yes I have tried inputting with that option both checked and unchecked and neither works unfortunately.

 

 

AlexKo
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Very strange! Two thoughts...

 

Sometimes the Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable resolves these strange Excel errors. It says Access, but it's actually for Excel as well: "This download will install a set of components that can be used to facilitate transfer of data between 2010 Microsoft Office System files and non-Microsoft Office applications."

 

And/or you could try to input a range of your data using the SQL Editor in the Input tool, as shown here: Input an Excel range.

Alex Koszycki
Program Manager, Community Platform
asifk
8 - Asteroid

Hi

 

I am also encountering this error even after installing the Microsoft Access as per above.

 

However i notice that if i read in the file as Microsoft Excel Legacy, it reads in successfully however the entire worksheet contains nulls which is not the case.

 

Please can someone look into this, i have tried searching and reading  through treads but found anything that can assist me

 

 

Regards,

Asif

AIChudnovsky
7 - Meteor

The first time I experienced a similar issue, I also had issues opening the same file in other third-party applications like Python and even Excel's Spreadsheet Compare App.  The only place I was able to successfully open the file was Excel.  The way I was able to resolve this issue was by opening the file and resaving it with no other changes.  I was told that the software that was building the original Excel file was using a library that wasn't compatible with other applications.

 

I just experienced this same issue with an .XLSX file that was generated by TD Ameritrade for my investment holdings.  I was able to resolve this issue with the same approach of opening the file and resaving it in Excel.

 

Obviously if you have many files to read in, this won't be a viable solution, so you'll need to build a bot (e.g., using Python) that opens and saves all of your files prior to using them in Alteryx.

MaciejG
7 - Meteor

Try opening and saving all of the files that are giving you this error.
Here is a quick python loop to do that for you (you can also do it manually if there are just a few files).

 

import os
from openpyxl import load_workbook
from openpyxl.workbook.workbook import Workbook

folder_path = "your folder path"

for filename in os.listdir(folder_path):
    if filename.endswith(".xlsx"):
        file_path = os.path.join(folder_path,filename)

        wb = load_workbook(file_path)
        wb.save(file_path)
           



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