excel saved file reverts back to previous file version.

Hello,  I have several users that started having an issue last week with excel documents stored on shared folders.  The users are all using Office 2007 standard.  They are saving to different folders with different group permissions on a 2008 r2 file server. There are no events on the server.  They open their spreadsheet, add entries,  save it, close it, and reopen it, the changes are gone.  They don't get any kind of warning when saving.  Unfortunately there are workbooks that work and there are uneffected users too.  Most of the spreadsheets are 2003 version.

Thank you for any help! This is kind of freaking me out because it is so random, not seen anything like it in fifteen years of IT. I am also looking fo anything I can do to troubleshoot this issue.


January 10th, 2012 3:28pm

Hi Jeffery,

I learned that this behavior is random to happen, but if I understand correctly, this will certainly happen to the certain user with the certain workbooks, am I right? If it is true, at least we can make a test, after the user save the workbook, but keep the workbook opened, let another user open the workbook, will the another user get the changes?

Besides that, for this kind of saving issue, I would consider the avti-virus software installed on the server side. Please have a check for the event log in the anti-virus program. If practicable, please temporarily disable the anti-virus program to check the issue.

Sincerely,

Max Meng
Forum Support

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January 11th, 2012 7:01am

Good Morning Max,

I have had no incidence of any virus activity on either the server or the desktops.  I now have 9 affected users.  I unfortunately have one user that is using office 2003.
  On a couple of user’s workbooks, they add sheets for each month.  On some just December is missing, on others both November and December is missing.  Some of these workbooks have years of data and have been updated to new versions of office and others are only 1 year old.   I took one of those workbooks and ran a vb script to unhide any hidden or super-hidden sheets which had no effect.  I tried opening in office 2010 which also had no effect.
On some of the user’s workbooks, they save changes and then exit, then go back in and the changes are gone.  They then make the changes again and they seem to save fine.  I have watched this happen and there are no error messages. 
I have checked the server for events, share and storage mgnt for issues, group policies on the desktop and server,  and user rights to the different folders.

Thank you for any advice.

Jeff

January 11th, 2012 3:53pm

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the feedback, this is a quick note to let you know that I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue.

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January 12th, 2012 8:10am

Hi Jeff,

I have some questions for you:

1.  Are you saving just to the server itself or to Sharepoint?
2.  Are you saving to a NAS device?
3.  Are you running any data loss prevention software or other scanning software?
       If yes, stop those services on the server AND the client and test for improvement.  

4.  If you have a group of users that are able to reproduce the issue, is it specific to any particular files that they are using? 
   4a. Are those files shared by just being in a folder everyone has access to or are they truly [shared] within the Excel UI so that multiple users can make changes at the same time?

5.  Are the users truly and physically 'saving' (file > save or ctrl+s) their changes or are they using the just assuming that the auto-recover feature ran and saved their changes?

6. Do you have all updates applied to all products involved?
7. Does it happen only on a particular server? Try moving the files to another server and testing.
8. Is there anything similar about the files? ie. do they all contain VBA, are they only on one particular server, or they all one specific file type (.xls, .xlsx, etc), are they only files that one particular department of users use.... if yes, then do they use any other applications with these files or run any additional add-ins within the Excel application?  

9. Will it happen with NEW file?

Additionally, you could try capturing a Process Monitor trace to see if anything interferes on the client side when saving, but simultaneous Network Monitor traces may also help show you any issues with network communication or interference.

Process Monitor v2.96
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645

Information about Network Monitor 3
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933741

Your scenario is not a popular one, so a case with Microsoft support may be better suited to help resolve your issue but if you can provide more feedback we may be able to find the root cause before taking that step.

Thanks,
Amber

 

 

 

 

 

January 12th, 2012 3:42pm

Hello Amber

I think I have found the issue but I haven't found the cause.  I replicate to a DR site and since the 5th it has been writing logs on errors.  I had it set to notify me but that wasn't triggered. I just found the logs and am looking for clues.  I am not well versed in replication.  I just set up a simple connection between sites that has worked for the last six months.  Something changed on the 5th.

I will post more when I have more clues.

Thank you,

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January 12th, 2012 3:48pm

I am also having Excel files reverting back to previous versions and I am losing information in the process. This started a couple of months ago, and I thought I was just losing my mind. Now I have even saved copies of one of the files both on the server and on my desktop. They were both ok for a few days, then when I went back to open them, information and dates were changed back to a week prior. I've just noticed this same issue on another one of my files, and I have lost a lost of work and information that I will have to recreated.

I tried moving the file and renaming it. I have shut off the auto recover.

I have searched the internet for solutions, only to see that a few people are experiencing this same thing with no resolution.

I am running Excel 2010. My files are normally saved to a server that backs up every 16 hours. No one else has access to these files.

What else can I do to stop this?

Denise
  • Edited by DCoxArc Friday, March 16, 2012 2:34 PM
March 16th, 2012 2:34pm

Has anyone found out what the issue was or how to solve it?    We are seeing it at happen at work but out IT group is having no luck resolving the issues.   Often the files will revert back to an earlier version of the file and then also we are having issues with files that the data doesn't change but the last data modified date changes back to an earlier date and/or time.   
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November 16th, 2012 9:13pm

Hello,

 

My problem was the replication with my DR site was broken.  It didn't show any errors but it was overloaded and the most current version of open documents were getting lost.  Hope this helps.

November 19th, 2012 12:37pm

We are having the same problem as well.  I have reports from a few users that certain files occasionally revert back to the way they were before they made any changes.  Usually they don't realize this has happened until they try to open the document a few days later and don't see any of their changes.  This is extremely frustrating since we are losing critical data in some of our spreadsheets.  It only seems to be happening in Excel and we are running 2010 with the latest service packs and patches.  The files are shared on an SBS2011 server.  The user gets no indication that there was a problem saving the file.  I am a network engineer and I have spent many many hours troubleshooting this, tried to replicate the issue, checking security logs, etc., and have gotten nowhere!  One thing that seems to have helped in one case was that I limited write access to the file to only one user and I haven't heard of a problem with that file since.  Maybe this will provide a clue?  Very very frustrating!!

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December 13th, 2012 4:01am

I am experiencing the same problem on Excel 2003 on a WinXP SP3 platform. I am updating an engineering workbook to the current code and I am losing spreadsheet updates from the day before. I have a checklist of the cell changes required and every morning I have to to recheck the previous days work before I can continue updating. Each days work is always saved to a different dated file which has missing. So far new VBA code has not been affected. I am the only one working on this file and I am not on a network.
December 30th, 2012 6:37pm

Anyone else have an update on this issue?  I also have a client with the same issue.  Running Excel 2010 on Windows 7 with all patches on the client side and Server 2008 R2 on the server side.  Same thing as many people here, most of the time changes are saved fine, however at random times, changes will not be saved resulting in hours of lost work.
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May 2nd, 2013 1:19am

BUMP

Saved the Excel sheet onto Sharepoint. Opened it again this morning, couple hours work lost. Not happy...

August 14th, 2013 9:42am

Hello, 

Has this issue been resolved? A user of mine is experiencing this exact problem with a .xls spreadsheet. The user is running MS Office 2010 x86 & Windows 7 Pro x64. The spreadsheet is in a network share on a Windows 2003 Server. The user saves changes on the spreadsheet and sometimes the changes will stay but after a week or so the file is back to previous version and all changes are lost.

Anyone knows of a fix for this yet?

Thanks!

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November 14th, 2013 3:23pm

Hello Everyone,

One of my co-workers ran into this issue as well.  I thought it was offline file caching and turned that off to no avail.  While helping her test the problem out I found out that she could log in on my pc and I could in on her PC and we could see the file perfectly fine.  She only ran into issues when she was logged into her PC using her profile.  I had the technician blow her profile out and then everything was fixed.  We are starting to have the same issue happen with my boss.  I will update this post as necessary, if I find another fix to the problem.

August 20th, 2015 2:16pm

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