# Any way to avoid "Data Model May be Damaged" Message?



## cr731 (Apr 6, 2016)

Whenever I open workbooks containing a data model, about 1 in 4 times results in getting the message box that "We couldn't load the data model.  This may be because the data model in this workbook is damaged."

Furthermore, most of the time I get this message, the workbook works fine after clicking OK on that prompt.  Some of the time, however, I cannot interact with the file at all once I get that message (it just keeps reappearing if I try to make any changes).

When this happens, I close Excel completely and then re-open the file, and it always opens successfully.

Is this some sort of memory issue and/or is there anything I can do to reduce the occurrence of this?  My files are not that big - in the 5-6 MB range - with a data model containing tables of 300,000-400,000 rows (with only 5 columns).

This is not unique to my computer (co-workers experience the same thing) and it is not isolated to a single file.  So I'm just wondering if something about the way the model is put together is not working ... or what the cause of this may be.


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## Matt Allington (Apr 7, 2016)

Do you have 32 bit Excel?  If so, this is most likely the issue.


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## cr731 (Apr 7, 2016)

Yes, 32 bit.  I assume there is no way to clear out the memory in Excel between opening/closing various workbooks aside from closing Excel entirely?


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## Matt Allington (Apr 7, 2016)

No way that I know of.  Have you considered the "Hack"

Which Versions of Excel come with Power Pivot? - Excelerator BI

You can patch your version of Excel and increase the memory usage to 4GB (From 2).  Just take a backup first.


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