'Break links' leaves the links there instead of replacing them with values

[Dumb Bo]

I've been using Break links for years, and it always worked seamlessly. I'm now on Microsoft 365 Apps for business, and I find that it no longer works as expected on some files.

What I've done is gone to Data - Edit links, and selected Break link, as I always did. After doing this, "Edit links" is now greyed out (as expected) but the links are still all there, without having been removed: Excel did not replace any links with values. I tried to recreate the problem on brand new files, but I am unable to recreate the problem on new files. I am therefore thinking that it might be a compatibility issue with these older files (the problem files are xlsx, but were last used in a non-subscription installation of Excel, which I think was 2019 Pro Plus).

I haven't yet tried to break the links on the problematic files in Excel online to see if the result is any different, and I am about to try that. It is however strange that a simple functionality that always used to work well has now stopped functioning as expected.

I'm wondering if anyone has come across this before, and whether anyone found any solutions.

Thanks,
David

 

[Dumb Bo]

I've been using Break links for years, and it always worked seamlessly. I'm now on Microsoft 365 Apps for business, and I find that it no longer works as expected on some files.

What I've done is gone to Data - Edit links, and selected Break link, as I always did. After doing this, "Edit links" is now greyed out (as expected) but the links are still all there, without having been removed: Excel did not replace any links with values. I tried to recreate the problem on brand new files, but I am unable to recreate the problem on new files. I am therefore thinking that it might be a compatibility issue with these older files (the problem files are xlsx, but were last used in a non-subscription installation of Excel, which I think was 2019 Pro Plus).

I haven't yet tried to break the links on the problematic files in Excel online to see if the result is any different, and I am about to try that. It is however strange that a simple functionality that always used to work well has now stopped functioning as expected.

I'm wondering if anyone has come across this before, and whether anyone found any solutions.

Thanks,
David

As an update to my own post, Excel recently did the same thing on a different file, and I had closed the file without saving. This time I saved it, and when I reopened it I was given a message of there being issues with the file, and it repaired the issues. The repairs broke the links. I've no idea what went wrong in the first place, but all's well that ends well.