Excel Vba, Picturelink, Changes in Excel Version 2310

[vzczc]

I just noticed a breaking change after updating to Version 2310 today (Version 2310 (Build 16924.20124 Click-to-Run))

If you have a picturelink in Sheet1 with the name pictureOne where the formula property is set to "=A1:A10"

In previous versions, you could do the following in vba
Sheets("Sheet1").Pictures("pictureOne").formula=""

You can no longer do that in version 2310 and get an error message when trying to do that.

You can set the formula property to something else but not to "" or vbNullString.

I can not seem to find any documentation to suggest there are any breaking changes to the Excel Object model in this version.

Does anyone have an idea what is going on here?

As for the question, why I would want to do this. The reason is that when running complex vba code that takes a long time to run, Excel is very slow if you have any active picture links in your workbook. In previous versions, you could simply store all picture formula properties, set them all to "", do your refresh and calculations and then simply put the formula back

 

[vzczc]

Well, that is the core of the problem, it works on most computers, but not all, including mine which runs the latest version of Windows 11 combined with the latest release of Office 365. Have some VM's with beta version of Windows and Office 365, and they have the same problem. Most of our clients have older version combinations and everything works fine there. The problem is how to find out exactly what is going on when this does not work. For now, as mentioned earlier, I have code that detects this state and if it is in this state, remove and then recreate picture links when needed.

 

[vzczc]

Just thought I should update this thread with the completely nonsensical answer I finally got from Microsoft support after 2 months. It misses the mark completely and I have given up getting anything sensible out of them. They are not even trying to understand or work with this issue. They used to be somewhat competent and at least trying to solve issues, but that is clearly no longer the case....

Hi ,

Regarding your situation here we consulted with our tech advisors and senior engineers and find out that the issue you are facing is going with your Macros formula and sincerely sorry to say that the issue you are facing is out of our support specialty.

As though we don't analyze/ provide root causes this situation can be happened for the formula type depreciation. So, for this type of situation could you please try to downgrade your office version and check the issue still persists or not. For this situation if you still face the error then we can suggest you to seek help in our Microsoft Community. We have a lot of experienced supporters here: Microsoft Community



If you have any queries left, then please let us know.

Best Regards,

Niloy

Microsoft Office 365 Support Engineer
Working Hours: Monday-Friday : 03:00 PM – 12:00 AM (UTC+8)

My Technical Lead : Alia [redacted email]
My Manager Email : Freddy | [redacted email]
My Technical Advisor : Byulaha Patro | [redacted email]

 

[Dan_W]

I feel your pain. This part:

the issue you are facing is going with your Macros formula and sincerely sorry to say that the issue you are facing is out of our support specialty.

Is a pretty good indication that have no understanding of the problem.

 

[vzczc]

Wow, found an update in fixes in the latest Excel update.

Release notes for Current Channel releases - Office release notes

Provides IT Pros with release notes for Monthly Channel releases for Microsoft 365 Apps.

learn.microsoft.com

"We fixed an issue where attempting to programmatically set the Formula property on a Linked Picture resulted in a run-time error."

They have indeed fixed this, so setting the formula property to "" no longer causes an error.

However, if you then set it using vba to what it should be after finishing your calculations, it has no effect. If you select the picture in Excel, press F2 (in the formulabar) and then enter, the link becomes active. So the issue is still there.

Any ideas?

 

[vzczc]

Yet another update on this long running issue.

Just noticed an update in the latest beta channel update for Excel, where this issue has finally been fixed by Microsoft. Tested ok.

It would be interesting to know if my loud and numerous complaints about this have been picked up by Microsoft, or if it was something they found out about in other ways..

Now, I just have to wait until this is rolled out in the production versions of Office 365.

Version 2407 17830.20016 (8 July)
Release Notes for Beta Channel - Office release notes

 

[vzczc]

A fix for this issue has now been released by Microsoft a mere 305 days after the issue appeared, and 274 days since raised by me here.
Version 2407 (Build 17830.20138)

Release notes for Current Channel releases - Office release notes

Provides IT Pros with release notes for Monthly Channel releases for Microsoft 365 Apps.

learn.microsoft.com