The Formula doesn't read the cell value because it has a formula

[Ramadan2512]

I'm working on two worksheets ("District1" & "Stop work"") they are in the same workbook but one of them ("stop work") sheet is updating its data from another workbook as you can see in the screenshot
my problen is when I put a formula to compare data between the two sheets("District1" & "Stop work""), the formula doesn't work. I think it's because it can't read the value in the cells of the second sheet ("stop work") becasue of the formula inside the cells to collect information from another workbook as you can see in the image
and this is my formula that i use in conditional formatting

=AND('Stop Work'!$K8="",COUNTIF('Stop Work'!$D8:$D351,C9))

Please let me know how to fix that

 

[6StringJazzer]

one of them ("stop work") sheet is updating its data from another workbook as you can see in the screenshot

What I see in the screenshot is getting data from a worksheet called Stop Work.xlsm, not a workbook. The correct syntax to reference another workbook would be

='[Stop Work.xlsm]Sheet1'!$D15

and you have to put the actual sheet name where shown in red.