Excel add-ins fail to load
Content
Introduction
As you probably know, I offer a number of tools for your daily Excel work:
- RefTreeAnalyser The best tool to dissect your formulas and find out where the data for a formula comes from
- FlexFind a tool with which you can do search and replace in all of Excel's objects, not just cells
- Name Manager The best tool to work with range names
- Other free tools
There is a problem however.
I've been getting reports from people complaining that they can no longer use add-ins. In this article I describe the problem and a solution.
The problem
Even though an add-in has been "installed" into Excel using the Add-ins dialog its userinterface does not show. This is that dialog (you get there by going to File, Options, Add-ins tab and pressing the Go... button):
As you can see, some add-ins are checked. But sometimes the user-interface of an add-in fails to display. In fact, the add-in file will not open in Excel at all, even if you try from Windows Explorer, or from File, Open from within Excel. Without any error message.
The cause
A recent Office Security update has caused any file downloaded from the internet (so this includes add-ins) to be marked as Blocked. Even if those files were in a zip container, they are marked as blocked. And Excel will simply not open them.
Solution
Unblock the files! Like so:
1. Copy the file from the zip file to any folder
2. Right-click the file and choose properties:
3. Click the Unblock button:

Additional problems
Some users report that even though they can check an add-in in the add-ins dialog and that add-in then works, as soon as they close and reopen Excel, the add-in is no longer installed (and hence does not open).
This is probably due to a bug in Excel which causes the add-in entries in the registry to be wrong.
Make sure you close Excel first. Open the registry editor and navigate to this location: Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel\Options
In that key, most of Excel's settings are listed. Find the ones that begin with the word "OPEN" (without quotes). Look closely, these MUST be numbered in order: OPEN, OPEN1, OPEN2, OPEN3, ...
If there is a gap, make sure you close that gap by renaming them. After renaming them, you should be able to add the add-in as usual.
Other resources
If you have a folder full of blocked files, this page describes a way to unblock all of them using Powershell.
And a great article by fellow-MVP Jon Acampora: Excel Add-in Ribbon Disappears After Installation.
This article describes the mechanics of the problem very well: http://www.howtogeek.com/70012/what-causes-the-file-downloaded-from-the-internet-warning-and-how-can-i-easily-remove-it/
Comments
Showing last 8 comments of 61 in total (Show All Comments):Comment by: Paulo Lamy Roque (31-1-2022 14:14:00) deeplink to this comment
Hello all,
Every time that I try to use this add-in appear a message saying "Microsoft Visual Basic Run-Time error'13': Type mismatch"
Already try to remove the add-in but I couldn´t, try to install back again the the problem continues
Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (1-2-2022 10:20:00) deeplink to this comment
Hi Paulo,
Which add-in is giving you that error please?
Comment by: Paulo Lamy Roque (1-2-2022 10:33:00) deeplink to this comment
Hello, it's the samradapps date picker.
Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (1-2-2022 10:42:00) deeplink to this comment
Hi Paulo,
I'm afraid you'll have to contact Sam about that, through his website: http://samradapps.com/about
Comment by: Abdul (17-5-2022 09:24:00) deeplink to this comment
hello dear i'm juste a beginnger in excel but i want to learn the code made by sam when i go to visual Basic to see the code of sam, a texte box pop in and the massage " VBAProject password" ask me to enter the passwoed can i ask you the password please? I want to understand the code completly please it for a project to validate my graduation this year
Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (17-5-2022 09:57:00) deeplink to this comment
Hi Abdul,
By Sam I presume you mean Sam Radakovics from http://samradapps.com/datepicker
Sam's not me so you'll have to ask Sam I'm afraid :-)
Comment by: Abdul (17-5-2022 12:08:00) deeplink to this comment
Thnk's a lot for you quick reply Jan Karel Pieterse Ok i will do that but i can't see contact us or contact me to ask directly to Sam Radakovics the passeword can you explain me How to contacte Sam please ?
Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (17-5-2022 13:59:00) deeplink to this comment
Hi Abdul,
I am not at liberty to share Sam's email address I'm afraid. But maybe you can find his profile on Linked-In and try to contact him there?
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