Can't get excel document open."contacting the server for information, press esc to cancel"

[ben_weinberg]

Hi All

I wasn't sure if this was the best place to ask this.

We have recently moved file servers and before hand we were not aware that there are a huge amount of excel documents used by our users which link to other excel documents.

Now when they try to open one of these documents Excel hangs with this message in the status bar: "contacting the server for information, press esc to cancel" No amount of pressing Esc brings this back to life.

The only way i can get one of these documents open is by disabling the network connection on the computer. As the folder structure on the new server is identical to that of the old server i was thinking i could fix this with a DNS Entry, but right now my main concern is trying to find out exactly what these excel documents is looking for?

How can i view what files this excel document is trying to access? Any other ideas about how i go about getting this resolved? As of right now the users basically can't do any of their work relating to excel documents they use! Would really appreciate any help on this!

Thanks in advance.

Ben

[dilipandey]

Hi Ben,

Welcome to the forum.

Request you to change the subject line of your thread to reflect the query being asked.. see the forum rules. thanks.

http://www.excelforum.com/forum-rule...rum-rules.html

Regards,
DILIPandey

<click on below 'star' if this helps>

[ben_weinberg]

I have now edited the subject

Sorry about that! Any help on this would be appreciated!

[dilipandey]

Hi Ben,

You can suggest users to edit the links to reflect correct server path..
also it would be little quick if one post the file(s) on server itself and then correct the link from there.. after this they just need to refresh links and it's done..
One more point... updating one link will automatically update other linked files housed in the similar folder of server path..
And.. try opening the file in advanced version of excel i.e., 2007 or 2010 where you will find more user friendly linking window. thanks.

Regards,
DILIPandey

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