Issue with "Can't find Project or Library"

[Vaslo]

Hello,

We have a very complex Excel we use for monthly forecasting and input into a SQL Server database. Recently, we have been getting a problem which says "Can't Find Project or Library." I've researched this and realize it is due to a missing reference. I know the inclination will be to tell me to just turn the reference off, but unfortunately 1) Sometimes I can't get past the error to go and uncheck the busted library before it just keeps crashing and 2) Why is it coming back periodically when I am not making big changes to the file?

I was able to see the attached error:

ProjorLib.png

One of the Missing references is "Microsoft Object Library 16.0" - why does this keep popping up and then listed as missing, and can I just download the data for the reference? Can't find a place anywhere to get that Object Library 16.0. If I can't download, is there a way to kill it once and for all?

Thanks!

[xlnitwit]

Is someone who uses the file using Office 2016 rather than Office 2013?

[Vaslo]

No but actually we have folks that are using Excel 2010 vs. Excel 2013. Would that make a difference there?

[xlnitwit]

Office 16 is Office 2016, which is what I find confusing. You have got the proper reference (15.0) available to you, but I am unsure where the reference to 16 is coming from. Furthermore, the Office library usually adjusts automatically between versions without issue. If you replace the 16 reference with 15, does the problem recur?

[Vaslo]

So what is happening is I get a MISSING: Office 16.0 as above, we turn it off, and it works for a time, and then at some point, for some reason, it asks for the 16 again. This is especially tricky for those folks who use the file that aren't excel savvy-they get very lost. Is there anyway to force the missing above to never be asked for again??

[xlnitwit]

If you don't use any objects from that library you could try simply unchecking the reference completely.

[Vaslo]

I do that but then something somewhere forces it to come back.

[xlnitwit]

That's probably not too surprising as it's one of the 4 default references in any workbook. Are you absolutely certain you don't have someone using the workbook on a computer with a different version of Office to the rest of you?

[Vaslo]

There are people with 2010 and 2013, but no 2016 anywhere to my knowledge. Frankly it was a fight to get 2013 on our PCs!

[xlnitwit]

The only thing I can really suggest is to add a log sheet (or a text file if you have a central location you can use) that lists all the computers that save the file together with their application.version to see if you can track down the anomaly. This certainly shouldn't happen with the setup you have, though it could be a bug.

[Vaslo]

Thanks - only thing we can think is that somewhere someone has an add-on that is trying to call on something from the Object Library and "infecting" the files, but we can't pin it down to any one person.

[Vaslo]

We believe we have figured out the problem, but will need to test longer. After isolating the issue back to one specific employee, we found out that this person had One Note and One Drive installed on their PC. I'm not sure why/how this was happening, but we suspect that one of these had some reference to Office 365 which in turn was somehow using a newer office library which could not be used in Excel 2013. A strange error, and I'm not sure the person is being as upfront about whether they was opening these files in Office 365 (which they should not have been), but somehow it was affecting the files and putting in a reference which was breaking them upon open in older versions.