Excel slow opening files on network share

[HCHTech]

This is my week for intractable problems, it seems. I've got a small office client - local utility. They have a year old Server 2019 server (Single App Server VM - no DC) and 4 workstations (one is 3 yrs old, the others are 2 years old. All Ryzen 5's, 16GB RAM & 250GB SSDs. They all have Office 2019. For some reason about a month ago Excel started opening files on their server share slowly. These are not big, complicated files - the one I've been using to test is a simple calendar spreadsheet - it's 120KB with no extensive calculations or external links. If I open it from the network share, I get the little "downloading" progress bar on the bottom of the Excel window that stays at 0% and it takes 20 to 25 seconds to open. Doesn't matter if Excel is open and I use File/Open, or if I just double-click on the file in File Explorer. If I copy that same file to the desktop of the workstation, it opens instantly.

The rest of the Office applications don't exhibit this problem. Word files and Powerpoint files open on the network share normally. Copying large files back and forth over the network works normally and is fast. All of the workstations exhibit this behavior with Excel to some degree. The delay is longer on some than others, but there is a delay on all for Excel files on the server.

Things I've checked and done (in addition to wearing out Google)

• Checked that Office is up-to-date on all computers - it is
• All workstations are at 20H2
• Checked for errors in the server logs - found nothing suspicious
• Ran Office Repair - no effect
• Toggled SMB1 on the server on and then back off again
• Workstations are not Dells and don't have realtek drivers (this is a known bug)
• Toggled SMB 1 on the workstations on and then back off again
• Added the server shared drive to the trusted locations in Excel - both UNC and mapped drive
• Disconnected shared drive and remapped it. Tried mapping via IP vs. UNC.
• Disabled hardware acceleration in Excel (this actually helped shave a couple of seconds off the loading time)
• Checked for an updated NIC driver - there was one, but no effect on the symptom.
• Checked CPU, memory and disk load during the opening process - no spikes. Hardware not working hard at all.
• Checked that no one had managed to enable Cortana - that's a common cause of this behavior.
• Tried opening Excel in safe mode - no difference in behavior - that means it isn't an add-in
• Check the server load - it's not even breaking a sweat. It runs their customer database and holds a small file share - that's it. Lots of processor, memory and storage to spare.
• I have NOT tried taking a workstation back to 2004, that's not a long-term solution, even if it did fix the issue.

I'm ready to just call this a bug and move on, but of course, that's not really an acceptable answer from the client's perspective. Any suggestions from the hive mind?

 

[callthatgirl]

Can you install the 32 bit version? I've fixed many Excel snags this way.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Tested with excel --safe?

Also, update the graphics driver. (I know, it seems crazy... but Excel uses the GPU!)

 

[timeshifter]

Can you load it from a different share - i.e. have another workstation share a folder and open it from there?

Wonder if it has to do with macros and Excel being afraid to run code from a network location.

Have you tried opening other files that Excel can handle like .xls (assuming you're currently using .xlsx) .csv .txt

Turn off AV or try a different AV

 

[nlinecomputers]

Disabled hardware acceleration in Excel (this actually helped shave a couple of seconds off the loading time)

Tested with excel --safe?

Also, update the graphics driver. (I know, it seems crazy... but Excel uses the GPU!)

This. Im betting it on a graphics driver Gpu issue. Excel steals gpu cycles for processing.

Also anything in the event log? And you may have to look closely. You may not see a failure but see some com driver loading when you open the file. Process explorer may also show you something loading as excel does. PITA

 

[HCHTech]

Can you install the 32 bit version? I've fixed many Excel snags this way.

I had not thought of this, so I tried it today - fresh install of 32-bit Office exhibits the same symptoms unfortunately.

 

[HCHTech]

Tested with excel --safe?

Yes - from the original post:

Tried opening Excel in safe mode - no difference in behavior - that means it isn't an add-in

I will try upgrading the graphics driver next.

 

[trevm999]

Run Process Monitor and filter to excel to see what it is doing while it is trying to load

 

[TurricanII]

As mentioned, disable AV on server (check Defender AND 3rd party). Could be an AV update.
Excel creates temp files when you open - does the folder have thousands of files in it?
Close all the Excel sheets and delete any TMP files.
Does 'Everyone' have 'Full Access' on the share and NTFS permissions?
Is File Preview enabled for the network folder in Explorer? This can cause the workstations to try and preview the file within Explorer. Pop it back to list view perhaps.
Log our of any Microsoft accounts on the workstation and server (or create a fresh user profile on workstation/server) - that has solved it for some.
Is the folder on the server within Dropbox or subject to file indexing? Maybe disable those to test.
Do you use the workgroup templates in Excel to store common templates on the network?
Open an XLSX file from the network share and leave Excel open, then try and open another by file/open or double click - does it open faster?

 

[HCHTech]

Well, progress. The AV wasn't involved, but @timeshifter gave me the clue asking about other filetypes. I saved the problem file I was using in the old .xls format, and that one opens normally. So I went to the original file they gave me as an example of the bad behavior, did the same thing, and got the same result. I checked the couple of other files I had tried, and they too opened normally in .xls form. When I save them back in .xlsx format, I get the slow opening again. At least now I've got a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. I noticed that these files are all "monthly" creations. Which means they recreate them every month - no doubt copying them from the previous month. I know from experience that doing this over and over can lead to corruption, so probably forcing them to start over and make one from scratch will fix the problems. Ugh - I can't believe I've spent so much time chasing this. Not sure why the combination of network location + xlsx = problem, but there we are anyway.

 

[Sky-Knight]

The answer to that is probably indexing, the search functionality in Windows is rather dependent on it. And it does get involved on network shares at odd intervals. To make matters worse, if M365 is involved, there's internal audit trails for edits too that can get all sorts of fun. The .xls format doesn't support these things.

 

[callthatgirl]

So those files could be 15 years old? I would make all fresh ones for sure lol.

 

[Markverhyden]

So those files could be 15 years old? I would make all fresh ones for sure lol.

I agree. Many years ago when I was in sales I had to create bids in Word. Rather than starting from scratch each time we would all have a default file, a template before there were templates, to start work on. While rare, on occasion, they'd get corrupted. I'd complete everything, might be a half dozen pages or so with certain text and column formatting. When re-opened it was all messed up. Found that even deleting everything in the file, making it blank, and saving it did not make the problem go away. New content still had problems

 

[HCHTech]

Post mortem on this one - The files weren't 15 years old, but were copies of copies of copies of copies of an original template that is about 24 months old. They were originally .xlsx files, and the client still had the originals, which opened fine as a .xlsx. They recreated one with current data and it also opened fine as a .xlsx, so they have their homework now to recreate all of the problem spreadsheets using the original templates again.

So something happened to the current copies somewhere along the way - no way to tell what. Weird.