I'm writing this post to inform about a problem we are facing with Excel files produced with Qlik Tabular Reporting. We created a template using two Excel tabs: the first with a straght table (which is populated by QTR) and the second with a pivot table which has the first table as source. The problem is that the output Excel file throws an error on opening. The error message is:
There was a problem with part of the content in 'Filename.xlsx'. Would you like to try to recover the content? If you trust the workbook, click Yes.
Proceeding, a second error message is showed:
Repaired 'Filename.xlsx' The file was successfully opened by removing or repairing unreadable content. File-level validation and repair operations have been completed. Some parts of the workbook may have been repaired or removed: Removed part: Part /xl/pivotTables/pivotTable2.xml. (PivotTable view) Removed part: Part /xl/pivotTables/pivotTable2.xml. (PivotTable view)
The result is that the file opens, but the pivot table is "broken": dimensions and measures are misplaced, and the source link is omitted (the pivot table is converted to simple range).
Note that this template worked over many months without any issues. In fact, the problem has only recently started occurring with specific MS365 Excel builds, as shown in the following table:
Year Release Date Current Channel Compatibile? 2025 November 04 Version 2510 (Build 19328.20178) no 2025 October 30 Version 2510 (Build 19328.20158) no 2025 October 21 Version 2509 (Build 19231.20216) yes 2025 October 14 Version 2509 (Build 19231.20194) yes 2025 October 07 Version 2509 (Build 19231.20172) no 2025 October 01 Version 2509 (Build 19231.20156) no 2025 September 23 Version 2508 (Build 19127.20264) yes 2025 September 16 Version 2508 (Build 19127.20240) yes 2025 September 09 Version 2508 (Build 19127.20222) yes 2025 September 03 Version 2508 (Build 19127.20192) yes 2025 August 26 Version 2508 (Build 19127.20154) yes 2025 August 19 Version 2507 (Build 19029.20208) yes
At the moment, we didn't find a solution. With Qlik Support we could only demonstrate that the problem lies in Excel build, because the same file is correctly readable with compatible Excel builds. Our workarounds are disabling automatic Excel updates (which is very negative to tell to a customer) or avoiding using the native Excel pivot table options/formatting for something simpler to avoid the problem.
Let me know if someone encountered a similar issue and if you solved it. Thanks, have a nice day.
There are many known issues with Qlik tabular reporting and pivot tables. It's often recommended to utilize straight tables in Qlik to Excel and then leverage Excel's native pivot tables based on the straight table results. There are examples of how to do this in the Qlik help files for the tabular reporting.
Hello Mshann01, thanks for sharing: is there any kind of collection of these Excel issues?
Furthermore, I agree with your advice: in fact, we are using this pratice - QTR to Excel straight table, then native Pivot tables in Excel - but unfortunately this doesn't solve the issue. The exact same Excel template worked without problems before October 2025, then it started giving the mentioned errors.
I'm not aware of any collection of excel issues unless they are submitted in the ideation channel. I only know that some of my team has had issues with previously working pivot tables breaking on them. We did not see the same issue you reported but I know that my coworker had to convert a pivot to a straight table and recreated expressions in the report template to mirror was QS was doing.
This was the link for working with native Excel tables which sounds like you are already following.
In my opinion it is issue with the Excel and we cant do anything about it other than finding unsupported features we are using and trying to workaround it if possible.
cheers Lech, When applicable please mark the correct/appropriate replies as "solution" (you can mark up to 3 "solutions". Please LIKE threads if the provided solution is helpful to the problem.
I think that's a MS Excel issue too, but I am not able to pinpoint the evidence of it. I only have these two facts:
The same Excel file generated by Qlik Tabular Reporting generates an XML error when opened with some versions of MS Excel, but not with other versions.
The day of Excel file was generated is relevant: the same output sometimes generates the XML error, but it doesn't if generated in another day.
Is there some correlation between Microsoft releases and Qlik Tabular Reporting? I opened a new ticket to Qlik Support regarding this matter: R&D is still verifying the issue.
