Error message states filename or path has an invalid character. Internet indicates this was a problem several years ago but that Apple fixed it. Now I have it and cannot open any excel file which till now had no problems.
iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), macOS Sierra (10.12)
Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011 (been using it for 5 years without a problem), version 14.7.7. Mac OS is High Sierra version 10.13.6. Word has the same problem but Powerpoint works normally.
And that is likely the problem. Office 2011 is not fully compatible with High Sierra. While many users aren't seeing major problems, others find it to be almost completely unusable under HS, and other varying results in between.
MS halted all future development for Office 2011 in October of 2017. High Sierra has gotten a fair number of OS updates since then. The more there are, the more the chance a stagnant app will start glitching. On top of that, Office 2011 was never fully updated for High Sierra. MS released an Office 2011 patch for High Sierra's early days that was basically the bare minimum to allow it to work, but none since.
Time to leave what is now almost 8 year old software behind. Either that, or use it on an older Mac, or the Mac you have with an older OS on another partition.
Office 2016 is the current perpetual license of Office. But, Office 2019 is due to be released later this year. MS doesn't have upgrade pricing for Office, so there's no sense purchasing Office 2016 only to spend the full price on Office 2019 in two or three months.
Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011 (been using it for 5 years without a problem), version 14.7.7. Mac OS is High Sierra version 10.13.6. Word has the same problem but Powerpoint works normally.
And that is likely the problem. Office 2011 is not fully compatible with High Sierra. While many users aren't seeing major problems, others find it to be almost completely unusable under HS, and other varying results in between.
MS halted all future development for Office 2011 in October of 2017. High Sierra has gotten a fair number of OS updates since then. The more there are, the more the chance a stagnant app will start glitching. On top of that, Office 2011 was never fully updated for High Sierra. MS released an Office 2011 patch for High Sierra's early days that was basically the bare minimum to allow it to work, but none since.
Time to leave what is now almost 8 year old software behind. Either that, or use it on an older Mac, or the Mac you have with an older OS on another partition.
Office 2016 is the current perpetual license of Office. But, Office 2019 is due to be released later this year. MS doesn't have upgrade pricing for Office, so there's no sense purchasing Office 2016 only to spend the full price on Office 2019 in two or three months.
Get rid of MacKeeper. If you've not run it yet don't. If you have follow the directions here: How to uninstall MacKeeper
Also do the same for webroot. It's not needed and only compromises system and application performance. Search for instructions to uninstall.
You should try creating a new user on your system and see if you can read the excel file from the new user. Place excel file your having problem with on a flash drive. Load file onto Desktop of new user. At times, preferences can get messed up. By creating a new user, you avoid such a mess up.
You should be able to "save as" the spreadsheet as a doc or docx file with a new name. I'd expect you will be able to read this file with excel.
All my excel files have the same problem.
This is worrying. Do you have a backup of your system? Are you having other problems with other apps like Word? Could be a systemic problem. Perhaps excel has gotten corrupted. Re-install excel? You should run disk utility to check out your drive. You could do a safe boot which does a drive check.
Try a safe boot.
Shutdown your machine. Hold down the shift key. Poweron. The boot up will take longer than normal because the filesystem on the startup drive is being checked and repaired as needed. All about safe mode including what features and apps safe boot leaves out.
Did you try opening the file in a different user account or in Safe Mode as rcharles suggested? You never responded regarding those suggestions.
Download and run Etrecheck. Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.
EtreCheck version: 4.3.6 (4D041)
Report generated: 2018-08-13 10:14:08
Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com
Runtime: 3:20
Performance: Good
Problem: Other problem
Description:
Excel and Word will not open files stating that there is an incorrect path or invalid characters in the file name. This is for files I’ve used for years without a problem. This started when I updated OS High Sierra 10.13.6.
Major Issues:
Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.
Unsigned files- There are unsigned software installed that could be adware and should be reviewed.
Minor Issues:
These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems.
Clean up- There are orphan files that could be removed.
32-bit Apps- This machine has 32-bits apps that may have problems in the future.
Hardware Information:
iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)
iMac Model: iMac13,2
1 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-3470S) CPU: 4-core
8 GB RAM - Upgradeable
BANK 0/DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR3 1600 ok
BANK 1/DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR3 1600 ok
BANK 0/DIMM1 - Empty
BANK 1/DIMM1 - Empty
Video Information:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M - VRAM: 512 MB
iMac 2560 x 1440
Drives:
disk0 - APPLE HDD ST1000DM003 1.00 TB (Mechanical)
Internal SATA 3 Gigabit Serial ATA
disk0s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB
disk0s2 - }\ (Journaled HFS+) 999.35 GB
disk0s3 - Recovery HD (HFS+) [Recovery] 650 MB
disk1 - Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 62.90 GB
External USB 5 Gbit/s
disk1s1 - Q*****N (MS-DOS FAT32) 62.87 GB
disk2 - Western Digital My Passport 25E4 4.00 TB
External USB 5 Gbit/s
disk2s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB
disk2s2 - M*****************c (Journaled HFS+) 4.00 TB
Mounted Volumes:
disk0s2 - }\ 999.35 GB (718.35 GB free)
Journaled HFS+
Mount point: /
disk1s1 - Q*****N 62.87 GB (61.34 GB free)
MS-DOS FAT32
Mount point: /Volumes/Q*****N
disk2s2 - M*****************c 4.00 TB (2.85 TB free)
Journaled HFS+
Mount point: /Volumes/M*****************c
Network:
Interface en0: Ethernet
One IPv4 address
Interface en7: iPhone 3
Interface en1: Wi-Fi
802.11 a/b/g/n
One IPv4 address
Interface en5: iPhone
Interface en6: iPhone 2
Interface en4: Bluetooth PAN
Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge
iCloud Quota: 68.94 GB available
System Software:
macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G65)
Time since boot: About 4 days
System Load: 1.68 (1 min ago) 1.56 (5 min ago) 1.52 (15 min ago)
Security:
| System | Status |
|---|---|
| Gatekeeper | Mac App Store and identified developers |
| System Integrity Protection | Enabled |
Unsigned Files:
Launchd: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.SmartSearch.plist
Executable: ~/Library/Application Support/com.SmartSearch/SmartSearch r
Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist
Executable: /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper
Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK
Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.webroot.WRMacApp.plist
Executable: /Applications/Webroot SecureAnywhere.app/Contents/MacOS/Webroot SecureAnywhere
Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK
Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.webroot.security.mac.plist
Executable: /usr/local/bin/WSDaemon 'Webroot Mac Security Daemon'
Details: Exact match found in the whitelist - probably OK
Safari Extension: webfilter
32-bit Applications:
26 32-bit apps
System Launch Agents:
| [Not Loaded] | 8 Apple tasks |
| [Loaded] | 159 Apple tasks |
| [Running] | 126 Apple tasks |
| [Other] | One Apple task |
System Launch Daemons:
| [Not Loaded] | 37 Apple tasks |
| [Loaded] | 175 Apple tasks |
| [Running] | 124 Apple tasks |
Launch Agents:
| [Running] | com.webroot.WRMacApp.plist (? a3f791c9 - installed 2018-08-01) |
| [Loaded] | com.microsoft.update.agent.plist (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2018-07-11) |
| [Other] | com.adobe.ARMDCHelper.cc24aef4a1b90ed56a725c38014c95072f92651fb65e1bf9c8e43c37a2 3d420d.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-02-15) |
Launch Daemons:
| [Loaded] | com.adobe.ARMDC.SMJobBlessHelper.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-02-15) |
| [Running] | com.sonos.SonosLibraryServer.plist (Sonos, Inc. - installed 2018-07-27) |
| [Running] | com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper.plist (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2018-07-11) |
| [Running] | com.webroot.security.mac.plist (? e491c976 - installed 2018-08-01) |
| [Running] | com.webroot.webfilter.mac.plist (Webroot Software, Inc. - installed 2018-04-18) |
| [Loaded] | com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing.plist (Apple - installed 2018-07-04) |
| [Loaded] | com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-06-25) |
| [Loaded] | com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist (? 6d8cb30e - installed 2015-06-04) |
| [Loaded] | com.adobe.ARMDC.Communicator.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2018-02-15) |
User Launch Agents:
| [Running] | com.spotify.webhelper.plist (Spotify - installed 2018-06-17) |
| [Other] | com.viewmc.protect.update.plist (? 0 - installed 2017-03-27) |
| [Loaded] | com.SmartSearch.plist (? 0 - installed 2018-08-12) |
User Login Items:
VerizonUpdateCenter Application (? - installed 2018-08-13)
(/Applications/VerizonUpdateCenter.app)
Internet Plug-ins:
FlashPlayer-10.6: (installed 2018-07-10)
QuickTime Plugin: (installed 2018-07-16)
AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: (installed 2018-07-11)
AdobePDFViewer: (installed 2018-07-11)
Flash Player: (installed 2018-07-10)
NP_2020Player_IKEA: (installed 2012-09-28)
SharePointBrowserPlugin: (installed 2017-09-17)
JavaAppletPlugin: (installed 2015-07-02)
User Internet Plug-ins:
NPRoblox: (installed 2017-03-07)
Safari Extensions:
| AdBlock.safariextz - BetaFish, Inc. - https://getadblock.com(installed 2018-07-28) |
| AOL One Click.safariextz - aol.com - http://www.aol.com/(installed 2014-06-20) |
| Password Manager.safariextz - Webroot - https://webroot.com(installed 2017-04-07) |
| webfilter.safariextz - Unknown (installed 2017-06-08) |
3rd Party Preference Panes:
Flash Player (installed 2018-06-25)
Time Machine:
Skip System Files: No
Mobile backups:
Auto backup: Yes
Volumes being backed up:
}\: Disk size: 999.35 GB - Disk used: 280.99 GB
Destinations:
M*****************c [Local] (Last used)
Total size: 4.00 TB
Total number of backups: 103
Oldest backup: 2017-05-11 16:07:17
Last backup: 2018-08-13 10:08:47
Top Processes by CPU:
| Process (count) | Source | % of CPU | Location |
| WindowServer | Apple | 5 | |
| kernel_task | Apple | 2 | |
| com.apple.WebKit.WebContent | Apple | 2 | |
| sandboxd | Apple | 0 | |
| WSDaemon | Webroot Software, Inc. | 0 |
Top Processes by Memory:
| Process (count) | Source | RAM usage | Location |
| kernel_task | Apple | 905 MB | |
| Safari | Apple | 509 MB | |
| com.apple.WebKit.WebContent | Apple | 477 MB | |
| WSDaemon | Webroot Software, Inc. | 360 MB | |
| VerizonUpdateCenter | ? | 187 MB | /Applications/VerizonUpdateCenter.app |
Top Processes by Network Use:
| Process | Source | Input | Output | Location |
| mDNSResponder | Apple | 30 MB | 14 MB | |
| Safari | Apple | 840 KB | 41 KB | |
| netbiosd | Apple | 375 KB | 108 KB | |
| com.apple.WebKit.Networking | Apple | 153 KB | 43 KB | |
| apsd | Apple | 8 KB | 9 KB |
Top Processes by Energy Use:
| Process (count) | Source | Energy (0-100) | Location |
| WindowServer | Apple | 3 | |
| Safari | Apple | 0 | |
| apsd | Apple | 0 | |
| WSDaemon | Webroot Software, Inc. | 0 | |
| bluetoothd | Apple | 0 |
Virtual Memory Information:
| Available RAM | 2.20 GB |
| Free RAM | 15 MB |
| Used RAM | 5.80 GB |
| Cached files | 2.18 GB |
| Swap Used | 113 MB |
Software Installs (past 30 days):
| Name | Version | Install Date |
| MacKeeper | 2018-08-02 | |
| Gatekeeper Configuration Data | 150 | 2018-08-07 |
Clean up:
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.viewmc.protect.update.plist
~/Library/Application Support/viewmc/viewmc.app/Contents/MacOS/Installer
Executable not found
Diagnostics Information (past 7 days):
2018-08-12 15:37:54 corecaptured Crash
/usr/libexec/corecaptured
BUG IN CLIENT OF LIBPLATFORM: os_unfair_lock is corrupt |
2018-08-09 13:58:26 WSDaemon CPU
/usr/local/bin/WSDaemon
2018-08-09 12:29:28 passd Crash
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PassKitCore.framework/passd
2018-08-08 10:14:51 launcher Helper.app Crash
/Applications/Minecraft 2.app/Contents/Frameworks/launcher Helper.app
2018-08-07 15:32:01 Firefox.app Crash
/Applications/Firefox.app
End of report
you could try renaming the file. Pick something simple like aaa
where did this file come from?
word will not accept file longer that the full path and name longer than 256 characters.
R
Boot into Safe Mode, Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode, and try moving/renaming from there. Any improvement?
You do not need to open the file in excel to rename the file. See it in the finder. click once. wait. click again. Should come up in highlighted. type in the new name.
R
Get rid of all third party apps that claim to protect, clean, boost performance, manage, etc. This would include MacKeeper and WebRoot.
Excel won't open the file or let me see it. So I can't do "save as".
I wasn't clear. I was suggesting you save an excel sheet with numbers app with a new name in either doc or docx. Perhaps there is a minor corruption in the file that is causing troubles which number would fix. You should save it to the desktop with a simple name of all letters a to z.
Same when I try to open it in finder.
The finder opens it in what ever app is associate with doc/docx. In your case that is excel.
I did confirm that Word has the same problem so it might be something between Apple and Microsoft.
Curious.
Seems that Microsoft only employs a few error messages when it comes to opening a file. The error message are generic and at times misleading. The message should be thought of as "open failed".
more things to try:
Try a safe boot.
Shutdown your machine. Hold down the shift key. Poweron. The boot up will take longer than normal because the filesystem on the startup drive is being checked and repaired as needed. All about safe mode including what features and apps safe boot leaves out.
Have you tried renaming the file?
Here is what Microsoft says about Office and High Sierra.
Microsoft Office support for macOS 10.13 High Sierra - Office Support
Kurt Lang in the solved post indicated it was an incompatibility between High Sierra and Office 2011.
R
I downloaded Libre and it did let me open and edit/print my Excel and Word files. But so did Numbers and Pages. Thanks for the lead.
Excel Will not open file due to incorrect path or filename
