Spreadsheet SUM(C:C) or indeed any SUM no longer works Excel 2003

[Guest]

I have just opened a spreadsheet and tried changing data in my C Column but
noticed the results of the SUM formula did not change. I pressed recalculate
F9 and still no change. Suspect some update has broken the SUM functionality
- looks pretty serious to me. Can anyone enlighten me as to how to fix the
SUM problem, also makes me wonder what other fundamental formulae are now no
longer working. Loads of business depend on Excel data, and I would have
thought the Sum functionality pretty basic. Makes me wonder what business
decisions are being made today on the strength of spreadsheets that have out
of date SUM values bearing no relation to the data that is summed by the SUM.
I know there was an issue with spreadsheets created in other versions of
Office or something, but I have just created a new spreadsheet and the SUM
does not SUM. Am I missing something here?

 

[Bob Phillips]

You can't break the SUM function, but you can break the data. Is the data
text not numbers?

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

(replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct)

 

[Guest]

Hi Bob,
Thanks for the reply.

In the past I have not needed to distinguish for numbers all I type is for
example
1
or
even
2

I have not for example inserted
'1
or
'2


I have even tried using
=1
or
=2
and I get the same problem, ie SUM() gives 0

Could it be a nasty virus or spyware thing do you think?

 

[Guest]

Check the numbers in the column through selecting the cells one by one while
noticing the sum figure on the status bar. this might give you a clue on the
cells that are not affecting the total.

 

[Bob Phillips]

SUM will ignore text, but it will also ignore text that look like numbers,
this is what I am suggesting.

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

(replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct)

 

[Guest]

Hi Vijay_India,

I have now just created a brand new clean spreadsheet and all I have done is
type
1
into A2

and the formula =SUM(A:A) into B1 cell

B1 shows 0

I have even set the format for the entire worksheet to Number 2 decimal places
A2 shows 1.00
B1 shows 0.00

Even inserting =A2 into C1 shows
0.00 in C1 cell

Thanks for your advice, looks like something pretty fundamental.

 

[Guest]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for coming back.

I see what you say, but when I open up a spreadsheet that has worked in the
past with the data that is already in there, and I then try to delete a row
of data, I would have expected the SUM value to reduce by the deleted row
amount, that was what first alerted me to the problem.

However as I said to Vijay_India it is now a single cell worth of data that
is being ignored by the sum and indeed by a reference to it also, weird?

 

[Guest]

Finally cracked it - I needed to run Detect and Repair and the Sum
functionality magically starts working again. Pretty scary stuff, no warnings
nothing just failing to get the right results from basic SUM function. Will
never rely on Formulae just being right now without double and triple
checking at least some of them. Let the Excel User beware........

 

[Guest]

How did you do that? Probably everyone will get to know the security side of
excel now.

 

[Guest]

Hi Vijay_India,

Not sure if you meant how did I break it, or how did I fix it, but assuming
the latter as I don't think I will ever know how it got broken.

All i meant by Detect and Repair is you click on the Help Menu inside Excel
and select the option off there called 'Detect and Repair'. It then goes away
and magically resets everything presumably back to the install time.

Don't think that has any real security implications, so not too sure what
you mean by that. The Detect and Repair did not report anything as it went
along it just went away and presumably just did a sort of restore process. I
suppose though if it happened once it could happen again. We do become too
dependent on these things and assume that they are always right. Best to be
certain and check and double check I guess.

 

[Bob Phillips]

Looking at help, it says ...

a.. This procedure detects and repairs problems such as missing files and
registry settings associated with all installed Microsoft Office programs.
It will not repair personal files, such as spreadsheets or documents.

.... so it sounds as though you (maybe inadvertently) did something that
messed up Office.

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

(replace somewhere in email address with gmail if mailing direct)

 

[Guest]

Well that looks like the case Bob, but it does make me wonder what in fact
that was, and if I can inadvertently do this, then presumably there may be
others out there that can also.

What would have been nice though would have been to have been given some
indication that something was amiss when I first opened the spreadsheet
before I had noticed the fault.

What would have been even more useful would have been for the detect and
repair to report on the most likely cause of the missing registry keys or
whatever, or at least to tell me not to do whatever it was I was supposed to
have done again. If I was told what was missing it would have maybe been of
use for future.

Unfortunately since it is now fixed there will probably be absolutely no way
of finding out exactly what the mystery cause was. Oh well!

 

[Guest]

Thanks a ton.

Hi Vijay_India,

Not sure if you meant how did I break it, or how did I fix it, but assuming
the latter as I don't think I will ever know how it got broken.

All i meant by Detect and Repair is you click on the Help Menu inside Excel
and select the option off there called 'Detect and Repair'. It then goes away
and magically resets everything presumably back to the install time.

Don't think that has any real security implications, so not too sure what
you mean by that. The Detect and Repair did not report anything as it went
along it just went away and presumably just did a sort of restore process. I
suppose though if it happened once it could happen again. We do become too
dependent on these things and assume that they are always right. Best to be
certain and check and double check I guess.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

In the status bar did you notice any circular reference?

Jaleel

 

[Guest]

No nothing like that. But the problem is now sorted using the Detect and
Repair, thanks for your contribution.