Office 2019 Update breaking Pafe

[Steve Rowe]

Hi,
We've seen internally and at a customer the last Office 2019 update breaking Pafe (i.e. ribbon not loading).
Deleting the Office Connection folder and reinstalling the .xll didn't work.
Reinstalling Excel resolved the issue.

Anyone else seeing this issue and have a better fix?

[Steve Rowe]

Just to follow up on this.

We experienced this across multiple customers and internally across various versions, no real pattern.

We think, but cannot prove that the issue was triggered by this automatic update, the timing of the update matches for those impacted.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/top ... 761158a2da

This hits .Net 4.8 which is a prerequisite of Pafe.

We have found that forcing an update to MS Office has resolved the issue (at least internally).

Hope this helps anyone else breaking out in a cold sweat!

[gtonkin]

HI Steve,

Experienced the same the other day and made these notes once I noticed the problem:
Over the weekend my Excel/MS 365 updated (Microsoft® Excel® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2310 Build 16.0.16924.20054) 64-bit )
This morning launching the PAfE addin seems to do the necessary but no ribbon is shown.
The COM addin looks to be active, trusted the location of the XLL but still no ribbon.
Adding the addin in again crashes Excel.
I have cleared out the %appdata%\temp, renamed Cognos Connection to create a new one - no joy

Check for updates again - Build 16.16824.20088 was available and installed that - same issue no ribbon.
For xxxxx and giggles I checked again for updates (literally 5 minutes after the above) - it found another update.
After installing this one, it seemed to work - Microsoft® Excel® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2309 Build 16.0.16827.20166) 64-bit
For those sharp-eyed individuals, you would have noticed that the version went back to 2309 and the Build also rolled back.
My initial "update" must have been problematic and MS have rolled it back.
I also noticed a .Net update around the same time so could have been multiple factors.

[Steve Rowe]

I think the .Net update KB5031904 is not related as I've just been working with a customer who had not had that update but was experiencing the issue.

So, as you say, perhaps an issue with an Office update that has since rolled back.