Question

How to find broken external links

Asked by: amit_g

I am trying to use an existing excel macro that does

ThisWorkbook.UpdateLink Name:=ThisWorkbook.LinkSources

when the links are broken, the dialog box appears to browse for the file. I could use

Application.DisplayAlerts = False

to suppress the dialog box. However, I need to know if there was a broken link. The Excel sheet that this macro works on has hundreds of external links. There is a lot of processing that happens after the UpdateLink call. That processing cannot happen unless all the links have been updated. If there is missing or broken links sources, I need to stop and notify the calling program that there was an error. I also tried checking Err.Number but that is always 0.

I need to somehow find out that there are broken external links and stop the macro if there are missing links. I also need a way to notify the calling program about this.

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Asked On
2007-08-10 at 10:54:52ID22755302
Tags

excel

,

links

,

external

,

find

Topic

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Software

Participating Experts
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Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: roos01Posted on 2007-08-10 at 12:00:43ID: 19672658

to suppres the dialog for updating links you might use this line:
Application.AskToUpdateLinks = False

to turn it on:
Application.AskToUpdateLinks = True

Jeroen

 

by: amit_gPosted on 2007-08-10 at 12:06:31ID: 19672708

I can suppress that dialog already but I need to know that there were broken links in the sheet that could not be updated. The rest of processing can't go through unless all links have been updated without any error. If there are any missing links, I need to stop and notify the callee.

 

by: roos01Posted on 2007-08-10 at 12:51:05ID: 19673063

to check the status it can also be done manual.
Edit>>Links>>Check status button.

I wished I could approach the status property, though could not find it.
Still here an example can be found to check the status:
http://www.mrexcel.com/archive2/63500/73537.htm



I changed the code a bit to get a function like:
Function CheckLinkedStatus()
Dim strLinkStats(10) As String, lsLinkStatus As XlLinkStatus
alinks = ActiveWorkbook.LinkSources(XlLink.xlExcelLinks)
    If IsEmpty(alinks) Then Exit Function
    For i = 1 To UBound(alinks)
    lsLinkStatus = ActiveWorkbook.LinkInfo(alinks(i), xlLinkInfoStatus)
    If lsLinkStatus = 1 Then
        CheckLinkedStatus = True
        Exit Function
    Else
        CheckLinkedStatus = False
    End If
    Next i
End Function

It checks the status of the active workbook. If a broken link is found then it returns True or else False

regards,
Jeroen

 

by: amit_gPosted on 2007-08-10 at 14:37:00ID: 19673810

Thanks Jeroen. Here is what I modified a little bit more ;)

Function CheckLinkedStatus()
    Dim LinkStatus As XlLinkStatus
    Dim ExternalLinksSources() As Variant
    Dim I As Integer
   
    ExternalLinksSources = ActiveWorkbook.LinkSources(XlLink.xlExcelLinks)
   
    If IsEmpty(ExternalLinksSources) Then
        CheckLinkedStatus = True
        Exit Function
    End If
   
    For I = LBound(ExternalLinksSources) To UBound(ExternalLinksSources)
        LinkStatus = ActiveWorkbook.LinkInfo(ExternalLinksSources(I), xlLinkInfoStatus)
       
        If LinkStatus <> xlLinkStatusOK And LinkStatus <> xlLinkStatusOld Then
            CheckLinkedStatus = False
           
            Exit Function
        End If
    Next I
   
    CheckLinkedStatus = True
End Function

 

by: roos01Posted on 2007-08-10 at 23:32:09ID: 19675015

Thanks for the grade.
Good change you made. Made me search for other statusses as you used like xlLinkStatusOld.

here more infor about it:  (though you might already found it):
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/de-de/library/microsoft.office.interop.excel.xllinkstatus(VS.80).aspx


 

by: amit_gPosted on 2007-08-11 at 15:01:30ID: 19677410

Yes that is where I got the enums. Thanks for the feedback though.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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