Shared runtime issues after Excel.createWorkbook

[christian-sap]

Calling Excel.createWorkbook opens a new Excel window where the ribbon menu freezes.
In addition the launch of the add-in shared runtime does not seem to work.

Your Environment

• Platform [PC desktop, Mac, iOS, Office on the web]: PC desktop
• Host [Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.]:Excel
• Office version number: 2601 | 19628.20214
• Operating System: Windows

Expected behavior

Ribbon menu should not freeze

Current behavior

Ribbon menu freezes

Steps to reproduce

1. Load the "SAP Analytics Cloud" add-in from the store
2. Close all Excel windows
3. Open Excel
4. Run the attached ScriptLab script
5. Click the first button

After that the ribbon menu in the opened Excel window freezes. The real issue is that the taskpane app of the add-in does not succeed reading out the custom XML part of the workbook. There are no errors on the console and no errors in the runtime log. I guess the freezed ribbon is related to this.
The opened workbook contains content created by SAP Analytics Cloud add-in. In addition a custom function of the SAP namespace is used in the workbook.
My assumption is that the shared runtime of the add-in is somehow launched too early and probably the Office.onReady call hangs or the first call to context.sync has issues.
The issue does not occur if no custom function is used in the workbook (second button).

In general the issue only occurs the very first time after creating Excel.createWorkbook. The issue does not occur when you reopen the created workbook or when you refresh the taskpane app.

Useful logs

• Console errors
• Screenshots
• Test file (if only happens on a particular file)

createWorkbookEnhanced.txt

[github-actions]

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[VanshikaDhingra]

We are working on this and will provide an update shortly

[joerg-sap]

Heyyo wish you a great tuesday :)
any updates on this issue, could you reproduce it?

Br and thanks in advance
Joerg

[VanshikaDhingra]

Yes @joerg-sap, we can reproduce this but it happens not just when the file has custom function but for the blank workbook as well. Working to find the fix

[VanshikaDhingra]

Thank you for reporting this issue. We have been able to reproduce it and have identified the root cause.

When Excel.createWorkbook() is called from a shared runtime add-in with custom functions, the API internally hides the newly created workbook. This hide operation triggers a window activation change, which causes Excel to synchronously evaluate ribbon callbacks back into the same WebView2 that is already executing the createWorkbook call. Since the JS context is single-threaded and already busy, it cannot service the ribbon callback — leaving the WebView2 frozen (ribbon + taskpane unresponsive) while the rest of Excel continues to work.

A fix has been developed and is currently going through our internal validation and flighting process. Unfortunately, there is no reliable client-side workaround. If your scenario allows, moving custom functions to a separate (non-shared) runtime avoids the issue, since it only occurs when custom functions and the ribbon share the same WebView2.

We will update you once the fix is available in an Insiders build for validation. Thank you for your patience.

[christian-sap]

Thanks @VanshikaDhingra for the update. Unfortunately we can not just move the custom functions to a separate runtime in production. Would be great to get updates in which versions the fix will be included.