Get Rid of That Annoying Update Links Alert

Hello!! Are you familiar with that annoying alert Excel pops up when you open a workbook? Around half of the workbooks I receive over emails shows me this alert. A screenshot of this error is given below.

If you also get this alert and want to get rid of it, read on.

This alert is often caused by broken links that your formulas refer to. But that may not be the only case. Let’s see the various reasons and what to do.

Most probable cause might be your formulas. Check all the formulas in your workbook by pressing Ctrl+` (we already discussed about this in a previous post). If there is any formula that is referring to external workbook or showing a #REF! error, edit the formula.

Click on Edit Links… button in the alert or you can access it by Data tab > Connections group > Edit Links (Excel 2007 or later) or Edit menu > Links (In Excel 2003 or earlier). Any of this action opens a dialogue box Edit Links which looks like as in below picture. (I hid the actual source, confidential!!)

If you have any workbook name appearing under Source, that might be the culprit. You can choose from various options in this dialogue box to update values from Source book or change Source or open the source to make sure it is available or break the link. Status column under source will show you if that source is causing error or not. You can refresh the source status by clicking on Check Status. There is a button available at the left bottom to set an option for start-up prompt.

These options are self-explanatory. You can ask Excel to sit silent even if the links are broken by selecting one of Don’t display alert ….. options!

If this does not solve your problem, there might be another cause. Open Name Manager in that workbook (read this post to know more about Named Ranges) and see Refers To: field for all the names. If a name refers to another workbook or it contains an error like !#REF! then edit the names or delete them if they are not required. This is one of the common causes for broken links.

No luck yet? No worries. Check if you have charts in that workbook. If you do, click on each data series and see if the series formula refers to within the workbook. If this formula refers to external workbook, copy that data to current workbook and edit / delete the existing link.

Save your workbook and reopen it. Now your workbook should open without this alert. Happy?