Preview not working for Excel Documents

Ryan Clark 1 Reputation point
2020-10-01T13:54:42.603+00:00

The preview does not appear to be working for Excel documents only. This is SharePoint 2016 and Office online server 16.0.8471.8525.
The error is just "We can't show a preview of this item"
The error appears on all Excel files from existing files to newly uploaded almost empty files.
Everything works fine for Word documents.
Opening and editing the files in Excel also works.

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Microsoft Office Online Server
Microsoft Office Online Server
Microsoft on-premises server product that runs Office Online. Previously known as Office Web Apps Server.
639 questions
SharePoint Server Management
SharePoint Server Management
SharePoint Server: A family of Microsoft on-premises document management and storage systems.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
2,941 questions

2 answers

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  1. Itch Sun-MSFT 2,556 Reputation points
    2020-10-02T02:18:51.563+00:00

    Hi @Ryan Clark

    What version of excel are you using?

    Have you used Office Web Apps 2013?

    If this is the case, Office Web Apps 2013 is unsupported with SharePoint 2016. You must deploy Office Online Server instead.

    In addition, can't preview all excel file types in excel?

    As trevorseward said, please check whether there are related error messages in the uls log.

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  2. Ryan Clark 1 Reputation point
    2020-10-02T08:18:58.28+00:00

    As per the original post, it is Office Online server 16.0.8471.8525
    The preview is in SharePoint when looking at the document in the library, the desktop version of Excel is not involved
    As per my previous answer, there are no errors in the ULS logs.

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