Unable to load Officejs add-in from App store - excel

This error **Add-in Error** We couldn't connect to the 'Office Store' catalog server for this add-in. is shown when user tries to access the add-in.
See image
Steps to reproduce:
Open new excel file
Download the app from app-store.
Also tried removing the add-in and then re-adding it from the store but the same error persists.

Office won't be able to connect to the add-ins catalog unless there's a live internet connection, so when you see this error message, start your browser and make sure you can bring up a page or two that you haven't visited before. Or better yet, try to navigate to the add-in's web page. You can also try using any troubleshooting tools like Fiddler to see what happens under the hood.
This may be for a variety of reasons:
No internet connection
Blocked by firewall
Access disabled by a security policy
Add-in installation disabled by an administrator for Office applications

Related

"Communication with the SharePoint server is Cancelled" error when building SharePoint hosted addin

Last month, I had a Sharepoint addin installed into a clients Project Web Access (pwa) server working quite well.
This month, when I try to compile and run a new version of that same project in Visual Studio, I'm getting a popup asking "Do you want to switch the project to Offline mode?" and if I say 'No', I get a "Communication with the SharePoint server is Cancelled" error when uploading my project.
There have been no configuration changes. The only code changes were to a .JS file (and we reverted those changes, just in case).
There may have been updates to Visual Studio during that time.
I have...
Ensured that the server name is correct and unchanged.
Ensured that the 'Server Connection' property for the project is 'Online'
I can't find any useful diagnostic information anywhere.
Does anyone have any suggestions about how to resolve this, or at least how to get some diagnostic information about why it's happening?
It appears that Office365/SharePoint Online has new defaults that prevent access from external applications ( I was also unable to connect via PowerShell scripting using my Sharepoint Online credentials).
I updated the settings under Policies|Access Control in the Sharepoint Online admin console to allow connection, and now I can connect from PowerShell, and I've got a different issue in Visual Studio.
While I still don't have diagnostic information about communication problems, I've managed to get a little further.

Word 2016 Add-in blocked from accessing data for some Windows users

I've got a mysterious edge case with some Word 2016 users on Windows using my Word add-in.
I realize much more info might be required...but I also feel this is an issue that might have some proven ways to diagnose - or someone may know of a root cause.
My simple Word add-in pulls data from a MySQL db on my web server (via php) and stores it in localstorage. Works great in Word 2016 on multiple computers. A handful of users can't, essentially, download data and my solution throws errors for them.
I've even had 2 users on the same machine - one who can use my add-in, one who cannot (so each logging into different Windows accounts at the same institution. The user who was able to happily use my app is in IT and maybe had different settings).
My nose tells me there is an Internet Explorer security setting getting in the way...we've verified that localstorage is allowed.
When a user with the problem opens Internet Explorer directly, they're able to download data and use the app (part of it works outside of Word). As I understand it, Word 2016 Add-ins use Internet Explorer 11 to render html/js/css - and a setting changed in a user's IE11 settings area will cascade to Word 2016 add-ins.
Some of the weird details I've picked up:
Opening a new browser window from inside Word (clicking on a link in my add-in that opens a full web browser) prompts a "A website wants to open web content using this program on your computer" and points to Internet Explorer's Protected Mode. I've experimented with turning this on myself and can't recreate the issue.
The user isn't signed into O365. That doesn't seem to make a difference either.
Debugging via F12Chooser shows an [object error] with an error code of "-2147024891" and a "stack" message of "Error: Access is denied..." at the point where data would be pulled...I can't get much more out of the console.
The add-in is able to hit Firebase (I'm using Google's Firebase for authentication) and I get a response from their server...but not my ajax call to my php file.
Any thought or direction appreciated.

Outlook add-in error: When authenticating your add-in, we receive an error message and are unable to load your add-in

I've been going through the process of submitting a JS based add-in to the Outlook store through Microsoft's Seller Dashboard and I'm receiving the feedback:
Requirement:
Your app or add-in must not stop responding, end unexpectedly, or contain programming errors.
Error:
We encountered an error while testing your add-in.
When authenticating your add-in, we receive an error message and are unable to load your add-in.
Unfortunately there's no other information related to this request making it hard to debug or understand what is happening.
We've tested successfully on Outlook 2016 (Windows 10), Outlook 2016 (Mac OS), outlook.com (on Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and the latest version of IE) and other than a few peculiarities with how the desktop versions of Outlook handle things everything is working.
The only thing I can think of that may be triggering this is that we have a whitelist CORS approach. Currently we've whitelisted the domain our add-in is served from, but if Microsoft is bundling our add-in we'll need to whitelist the location it's eventually served from.
Is it likely that it's a CORS issue?
If so, what domains should we be whitelisting?
If not, how do we debug this given it works on outlook.com, Outlook 2016, and Outlook for MacOS when side loading from the same manifest xml document we're submitting through the seller dashboard?
Unfortunately the Office Store review team will not give many details that could be helpful. You have to provide as much testing information as possible in order for them to succeed. I had a similar loading issue at one point and they did not even bother to provide the browser type or version.
A good strategy is to output as much debugging information as you can to the browser console from your add-in's key functions. If you ask them to provide these logs in your testing notes they may be able to do that for you.
Note that the location your add-in is being served from is always your web server; Microsoft just hosts the manifest for the Office Store.
The error message that the screenshot is illustrating that the webpage your manifest is directing Outlook to load is not available. This means that when Microsoft is attempting to validate the add-in, the web server that the add-in is pointing to is returning a 404 HTTP Response.

Office documents prompt for login in anonymous SharePoint site

I have a MOSS 07 site that is configured for anonymous access. There is a document library within this site that also has anonymous access enabled. When an anonymous user clicks on a PDF file in this library, he or she can read or download it with no problem. When a user clicks on an Office document, he or she is prompted with a login box. The user can cancel out of this box without entering a log in, and will be taken to the document.
This happens in IE but not FireFox.
I see some references to this question on the web but no clear solutions:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices.development&tid=5452e093-a0d7-45c5-8ed0-96551e854cec&cat=en_US_CC8402B4-DC5E-652D-7DB2-0119AFB7C906&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=&p=1
http://www.sharepointu.com/forums/t/5779.aspx
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30817418/anonymous-users-getting-p.aspx
To disable login prompt opening office documents from SharePoint 2010 do the following settings in web.config
<system.webServer>
<security>
<requestFiltering allowDoubleEscaping="true">
<!-- here's where the magic happens -->
<verbs allowUnlisted="true">
<add verb="OPTIONS" allowed="false" />
<add verb="PROPFIND" allowed="false" />
</verbs>
</requestFiltering>
</security>
</system.webServer>
If Sharepoint Shared Workspace is enabled in MS Word this may prompt users with a Windows login if users do not have permissions to access or create a Shared Workspace. Do the followoing to turn this off:
Open MS Word
Go to Tools/Options
Click General Tab
Click Service Options
Click Shared Workspace
Uncheck box that says “The document is part of a Workspace or SharePoint Site.”
Click OK
Click OK
Try to hit a MS Word document from the SharePoint site.
If this resolves issue repeat steps with every MS Office program to eliminate the prompt. (Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, ect)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP010414641033.aspx
Unfortuantly the only work around I've found breaks some functionality for logged in users (can't upload multiple files, connect to outlook ect..)
If that is acceptable, or you want to try it and see:
In central admin > application management > application security > authentication providers select your web app and select your provider (likely "default").
Select No for client integration and save the settings.
Open your web config, find the line <add verb="OPTIONS,PROPFIND,PUT,LOCK,UNLOCK..... and remove the verb OPTIONS.
You should no longer be asked in ie for credentials. To reverse this simply undo both changes.
If you can click cancel and it comes up the problem is...
AuthForwardServerList
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943280
Office doesn't know the site is trusted/local so it doesn't fwd your credentials and prompts you with an opportunity to provide them. It's a feature....
If you list your site in the proper registry key it will forward your credentials which are not needed but you won't get prompted.
If you have a url rewriting module or urlscan, configure the software to send http 403 to http OPTIONS requests.
In the Sharepoint Server 2010, The solution method is a little bit changing because the new generation Sharepoint can not hold verbs in web.config. Therfore, you must change the method. First of all, you open IIS 7.0 and choose your application site. You can see many items at the middle of the screen. You choose and double click Request Filters. In the request filtres, you can see "Verbs". You can add OPTIONS and PROPFIND verbs to a deny mode. And finally test your site. Sometimes, Sharepoint needs to close Client Integration Mode of your site. If need, you can close Client Integration Mode in Central Administration.
Possible cause and resolution:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943280
"You are prompted to enter your credentials when you access an FQDN site from a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows 7 and has no proxy configured"
"For example, when you open a Microsoft Office file from a Microsoft Office SharePoint site by using 2007 Microsoft Office on a Windows Vista-based client computer that has no proxy configured, you are prompted for authentication."
My guess is that the Office client is loading the underlying document template from another location where anonymous access is enabled. This also explains why you can still open the document as the Office client can also work without loading the template the document was originally created from. To see the template URL in Word 2007, enable the Developer Ribbon from Word options and click the Document Template button on the ribbon.
That doesn't seem to be it. Once of the documents in question is an Excel file, which would not use the .doc template. Also, in the Document Template dialog, it doesn't give me a url to the SharePoint template file if I create a new Word document based on it. It just says the template is "Normal." I also tried disabling the template at the document library level and it doesn't change the password situation.
When opening an Office document in IE, an ActiveX component is used to call the client application, and prompt it to open the document. In other browsers, the download is a standard hyperlink, handled by the browser.
Does this happen in search results and in standard linked columns in document libraries as well?
Using a tool like Fiddler (as referenced/suggested in your first link reference, see http://www.fiddlertool.com/fiddler/ for more info) is the only efficient way of determining the root cause of this type of issue I'm aware of. Whatever is causing this will be happening over HTTP. A debugging proxy like Fiddler will show you exactly which URL/resource is causing the request for authentication.
On a related note, are you running a recent build of the platform? It might be wise to check to make sure this issue hasn't already been addressed by MS e.g. in a hotfix. The best list of updates I'm aware of is here: http://www.harbar.net/articles/postsp1.aspx
Check this : Remove Login box when anonymous users download office document from SharePoint Site
http://www.theblackknightsings.com/RemoveLoginBoxWhenAnonymousUsersDownloadOfficeDocumentFromSharePointSite.aspx
When developing Extranet/Internet site in SharePoint you often want to allow anonymous access and this works fairly well.
But there is one are where the out of the box experience fails regarding anonymous access and that is when you allow the users to download Microsoft Office documents. In that case IE/Office pops up a couple of Login dialogs, if the user cancels out of these the document opens as expected, but you really don't want the user to have to cancel a couple of dialogs to open your documents
The problem is that office tries to be intelligent and issues a Microsoft Office Protocol Discovery request to see how much the user is allowed to do, but SharePoint responds with access denied until the users logs in.
The solution I've found is to implement a HttpModule which rejects the Microsoft Office Protocol Discovery request if the user isn't logged in and this gets rid of the Login boxes
I'm guessing that you use Windows Vista. We had this problem on Vista but not on XP.
From Microsoft: In Windows Vista, Internet Explorer uses the Web Client service when you use Internet Explorer to access a WebDAV resource. The Web Client Service uses Windows HTTP Services (WinHTTP) to perform the network I/O to the remote host. WinHTTP sends user credentials only in response to requests that occur on a local intranet site. However, WinHTTP does not check the security zone settings in Internet Explorer to determine whether a Web site is in a zone that lets credentials be sent automatically.
If no proxy is configured, WinHTTP sends credentials only to local intranet sites.
Note If the URL contains no period in the server’s name, such as in the following example, the server is assumed to be on a local intranet site:
http://sharepoint/davshare
If the URL contains periods, the server is assumed to be on the Internet. The periods indicate that you use an FQDN address. Therefore, no credentials are automatically sent to this server unless a proxy is configured and unless this server is indicated for proxy bypass.
This is a known issue that has not quite been completely fixed yet. There is a MSDN blog about it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/10/19/known-issue-office-2007-on-windows-vista-prompts-for-user-credentials-when-opening-documents-in-a-sharepoint-2007-site.aspx
There is an interesting workaround posted here: http://grounding.co.za/blogs/neil/archive/2008/11/10/workaround-sharepoint-keeps-prompting-for-login-when-creating-office-2007-documents-on-vista.aspx
Ultimately there is a patch that has been included with Vista SP1 but it also requires a registry edit. We just recently got this to work using the following steps on a Windows Vista SP2 client:
Open regedit. Navigate to the following subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters
Create a new Multi-String value called AuthForwardServerList and give it a value of (for example):
https://.Contoso.com
http://.dns.live.com
*.microsoft.com
https://172.169.4.6
Then restart the WebClient service.
We were able to get this working by changing IE settings.
We have the site URL in Trusted Sites.
Under Custom Settings set User Authentication to: Automatic logon with current user name and password
I found a solution. First of all, you open the web application config file under the inetpub. Then you find the add verbs section. In this section, many verbs were added in the installation time. Delete Options and Profind verbs and save config file. Finally test the problem and see it. The problem is finished.
I've found the following workaround:
http://www.objectsharp.com/cs/blogs/max/archive/2008/04/21/sharepoint-public-facing-website-and-microsoft-office-documents.aspx
To keep it simple:
Disable client integration
Remove the OPTIONS verb from the registration line in the web.config file for the site

Weird yellow bar pops-up: 'Microsoft Data Access - Remote Data Services

When I access my site from any computer, I see this warning popping up:
"This web site wants to run the following add-on: 'Microsoft Data
Access - Remote Data Services Dat...' from 'Microsoft Corporation'. If
you trust the web site and the add-on and want to allow it to run,
click here..."
I am guessing this is some kind of virus or something. I would like to know how to remove this from my site.
Id be very concerned if this is on your own server.
I found the following blog post that warns on the issue: http://msmvps.com/blogs/hostsnews/archive/2007/09/13/can-you-spot-the-fake.aspx but doesn't provide any way of removing it.
I'd recommend making sure both the server and the client are up to date on Windows Updates, and then installing a good virus scanner.

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