Officejs add/activate a new worksheet throw a GeneralException - excel

Question

We are building an Excel add-in by using a dialog. The dialog box will delivery a message to its parent/opener workbook. The function file will call a simple function as example:
const populateTable = (officeMessage)=>{
Excel.run(async context => {
const workbook = context.workbook;
const worksheets = workbook.worksheets;
const sheet = worksheets.add();
sheet.getCell(0,0).values = [[officeMessage]];
await context.sync();
}).then(()=>{
showDialogEvent.completed();
dialog.close();
}).catch(handleError);
}
Two workbook/excel desktop have been opened (Excel1 and Excel2). The dialog is opened in Excel1. However, if I focus another workbook(Excel2) before this function is triggered. Officejs API will create a new worksheet in Excel2 instead Excel1, and an error will be thrown as below:
{"description":"There was an internal error while processing the request.","name":"RichApi.Error","code":"GeneralException","traceMessages":[],"innerError":null,"debugInfo":{"code":"GeneralException","message":"There was an internal error while processing the request.","errorLocation":"WorksheetCollection.add","statement":"var add=worksheets.add();","surroundingStatements":["var workbook=context.workbook;","var worksheets=workbook.worksheets;","// >>>>>","var add=worksheets.add();","// <<<<<","var cell=add.getCell(...);","// Instantiate {cell}","cell.values=...;"],"fullStatements":["Please enable config.extendedErrorLogging to see full statements."]},"stack":"GeneralException: There was an internal error while processing the request.\n at Anonymous function (https://appsforoffice.microsoft.com/lib/1.1/hosted/excel-win32-16.01.js:24:286584)\n at Anonymous function (https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/promise-polyfill#8/dist/polyfill.min.js:1:822)"}
Note: I tried to save the first workbook's Request Context in memory and pass it into Excel.run, but it doesn't work.
Is there any way to solve this problem?

Answer 1

Thanks #Ericl for your report.
This is a known issue, we are working on a new feature (3743479) to fix this issue, A uservoice request was created , you could also upvote this request.
Please listen to this user voice, we will keep posted once we release this feature
The workaround currently is to force to open another instance/process of Excel to solve this problem.