Excel Services: Data Refresh Failed

Davy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:41:48 +0000

After deploying an Excel file to Excel Services on a new MOSS Server I got the following error:

Data Refresh Failed: Unable to retrieve external data for the following connections:

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The data sources may be unreachable, may not be responding, or may have denied you access.

Verify that data refresh is enabled for the trusted file location and that the workbook data authentication is correctly set.

But the file was in an Excel Services Trusted Location and so was the data source.

Finally I found the following error message in the Sharepoint Log (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\LOGS):

Excel Services can not use credential delegation when it is configured to use a trusted subsystem with Windows SharePoint Server

Ok that explains it: when they installed Excel Services on this new machine they did not configure it to use Delegation Mode.

To change Excel Services to use Delegation Mode, you need to use the command line tool stsadm. Execute the following statements in a command window:

Cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN

stsadm -o set-ecssecurity -accessmodel delegation -ssp SharedServices1

stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

iisreset

This should do it. Enjoy!

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Excel Services: Data Refresh Failed