Cross sheet references not updating

I have 10 sheets which each have multiple cross-sheet references from other sheets. For the past year these sheets have functioned as designed, and all references (Vlookup and Indexmatch) have updated automatically without me having to even look at it. However, I noticed this past week these 10 sheets stopped updating automatically, and only refreshes when I manually open them. Ive tried adding automations (updating a helper column hourly, sending myself hourly refresh emails, and even adding a checkbox column which toggles on and off by the hour), none of which resolved the problem.

Any ideas on the cause of this?

note; these sheets have static rows, while the columns across update per the cross sheet references. No new rows are ever added- and the columns are fixed, with formulae in each column across which should refresh with data as it gets pulled from the reference sheets.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated, as opening these manually to refresh is time consuming and defeats the point.

Thanks!

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Jesse G.

I can't really help but just wanted to say I'm having the same issue. I checked for the cell size and the maximum references of 500000 or something cells but that's not the issue…

kowal

hi @ErnestVASA,

looks like a bug in the system - did you try to connect support already on that?

if the index/match was working for years and now is not updating I would recommend to save the sheets as new and see if this will resolve the issue.

ErnestVASA

hi @kowal

I logged a ticket with support 48hours ago and Im yet to receive a response.

Thanks for your suggestion to copy the sheets, I will do so tomorrow, as I literally had to babysit all ten sheets today to ensure they update- had them open across two stations and refreshed and toggled till my mouse died.

I hope this is a systems bug that is fixed- as this is not feasible.

kowal

hi @ErnestVASA yeah good luck with that.

Kayla

I am having the same issue, in what I've noticed is now in 2 separate Workspaces. It would take me a solid month of working straight to add the 'today helper' record date automation to each sheet that has cross sheet formulas, not realistic.

This is drastically impacting business / day-to-day operations.

Putting in a support ticket now, but that's been just about useless in the past. If anyone else is experiencing the same issues, please comment here and vote this post up to get some attention and get SS engineering to look at it.

paigekantro

I can't help with this but I wanted to say that we are experiencing the same thing and it is significantly impacting our daily operations. I just put in a support ticket.

Isaac A.

Thank you all for your patience.

Engineering is actively working on resolving issues with cross-sheet formulas not updating unless the sheet is opened. A fix is expected to be available by Tuesday.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Isaac.

Spencer_W

Hello Isaac,

Has this issue been resolved? I am still having the same issue where a reference I have on one sheet, (pulling info from another sheet based on the date) is not being updated until I open and refresh the target sheet.

Thank you for your help!

Spencer

Isaac A.

Hi @Spencer_W!

Thanks for following up!

According to the latest update from our engineering team, this issue is partially resolved. There were a few behaviors reported:

The source sheet loads “dirty” and causes cross-sheet formulas to return a #REF error, this is typically resolved by opening and saving the source sheet or making an update to it.
The same issue causes #REF errors in Reports and Dashboards, also resolved by opening and saving the source sheet.
The source sheet loads dirty, shows a #REF error, and cannot be saved, this case is still under investigation.

If your issue falls under scenario 1 or 2 and you're still seeing the problem even after trying the usual fixes, I recommend reaching out to our Support Team here: Smartsheet Support Portal so they can continue looking into it.

I hope this helps!

Cheers,
Isaac.

SmartLearner

Hi @Isaac A. ,

Do you know if the problem is back?, I've been experiencing the same thing or even worse 😓 where my data loads and within seconds disappears. Here is a screenshot of how frequent the problem happens:

I just opened a ticket for the issue as well for some tech support.

Isaac A.

Hi @SmartLearner!

Thanks for following up! I’m not seeing any major issues reported at the moment, so it’s great that you’ve already opened a ticket. Please continue working with our Support team so they can help you get this sorted as soon as possible.

And if you don’t mind, once the issue is resolved, feel free to post the resolution here, this can be super helpful for others who might run into something similar in the future.

Cheers,
Isaac.

Spencer_W

Hello,

So sorry I never responded with my resolution!

It ended up just being the fact that the today() formula does not update automatically on another sheet, so I just set up an automation to basically refresh the page at the top of the day.

This fact about Today() is explained in the Smartsheet reference page, I just had skimmed over it and didn't realize it was the case.

Thank you,

Spencer

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