Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {00024500-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} failed due to the following error: 8000401a.

While working with excel in one of my SharePoint site with excel, I got an error as “Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {00024500-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} failed due to the following error: 8000401a” as shown the image below

This is the issue related to permissions for excel application in the server. We can fix the issue by the steps below.

Open Component services by entering dcomcnfg in Run.

In Component Services navigate to Component Services->Computers->My Computer->DCOM Config->Microsoft Excel Application. Right click and select Properties option as shown below.

Select “Identity” in top, “Which user account do you want...” section, select “This user” and enter the account having admin control on the machine.

In the security section, Under "Launch and Activation Permissions", Choose "Customize", Click "Edit" button, Add the everyone account and add all the Permissions as shown below.

Do the same thing in "Access Permissions" and "Configuration Permissions". Now we can run excel without errors. 

Hope this helps.

“The maximum number of allowed sessions per user has been exceeded. This operation cannot be completed” Error in SharePoint Excel services

While working with SharePoint Excel chart and graphs I got an error saying that “The maximum number of allowed sessions per user has been exceeded. This operation cannot be completed” as shown the image below.

We can get this error maximum sessions limit exceeded. By increasing the Maximum Session Per user limit, we can fix this error. We can increase the Maximum Sessions Per User by using the steps below,

Navigate to Application Management page and click on Manage Service Application link in Service Applications section. 

Click on Excel Service application in the list of service applications

 In Manage Excel Services Application page, click on “Global Settings” link

In Excel Services Application Settings page, “Session Management” section, enter Maximum sessions Per User. By default it is 25.  

Wow that’s big workbook. Unfortunately we can’t open a workbook larger than 10MB. You’ll need to open this in Excel - Large workbook error in SharePoint Excel Services

While working with excel workbooks in SharePoint, I got an error saying that, “Wow that’s big workbook. Unfortunately we can’t open a workbook larger than 10MB. You’ll need to open this in Excel.”

After checking issues into deep, found that the reason for this error is the size of the workbook to be opened is larger than the maximum size of workbook. We can configure the maximum size in the excel services settings.

To change the value, Navigate to Application Management, select Manage Service Applications link.

Select Excel Service application to configure to configure maximum value.

Click on Trusted File Locations in Manage excel service applications page

We’ll be navigated to Excel Services Application Trusted File Locations. Click on specific address we need to configure maximum size.

In Excel Services Application Edit Trusted File Location page, Workbook properties section, we have to specify the Maximum Workbook Size as per our need, click on OK 

button. 

“An error occurred during an attempt to establish connection to external data source…” error in SharePoint Excel service PivotTable manual refresh

In SharePoint server 2013, to refresh the data manually in PivotTables need to go for Data -> Refresh All Connections as shown in the image below.

While refreshing data I got an error like “An error occurred during an attempt to establish connection to external data source…” 

After checking the error in Logs I have find that the issue with identity currently set. When we access to refresh the data in PivotTables Claims to windows token service (C2WTS) will be used. If C2WTS is running with domain account that domain account needs permissions on the SharePoint server where it is running.

C2WTS domain account must be in SharePoint server’s local administration group where it is running and it has to impersonate the client after the authentication, Works to log an as service and it needs to be act as part of the operating system.

To access the local security policy of the server, Go to Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignments

By adding the permissions to the account that running Claims to windows token service, we need to restart the service on each server it is running. 

SharePoint 2013 Excel Services: We don’t know what happened. But something went wrong

While working with SharePoint 2013, checking the audit log reports in excel got the error as shown below. I have already configured the excel service as shown in the msdn. 

Checked the event logs, shows the error below.

Unable to access the workbook cache “C:\Windows\TEMP\Excel Server\FileCache\d8746073-d542-5f43-9b0d-45d345fd9f43\Workbooks. Excel Services Application unable to function without a workbook cache.

 After some troubleshoot found that the root problem is that to create or access the workbook. This is a permission issue. As a managed account, the Excel Services application pool is a member of WSS_WPG security group, to execute the permissions on the Temp folder.

To fix the issue I have followed the steps below,

Start -> run -> enter “%WINDIR%\Temp folder.

Click on properties, select security tab, click on Edit button

Add Modify permissions to WSS_WPG group and do IISRESET.

Now everything will work as expected.

Here we can grant permissions to each and every application pool. Here I just granted the permissions to the WSS_WPG group in other managed accounts need to create temporary cache files.