Excel Error: Removed Records: Sorting from /xl/worksheets/sheet10.xml part

I'm almost sure I will have to create a new excel file, but maybe at least here I get some ideas what was the source of the problem.

My excel file is constantly giving the following error:

Excel found unreadable content in 'filename.xlsm'. Do you want to recover the contents of this workbook? If you trust the source of this workbook, click Yes.

So I do. And the file opens as repaired showing:

Removed Records: Sorting from /xl/worksheets/sheet10.xml part.

The detail is that I don't even have a sheet10

Its a big excel file full of custom-objects. But I have no DB connections or autofilter so could not relate to AutoFilter Criteria Using Array (Error) - Too Large String? or xlsx error: "Removed Records: Named range from /xl/workbook.xml part" when tried to resolve errors.

Anyone has a clue what's going on?

tks in advance

Solution

I am afraid I cannot explain what is going on, but I had similar experience several times - always with XLSM file. In the latest case I learnt that Excel did not like the same range name used twice, when defined as Worksheet range name (we assumed it is safe to use it that way).

Our troubleshooting path is:

try to save file as XLSB (binary macro file) and either use XLSB file or save it back to XLSM
check file history (we always keep daily snapshots) and find when the problem firstly occurred; use previous version and port your changes
extract the code (via SVN code), create a new workbook and import the code back

Usually Step 1 solves the problem, but Step 3 never failed us.