AddIn not loading about office-add-in-samples

[jnSWPC]

What is the version of office( preview) that is needed

[jnSWPC]

the version of office i have is Version 2004 ( 12730.20270)

[aafvstam]

What Add-in are you referring to? The repo contains several add-ins.

[jnSWPC]

excel-shared-runtime-scenario - https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP-OfficeAddins/tree/master/Samples/excel-shared-runtime-scenario

[aafvstam]

Usually this is related to the security. In my case, as I already had a valid localhost certificate, the sideload did not generate a new one and failed to load as well. I had to add the directory containing the manifest.xml (create a share to the folder containing the manifest first so you have a \machine\sharename location to put in your trusted catalogs.

Now I was able to run the Add-in (several other issues, but I believe it is WIP)

[jnSWPC]

Thank you..Could you please share the Office version you have?

This is the version I have

[aafvstam]

At this time I'm on:

But I'm pretty sure I was on your version when I tested it as I checked the version before that.

[jnSWPC]

I have created a share for the folder where manifest.xml resides

Also when i check for cert, i see the following

when i execute npm run sideload , excel launches and i see the following error

Appreciate help.

[aafvstam]

Did you also build and start the webservice (npm install, npm start) ?

If so you should be able to start the app in your browser (check the port in the npm start output):

As the addin is a two part process, the running webservice and the Excel addin reaching out to this webservice you need to have the webservice up and running before starting to sideload Excel. Sometimes it takes some time to load the webservice so wait until you are able to see the page as descibed next before you sideload the Add-in.

Now as this page is up you should be able to start and sideload the Addin by running "npm run sideload". This kicks in Excel, should also sideload the Add-in (if already certs were use the workaround I earlier mentioned)

[Note that the readme mentions things like "start npm start" as they trigger it from the cmd prompt. In my case I trigger the commands from VSCode Terminal so no need to prefix with start there]

Hope this helps ...

[jnSWPC]

Appreciate your detailed response.. yes I had the service running.. I see this certificate error.. could this be contributing to the issue I am seeing

[aafvstam]

Yes, this can be very much your issue. Is that what you see if you run the service in the browser? You can go into certmgr and remove the invalid certificate. After that "npm run sideload" most likely installs a new certificate...

[jnSWPC]

Thank you very much.. I cleared up my existing certs from cert mgr and then installed the root certificate from excelshare\certs ca.crt into trusted catalog.. started service, navigated to https://localhost://3000, and got cert error, installed the localhost cert into trusted catalog from within browser. now when i did a sideload the add-in loaded..

[aafvstam]

Great, good to hear! Certificates always is a bit of a pain. Office Apps are extremely good protected to avoid malware issues and other security risks. So to start it can be painful but once it runs you are good to go 😎👍

[jnSWPC]

I had another follow up question.. I have a visual studio office add-in project.. I am trying to explore the same shared runtime preview feature. I have referenced the beta office.js and the type. However during compile VS has a build failure as follows.. Is there a schema url for preview i can use that has the RunTimes definition?

[zlatko-michailov]

@jnSWPC, I was able to repro your issue. Yes, the problem is the cert. The command from the README - npx office-addin-dev-certs install installs a different cert.

What you need is that the CA that issued the https cert (localhost-ca) is trusted. Luckily, that CA cert is in the repo. To fix that, go to the certs subfolder, and manually install ca.crt to the Trusted Certificate Authorities (user-level is fine.)

When you restart Excel, and re-insert the add-in, you shouldn't see any errors. Then, when you start typing =CONTOSO in a cell, you should see auto-complete info.

Please confirm whether this fixes your issue.

[zlatko-michailov]

Sorry, I didn't see that you have already gotten a solution to this issue.

As your new issue is unrelated to these samples, please file it at StackOverflow with an office-js tag, so the team can close this thread.