PHPExcel generated Excel Error - Links cannot be updated - php

Question

My PHPExcel generated excel contains a barchart and a pie chart and is automatically fired to an email. When the email attachment is downloaded and opened (you have to click enable editing) it displays this alert box:
When the email attachment is downloaded and opened (you have to click enable editing) it displays this alert box:
and behind this you can see the expected data in their cells and a blank canvas for the charts.
I close the excel document and open it again, this time I get the expected chart displayed along with data sets overlayed by this alert box:
I close the excel document and open it again, this time I get the expected chart displayed along with data sets overlayed by this alert box:
Clicking on the update link in the second alert box resolves to launching the first alert box. Clicking continue in that resolves to the chart going blank, only showing a blank canvas with axis.
My code uses extensive variables to determine the cell location for each data field. I tried using EXIT at the end of the script as advise by one of the answers around here. That didn;t work.
Code Sample:
// Add some data
$objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)
->setCellValue('A'.$StartRow, 'Date')
->setCellValue('B'.$StartRow, $ndate)
->setCellValue('C'.$ParticipantStartLabel, 'Enrolled')
->setCellValue('D'.$ParticipantStartLabel, 'Logged In')
->setCellValue('E'.$ParticipantStartLabel, 'Yet to Log In')
->setCellValue('F'.$ParticipantStartLabel, 'Monitors (BOI, EDC and AMI)')
->setCellValue('B'.$ParticipantStartDetails, 'Participants on the program')
->setCellValue('C'.$ParticipantStartDetails, $ParticipantEnrolled)
->setCellValue('D'.$ParticipantStartDetails, $ParticipantLoggin)
->setCellValue('E'.$ParticipantStartDetails, $ParticipantYettoLog)
->setCellValue('F'.$ParticipantStartDetails, $Monitors) //$Monitors
->setCellValue('A'.$CoursesStartRow, 'S/N')
->setCellValue('B'.$CoursesStartRow, 'Course')
->setCellValue('C'.$CoursesStartRow, 'Enrolled')
->setCellValue('D'.$CoursesStartRow, 'Completed')
->setCellValue('E'.$CoursesStartRow, 'Incomplete');
//print courses for single dataset
for( $i = 0 ; $i < $NumCourses; $i++ ){
$newi = $i + 1;
$newCoursesStartRow = $CoursesStartRow + $newi;
$objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)
->setCellValue('A'.$newCoursesStartRow, $newi)
->setCellValue('B'.$newCoursesStartRow, $Courses[$i]) // continue to Add some data on courses
->setCellValue('C'.$newCoursesStartRow, $CoursesEnrolled[$i])
->setCellValue('D'.$newCoursesStartRow, $CoursesCompleted[$i])
->setCellValue('E'.$newCoursesStartRow, $CoursesIncompleted[$i]);
}
Any help to decipher why the document would not just open with displaying this distracting alert boxes is appreciated.

Answer 1

It's called security, and Microsoft have applied it in all recent versions of MS Excel. The purpose is to prevent any malicious excel files from executing arbitrary code. Unfortunately, because some people have chosen to use Excel spreadsheets for malware, Microsoft have chosen to provide these warnings to indicate that they can't guarantee that this spreadsheet may contain dangerous content, and that the user opening it must make a conscious decision to accept the risks.
Generally, you would only get this error if the spreadsheet references other spreadsheet files, or if it tries to access remote data. Are you building your file froma template that may contain these?