Excel Documents Throw Unable to construct record instance on Full Reindex

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Summary

Problem

When running a full reindex some Excel documents throw this error in the atlassian-confluence.log

1 2 3 2016-09-26 14:41:59,203 WARN [Indexer: 4] [bonnie.search.extractor.BaseAttachmentContentExtractor] addFields Error indexing attachment (Attachment: document.xls v.1 (12345678) username) -- url: /confluence/admin/reindex.action | traceId: b14e5a6e019c2cd5 | userName: admin | referer: https://confluence.mycompany.au/admin/search-indexes.action | action: reindex org.apache.poi.hssf.record.RecordFormatException: Unable to construct record instance

Diagnosis

The Excel documents that throw this error are usually saved in an old format of Excel or with non-Office products such as Open Office.

Cause

The format of these documents is not hanadled by the Lucence indexing engine.

Solution

Resolution

To fix this issue please download the affected document and re-save it in a newer version of Excel and re-upload to Confluence.

Updated on April 8, 2025

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