Troubleshooting

Template Size Shading

Zen analyzes the formulas in the rows of worksheets you create to produce the minimum set of rows needed to compute your worksheet. That minimum set of rows is called a worksheet template, and it is a key feature of how Pebble Stream works.

When using generative directives (match-rows, generate-rows, or stop), Zen determines for each row in your worksheet whether the next row is a repeat of the previous row. It then sets that previous row as the drag-down (or a fill-down) row for that worksheet.

Sometimes users inadvertently create more template rows than they intended. The following illustrates this effect.

Users should be immediately suspicious of worksheets with more than two or three rows in the shaded template, as this is not usually by design.

Too many rows in a template can make it too large for Zen to analyze. To solve this, examine your worksheet to determine the reason for the larger template, then revalidate to ensure Zen reduces the template size to what you expect.

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For performance reasons, Zen stops the analysis of templates at 100 rows!

Spinning "validate" or "execute" buttons.

Sometimes, Zen will encounter temporary internal Excel Add-in issues that it cannot recover from. It will do its best to report where it encountered the error, but this is not always possible.

When this occurs when using Zen in the browser, try:

• Reloading the Add-in from the Home menu bar
• Reloading the web page
• Restarting your browser
• If the problem persists, make sure you are using Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome for the best experience.

When this occurs when using Zen in Desktop Excel, try:

• Reloading the Add-in from the Home menu bar
• Restarting Excel

If the problem persists, reach out to our support team.

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If Zen is unable to explicitly report the worksheet that failed, it is a good bet that the execution stopped processing on the worksheet that caused the failure.

Grey screen on loading

Sometimes loading the Zen Add-in fails, resulting in a grey add-in screen. When this happens, follow the recommended approach outlined above for dealing with spinning buttons.

Cannot see the dependency graph

A missing dependency graph could be due to several factors.

Graph centered off pane.

One is that the graph has been centered offscreen. Try zooming out with the mouse scroll wheel, or click "validate" to recreate the graph.

Zen detected a validation error

Another reason could be that Zen detected an error during validation. Inspect the worksheet tabs to find a pink worksheet, then open the PebbleScript editor and enter the page for pink-colored cells. Read the comments in those cells for a hint on how to correct the situation.

Unexpected Excel Add-in error

Follow the procedure for dealing with spinning buttons .

Cannot access custom functions

Microsoft Excel supports custom functions for its Add-ins. Zen provides two types of custom functions:

Pebble Stream custom functions

These are utility functions provided as a supplemental package to paid Zen users. They are prefixed with the string "PS."; an example is "PS."MATCHES, an alternative to Excel's MATCH function.

Organization custom functions

These are custom functions commissioned by an organization for its members. They have a unique prefix and are only accessible to Zen users who belong to that organization.

Although all available custom function definitions are visible to Zen users, their use is limited to users within that organization.

If you believe you should have access to a custom function, but it is not loading, follow the procedure for dealing withspinning buttons .

Some functions have the prefix xldudf and won't execute

This is another version of Cannot access custom functions.