New Google Sheets custom functions sometimes display “Loading…” indefinitely

Question

SPECIFIC FOR: \"NEW\" google sheets only.

This is a known issue as highlighted by google in the new sheets.

Issues: If you write complex^* custom f

Answer 1

I also had the "loading data..." error but none of the fixes described here worked for me. It didn't seem to be caused by the issues described here. In my case, I narrowed it down to a specific floating point operation issue (it looks like a real bug in Google Sheets to me), and documented one possible work around at

Google Sheets / Apps "Loading data" error: is there a better workaround?

To summarize (at the request of commenter Steve), if a cell with

   = myfunction(B10)

generated a "loading data" error, then for me it could be fixed by wrapping the argument in a "value()" function:

   = myfunction(value(B10))

which converts the number in cell B10 (which seemed like a normal number but generated problems somehow) into a normal number that works fine.

Answer 2

My app script pulling data from my MSSQL database displayed just fine on GoogleSheets my laptop browser but then did not display on the Android GS app.

Per this thread it looks like there's a number of issues that could cause this, but @DestinyArchitect's answer above re: Permissions seemed like the simplest fix.

While testing my app script, Sharing was off for this GoogleSheet file. Once I moved it to my team's folder where we have default Sharing switched on with a few team members, the MSSQL data showed right up on the GoogleSheet in my Android GS app.

Easy fix, this time...

Answer 3

Just to add to Azmo 's answer...

I in fact removed all trailing semi-colons from the code:

// check if an item can be checked off
function checkedOff( need, have ) {
  var retStr = "nope"
  if( have >= need ){
    retStr = "yep"
  }
  return retStr
}

And discovered, that when doing this over a large range you can also max out the acceptable number of calls to the API.

To get around it I added an IF THEN check around my custom script call.

So instead of:

=checkedOff(H10,H11)

Use something like this to check for a populated field before execution:

=if(H17<>"-",checkedOff(H10,H11),0)

Answer 4

In my case, the cell was stuck with a Loading... message due to "probably" a race condition between functions and formulas resolutions.

This is my custom function:

function ifBlank(value1, value2) {
  return !!value1 ? value1 : value2;
}

This is the formula calling it: =IFBLANK(VLOOKUP($A2,Overrides!$A$2:$E,5,FALSE),VLOOKUP($A2,'_resourceReq'!$A$2:$C,3)) Those VLOOKUP values could be pretty complex and could also take some time to resolve.

Solution: (in my case)

Wrapping the VLOOKUP() into TO_TEXT() or VALUE() for example.

So, changing the formula to =IFBLANK(TO_TEXT(VLOOKUP($A2,Overrides!$A$2:$E,5,FALSE)),TO_TEXT(VLOOKUP($A2,'_resourceReq'!$A$2:$C,3))) worked well.

If that doesn't work maybe try resolving the value from a function into a cell before using it as the argument of your custom function.

Answer 5

TL;DR - Try duplicating the sheet tab and delete the old one

I struggled with this issue today, and tried some of the approaches mentioned. For various reasons, renaming the function wasn't possible for me.

It was very clear that if I called a my function like this in cell X25:

=myFunction("a", 1, "b", 2, "c", 3)

The cell would be stuck "Loading...", while just changing a parameter slightly (e.g. converting a number to a string) the cell would evaluate fine.

=myFunction("a", "" & 1, "b", 2, "c", 3)

Just copying the code into another cell (e.g. X24) and executing it there seemed to bypass the problem. As soon as I moved it back to the original parameters or cell, it got stuck "Loading..." again. So I would assume it's some kind of caching of "Cell ID", function and parameters that go bonkers on Google's side.

My good-enough solution was to simply duplicate the Sheet tab, delete the old one, and finally rename the new one back to the original name. This solved the problem for me.

Answer 6

For me, renaming the custom function solved the problem. For now at least.