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 functions in google-apps-script for google sheets, you will occasionally run into cells which display a red error box around the cell with the text "Loading..."
Google has suggested:
If this occurs, try reloading the page or renaming the function and changing all references to the new name.
However for other developers experiencing this issue (and who are unable to escape the "loading..." error), I've written my findings in the answer below on how to get past this (with limitations) consistently.
*We're treating this question as the canonical answer for Google Sheet's indefinite "Error... Loading data" problem. It's not limited to complex or slow functions.
Important Tip: Create multiple copies of your entire spreadsheet as you experiment. I have had 3 google spreadsheets corrupted and rendered completely in-accessible (stuck in a refresh loop). This has happened when I was experimenting with custom functions so YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
You will want to try one or many of the following ways to fix this issue:
As suggested by google, try re-loading the spreadsheet or re-naming the function or changing the parameters in the cell to see if this fixes the issue.
Surround ALL your custom functions in a try-catch block. This will help detect code issues you may not have tested properly. Eg:
try{
//methods
}catch(ex){
return "Exception:"+ex;
}
Revert to the old sheets and test your functions and check for any other type of error such as an infinite loop or invalid data format. If the function does not work in the old sheets, it will not work in the new sheets and it will be more difficult to debug.
Ensure NONE of your parameters refer to, can expect to or will ever contain a number larger than 1 million (1000000). No idea why but using a number larger than a million as any parameter will cause your function to fail to execute. If you have to, ask the input to be reduced in size (maybe divide by 1000 or ask for M instead of mm).
Check for numeric or floating point issues where numbers may exceed a normal set of significant figures. The new sheets seems to be a little glitchy with numbers so if you are expecting very large or very complex numbers, your functions may not work.
Finally, if none of the above work, switch to the old google sheets and continue working.
If you find any other limitations or causes for functions to fail to execute, please write them below for me and other users who are heavy g-sheet users!
I also had the infinite loading issue with the following function.
// check if an item can be checked off
function checkedOff( need, have ) {
var retStr = "nope";
if( have >= need ){
retStr = "yep";
}
return retStr;
};
Turns out you shouldn't have a trailing ";". Removing the semicolon solved the problem.
// check if an item can be checked off
function checkedOff( need, have ) {
var retStr = "nope";
if( have >= need ){
retStr = "yep";
}
return retStr;
}
This runs as one would expect.
FWIW, I just ran into this and the culprit ended up being a getRange() call that pulled several thousand rows into an array. Periodically it would get hung on the "Loading..." message.
I worked around it by putting that range into the document cache. It's a little kludgy because the cache only stores strings, not arrays, but you can force it back into an array using .split(',') when you need to access the array.
(In my case it's a single array. There's probably a way to do it using a double array, either by sending each row or column into its own cache, or reading the cache value back N items at a time, each N becoming its own array.)
Here's the relevant bit from my code:
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("mySheet"); //search the "mySheet" sheet
// is the big list already in the cache?
var cache = CacheService.getDocumentCache();
var cached = cache.get("columnValues");
if (cached != null) {
var columnValues = cached.split(','); // take the cached string and make it an array
} else { // it's not in the cache, so put it there
var column = 1; // the column with your index
var columnValues = sheet.getRange(2, column, sheet.getLastRow()).getValues(); // first row is header
cache.put("columnValues",columnValues,60000); // this forces the array into a string as if you used .join() on it
}
This is definitely a bug in Apps Script -- getRange() shouldn't hang without a timeout or error message. But at least there's a workaround. Here's the bug I opened against it, where I've also put the full code.gs from my sheet.
One cause: Permissions needing authorizing.
As far as {this problem, better phrased the cell result(s) of a custom function displaying the disgustingly-vague message ‘Loading... Error: loading data...’}, indeed in the case where all instances of the same/similar custom function call displaying this error, is that Google Sheets needs permissions to run the script (often additionally: meaning in the past it didn't need these), so instead of {acting appropriately: then prompting the user for these permissions else returning that error}, Sheets instead hangs with this disgustingly vague error.
Additional permissions can be needed from 1 or more:
Google App Scripts has since rewriting their permission structure --how this problem now just happened to me, per my internal note O80U3Z.
Your code or some library it uses made changes to require more access ...but in this case you have a much better chance of guessing the cause of this disgustingly-vague error, so hopefully won't be reading here.
To fix, I explicitly ran my GAS spreadsheet code by both: clicking one of my custom menu functions and, in the ‘script editor’, running one of my custom JS functions notably the ‘onOpen()’ since that is most comprehensive. The first promoted me for indeed new permissions, via popup ‘Authorization RequiredThe application "MM6ZBT(MM6Z83 script)" needs authorization to run.’, though onOpen() also did this in cases of GAS revising its permissions since we used that sheet. Then, as I was still getting this ‘Loading...’ error, I reloaded the web page (so the sheet), and, at least for these cases of this disgustingly vague error, it was gone and the computations worked fine :-)
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.
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.
I also had the problem that you explained. It seems that it can be caused in more than one way.
I ended up finding that my custom function was displaying that error because it relied on data from an =IMPORTRANGE() call, and that call was failing.
I eventually found that the =IMPORTRANGE() call was failing because I had forgotten to update the URL that it was importing from when I had uploaded a new version of that imported-from sheet. It seems that trying to IMPORTRANGE from a trashed file can cause the infinite "Loading..." error.
Update 2022
It looks like this bug is still happening. I tried ALL the solutions mentioned here but none worked.
What worked was to start with a blank slate. I recreated the file, copy-pasted my data, reapplied my preferred style and format, and lo-and-behold the sheet finally managed to pull the data using my custom functions.
This is a definitely a bug on Google's end - and it's all the more annoying because they removed the "Report a problem" button from the "Help" section.
Nevermind
The newer sheet has stopped working too. This is so annoying ..
The problem is that when a custom function formula cell starts showing Loading..., the custom function does not get called at all. The code in the script project thus does not come into play. Even the simplest custom functions sometimes suffer from the issue.
The problem usually goes away if you clear the formula cell and undo, or slightly edit the custom function's parameters to cause it to get re-evaluated. But that does not solve the issue. Google has been dragging their feet solving the underlying cause for many years.
To help the issue get Google's attention, star issue 233124478 in the issue tracker. Click the star icon ☆ in the top left-hand corner to vote for fixing the issue and get notified of status changes. Please do not post a "me too" or "+1" reply, but just click the star icon. Google prioritizes issues with the most stars.
Add-ons
I had two add-ons, and no function was loading.
I removed them, and all is well!
For me, renaming the custom function solved the problem. For now at least.
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)
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...
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.
In my case, multiple cells using functions experienced this issue, but the simple answer was... wait.
In my case, I was scraping data via importXML functions across multiple rows and
columns. I was thrilled with the results, feeling on top of the world, then "Loading..." started showing its ugly face. For way too long. That's how I wound up here in troubleshooting mode, impatient and upset that Google was doing me wrong.
I tried many of the solutions here, only to find my "Loading..." antagonist acting unpredictably, popping up randomly like whacamoles, nothing to do with the code itself.
So. In my case, it was a matter of waiting it out (towards an hour for some rows, but I had so many cells fetching url data).
My layman's guess is that fetching data like this gets put in their bandwidth pipeline, lesser priority than typing a url into a search bar or other user requests.
When executing a script directly in the console in Chrome, I saw this:
Does anyone know what's the meaning of VM117:2
What does VM stand for ?
It is abbreviation of the phrase Virtual Machine.
In the Chrome JavaScript engine (called V8) each script has its own script ID.
Sometimes V8 has no information about the file name of a script, for example in the case of an eval. So devtools uses the text "VM" concatenated with the script ID as a title for these scripts.
Some sites may fetch many pieces of JavaScript code via XHR and eval it. If a developer wants to see the actual script name for these scripts she can use sourceURL. DevTools parses and uses it for titles, mapping etc.
Thanks to #MRB,
I revisited this problem, and found the solution today,
thanks to https://stackoverflow.com/a/63221101/1818089
queueMicrotask (console.log.bind (console, "Look! No source file info..."));
It will group similar elements, so make sure you add a unique identifier to each log line to be able to see all data.
Demonstrated in the following example.
Instead of
data = ["Apple","Mango","Grapes"];
for(i=0;i<10;i++){
queueMicrotask (console.log.bind (console, " info..."+i));
}
use
data = ["Apple","Mango","Grapes"];
for(i=0;i<data.length;i++){
queueMicrotask (console.log.bind (console, " info..."+i));
}
A better way would be to make a console.print function that does so and call it instead of console.log as pointed out in https://stackoverflow.com/a/64444083/1818089
// console.print: console.log without filename/line number
console.print = function (...args) {
queueMicrotask (console.log.bind (console, ...args));
}
Beware of the grouping problem mentioned above.
Recently I read a query about "What does console.log do" and I read an answer, tried using it and found that despite the answer stating that it outputs to the console in googles browser, I just tried it and I get no output.
I did try this code:
function put(p){
if ( window.console && window.console.log ) {
console.log(p); // console is available
}else{
alert(p);
}
}
BUT... I get neither console output or alert and furthermore .log is a Math property, what gives with that?
Make sure that in the Developer Tools the Filter in the console section is set to All or Logs...
I had a similar experience where I couldn't see any of my console.log output and it was because the console was set to filter on Errors only... All the log entries were there - they just weren't visible.
Bonus marks: you can also Ctrl + Click to select multiple filters (Errors + Logs for example).
Press F12 and look at in Developer Tools: Console. I tried your code just now, works fine for me -- Chrome version 30.0.
Since you're after console logging, not mathematical logarithms, perhaps you could stop going on about there being similarly-named function in the Math object. It's not relevant here whatsoever.
You're also coming across just a little shouty. console.log() works fine, and your question didn't indicate that you knew where to look. This is totally your problem, but I'm trying to help you. I can obviously only go on the information you provide, and I can't say your initial question was written very clearly.
It appears, since the snippet of code you posted works here absolutely fine, that your calling code & containing (which you haven't posted) would be the cause of the problem. You should debug these, to find out what's going wrong.
Do you know how to use the Chrome debugger? Are there any error messages showing in Chrome or on the console?
Test it on a simple page if necessary, to rule out other errors in the page/ or surrounding context breaking it. One common mistakes is declare functions in a jQuery ready handler or similar, and then try & access them globally. Make sure your logging function is actually global (outside any other function(){} or object {} blocks).
Lastly, it's good to have a logging function for portability (I have one myself) but put() is not a good name for it. Naming it consoleLog() or log() would be better.
Had the same issue .
Make sure your using de right path when you try import thing's .
Example whit my issue :
Wrong path ----> ** import normalizedData from 'normalizr'; **
Right path ---> ** import normalizedData from '../schemas/index.js'; **
I had also faced the same problem. Make sure you apply no filter in the console. It worked for me.
I have installed the sfErrorNotifierPlugin. When both options reportErrors/reportPHPErrors reportPHPWarnings/reportWarnings are set to false, everything is ok. But I want to catch PHP exceptions and warnings to receive E-mails, but then all my tasks fail, including clear-cache. After few hours of tests I'm 100% sure that the problem is with set_exception_handler/set_error_handler.
There's a similar question:
sfErrorNotifierPlugin on symfony task but the author there is having problems with a custom task. In my case, even built-in tasks fail.
I haven't used sfErrorNotifierPlugin, but I have run into 'The “default” context does not exist.' messages before. It happens when a call is made to sfContext::getInstance() and the context simply doesn't exist. I've had this happen a lot from within custom tasks. One solution is to add sfContext::createInstance() before the call to sfContext::getInstance(). This will ensure that a context exists.
There's an interesting blog post on 'Why sfContext::getInstance() is bad' that goes into more detail - http://webmozarts.com/2009/07/01/why-sfcontextgetinstance-is-bad/
Well, the problem could not be solved this way, unfortunately. Using sfErrorNotifierPlugin, I have enabled reporting PHP warning/errors (apart from symfony exceptions) and this resulted in huge problems, e.g. built-in tasks such as clear-cache failed.
The solution I chose was to load the plugin only in non-task mode (project configuration class):
public function setup()
{
$this->enableAllPluginsExcept('sfPropelPlugin');
if ('cli' == php_sapi_name()) $this->disablePlugins('sfErrorNotifierPlugin');
}
WHen a task is executed, everything works normally. When an app is fired from the browser, emails are sent when exception/warning occurs (maybe someone will find it useful).
Arms has explained the problem correctly. But usually context does not exist when executing backend/maintenance tasks on the console. And it is easier if you handle the condition yourself.
Check, if you really need the context?
If you do, what exactly do you need it for?
Sometimes you only want a user to populate a created_by field. You can work around by hard-coding a user ID.
If you want to do something more integrated, create a page (which will have a context) and trigger the task from there.
you can test the existance of the instance before doing something inside a class. Like:
if(sfContext::hasInstance())
$this->microsite_id = sfContext::getInstance()->getUser()->getAttribute('active_microsite');
I've been experiencing the same problem using the plugin sfErrorNotifier.
In my specific case, I noticed a warning was raised:
Warning: ob_start(): function '' not found or invalid function name in /var/www/ncsoft_qa/lib/vendor/symfony/lib/config/sfApplicationConfiguration.class.php on line 155
Notice: ob_start(): failed to create buffer in /var/www/ncsoft_qa/lib/vendor/symfony/lib/config/sfApplicationConfiguration.class.php on line 155
So, checking the file: sfApplicationConfiguration.class.php class, line 155,
I've replaced the ' ' for a null, then the warnings disappears, and also the error!
ob_start(sfConfig::get('sf_compressed') ? 'ob_gzhandler' : ''); bad
ob_start(sfConfig::get('sf_compressed') ? 'ob_gzhandler' : null); good