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Troubleshooting Excel Connection Errors (WinHTTP / DNS)

Tom S
Updated

If you’re getting connection errors in Excel when opening or refreshing Catalyst cubes, especially messages about “remote name could not be resolved” or “WinHttpSendRequest failed,” this article will help you or your IT team identify and fix the issue. These errors are almost always local to your network or Microsoft tenant, not an EBM system outage.

 

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If you receive an error such as:

“The remote name could not be resolved” or “An error occurred during HTTP request operation (WinHttpSendRequest failed)”

this usually indicates a network or proxy configuration issue on your local machine or Microsoft 365 tenant — not an outage or issue with EBM’s servers.

Common Symptoms

You may see one or more of the following messages when refreshing or opening a cube-connected Excel file:

  • “The remote name could not be resolved”
  • “Unable to complete this action. Please check your connection and verify the website is up and running.”
  • “An error occurred during HTTP request operation against URL...”

Why It Happens

These errors occur before Excel reaches the EBM or Microsoft Power BI servers. They’re caused by local or corporate network settings that block or misroute the connection used by Excel’s WinHTTP component (different from your web browser).

Common causes include:

  1. Corporate DNS or proxy filtering – Excel can’t reach the domain through your network’s security layer.
  2. System-level proxy not set – WinHTTP (used by Excel add-ins) isn’t using the same proxy as your browser.
  3. Firewall or TLS inspection – Breaks the secure connection chain.
  4. Corrupt DNS cache or hosts file – Cached or incorrect routing information on your machine.

How to Verify

Ask your IT team to run these commands in Command Prompt (cmd):

nslookup api.powerbi.com
nslookup [your Catalyst API domain]
netsh winhttp show proxy

✅ If the first two resolve correctly but the third shows:
Direct access (no proxy)
then Excel is bypassing your corporate proxy, causing the connection failure.

How to Fix

To import the correct proxy settings from Internet Explorer (used by Windows system services), run:

netsh winhttp import proxy source=ie

After running this command:

  1. Close and reopen Excel.
  2. Retry refreshing your cube connection.

Still Having Trouble?

If the issue persists after your IT team verifies proxy and DNS settings, please Submit a Request with:

  • A screenshot of the full error message, and
  • The results of the commands above.

EBM Support can review and confirm whether the issue is local or server-side.

Most connection errors like these trace back to local DNS or proxy configuration mismatches between Excel and your browser. Once corrected, your add-in and cube connections should refresh normally. For continued issues or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out — our team can coordinate directly with your IT to help resolve it.

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