Problem:
I was trying to create first excel service for farm through SharePoint 4.0 central administration. I should tell you that I am still working on SharePoint 2010 beta 2. Excel service and proxy service both were created. The proxy was showing status “Stopped”. I tried many things but proxy service for newly created excel service was still showing “Stopped”. I really don’t know what problem it could create at this moment. I will figure out and share it here.
The “Stopped” status was not a real problem (as it is still on my portal).
I still gave it a go and
- Created a new Document Library for Excel sheet.
- Added Excel service web part and linked it to one of the excel sheet in that library.
- This web part was giving error like “An error has occurred. Please try again later”
If you got error like “The named item is either not available in the workbook or was not selected as a named item for viewing when the workbook was published. “Then only step (4) is your workaround.
Workaround:
1) Create Excel Service for your web application. [SharePoint Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage Service Application -> Create New Excel Service.]
2) Create a new application pool if you are creating first excel service for your farm. [Do not use the Default Application pool. -> This is optional]
3) Always publish an excel document to your target Document Library rather than uploading and saving to your Document Library. [If possible create separate Document Library for Excel Sheets]
4) Be careful in choosing Named Item in Excel Document. If you are viewing this excel sheet in Excel Web Part then it must match with your document. If yo want to view full excel document then leave the Named Item field as blank in excel web part.
Hope this will help.
PS: (Added below update on February 11, 2010.)
I have tried few workarounds for Excel Proxy service “Stopped” issue; but can’t figure out the solution yet.
It could be a bug in SharePoint 2010 beta 2 version. I have asked this issue in my Ignite Training and within few days they will get back to me.
I will share it here when I will find any workaround for this issue or any update on it.
It looks like this is a bug in beta version. Hopefully this will be resolved in final version being released on 12th May 2010.
Well guys till the final release if you want to get rid off this “excel proxy stopped” issue then make sure you create your excel service at the time of farm configuration (logged in as farm administrator).
Workaround:
- Delete Excel Service Application with stopped proxy issue
- Run the Farm Configuration Wizard: checked to create Excel Service
- This will create all checked service applications for your farm with Proxy running.
- The Farm Configuration Wizard sets everything correct for our Excel Service and Proxy; While by clicking the “new” button it will create the excel service application but it does miss some settings for Excel Service app/proxy. [Beta Bug] and as a result we found the “Excel App Proxy Stopped”.
- All the service application created this way can be found under “Service Application Pool – SharePoint Web Services Default”.
New RC on sharepoint 2010 beta 2 has fixed this issue.
aanuwizard.com 
Hi
Did you ever figure out the Excel Proxy Stopped issue? I have a reader of my blog as well as one of the Members of our local IW community suffering from the same issue?
I have same issue, and for Access Services and WSS_UsageApplication. Someone suggested deleting and recreating the proxy using Powershell but there is no New-SPExcelServiceApplicationProxy command like there is for other services such as PerformancePoint and Metadata. Did you find a cause/solution?
I had been wondering if you ever thought of switching the design of your site? It is well written; I enjoy what you have got to state. But maybe you could add a a bit more in the way of content so people can connect with it better. You have got a great deal of text for only having one or two graphics. Maybe you could space it out better?