Live data from other apps

Docs, Canvas and Forms can show values that live in a spreadsheet, and a spreadsheet tab can be filled from another app. All of it is a window onto a source, so when the window goes dark the cause is almost always on the source side: the sheet moved out of reach, the range holds nothing usable, or a refresh is being asked for faster than the server allows.

"This live block is not available" or "This data is not available"#

The block in a doc says This live block is not available; the card on a canvas says This data is not available. Both mean the same thing: the block could not read its spreadsheet right now.

• The sheet was deleted, or the tab or range it pointed at no longer exists. Edit the block and point it at a range that does.
• The person who embedded it lost access to the sheet. A block keeps working only while its source stays readable by whoever placed it, or by the document owner. Somebody with access can re-insert the block to repair it.
• A connection hiccup. Reload the page first; the block reconnects on its own after a dropped connection, but a hard reload settles the question in one step.

A connected tab will not refresh#

• Too many refreshes right now. Try again in a few minutes. means exactly that: refreshes on one spreadsheet are limited to short bursts, so wait a few minutes and press Refresh once.
• Could not refresh this tab. or The connected source is no longer available to you. means the source is out of reach: the form, folder, album, spreadsheet, room or link was deleted, your access to it ended, or it belongs to another workspace than the spreadsheet. A form, folder, album or other spreadsheet can only be connected from the workspace the spreadsheet is in. Disconnect the tab if the source is gone for good; the data that is already there stays.
• Only the person who connected this tab can refresh it. appears on a tab connected to Calendar, Share links, Rooms, Room requests or Upload links. Those hold one person's own data, so only that person can bring in new rows, and such a tab never refreshes on a timer either. Ask them to press Refresh, or connect a tab of your own.
• A tab set to refresh every few minutes did not. It refreshes only while somebody who can edit the spreadsheet has it open in a browser tab they are looking at. A spreadsheet nobody has open waits until somebody opens it, and then catches up once.

A tab says it shows live data and is read only#

That tab is connected to app data. Every refresh writes it again from the source, so Nemi does not let you type, paste or format there: whatever you added would be gone at the next refresh. Keep your work on another tab and reference the connected one, such as =Orders!B2 or =SUM(Orders!E:E). Use in a formula in the bar above the grid writes such a formula for you on another tab. Or right-click the tab and choose Make an editable copy to get an ordinary tab with the same rows. Disconnect in the same bar turns the tab itself into an ordinary tab.

A connected tab shows fewer rows than the source has#

• The tab has filters. They were set when the tab was connected, under Shape the data, and only rows that pass all of them are kept.
• The source is longer than a tab. A connected tab keeps 1,000 rows, and filters and sort look at up to 10,000 rows of the source. Filter the source down to what you need so the rows you want fit.
• A total over the tab misses the newest rows. A range with an end, such as Orders!E2:E500, stops there however long the tab gets. Use the whole column, Orders!E:E, which follows the tab.

Clicking a cell ends my formula instead of adding the cell#

A click adds a reference only where one can go: right after =, a bracket, a comma or an operator such as + or :. With the caret anywhere else, for example straight after a cell you already typed, a click finishes the formula the way it always has. Type the operator or comma first, then click. To point at another tab, start the formula, then click that tab in the sidebar: the formula stays open in the formula bar until you press Enter or Esc.

A chart shows "Pick a range with a numeric column to chart."#

Bar and line charts read the first column of the range as labels and the first column of numbers as values. A range with no column of numbers has nothing to draw. Widen the range so it includes one, or check that the numbers are numbers rather than text.

An embedded photo disappeared from a document#

A photo inserted from the Gallery tab of the image picker is a reference to the photo in the library, not a copy. If it was erased for good from the library, every document that embedded it loses it at the same moment, and that is the erase promise working rather than a bug. A photo that is merely in the Gallery trash keeps showing until somebody erases it.