How to Resolve UiPath Excel Add-in issues when the certificate is untrusted or expired?

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How to fix the issue when for UiPath Excel Add-in the UiPath certificate is not in the list of trusted publishers or its certificate expired?

Issue Description:

There may be cases when the UiPath, Inc. certificate is not installed on the machine that has the Excel add-in installed under the Trusted Publishers. In these cases, the official documentation does not describe in detail how to fix the issue.

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For example the UiPath, Inc. certificate is missing from the Trusted Publishers and this can cause the UiPath Excel Add-in to not function as it should.

Example:

Or there can be situations when an old Studio version is installed with the UiPath Excel add-in, but the Trusted Publisher UiPath, Inc. certificate lifetime ended.

Having expired certificates can lead to security warnings running restrictions for certain applications or add-ins like the UiPath Excel add-in. This is because security features in most systems and software like Microsoft Excel are geared towards preventing malicious activity, ensuring that only trusted and verified applications can perform certain actions.


If the system's security settings are configured to disallow running applications with expired certificates, issues may occur until the certificate is updated.

UiPath regularly updates its applications, including updates to security certificates. If issues are occurring with an expired UiPath Inc certificate, updating the UiPath Studio version to the latest should solve the issue.

Resolution:

Note: Perform the below steps with an Administrator user.

Approach #1 - Disable the Require Application Add-ins to be signed by Trusted Publisher
If updating UiPath is not an option, consider changing the system's security settings to allow the running of the application or add-in, but this should be done with caution, considering the potential security implications. Always ensure to maintain best practices for system security.

  1. Open Excel as Administrator in the impacted user profile -> File -> Options -> Trusted Center -> Trust Center Settings... -> Add-ins -> disable the Require Application Add-ins to be signed by Trusted Publisher option -> OK

Example:

  1. Restart Excel.

Approach #2 - Install the certificates from a machine that does not have the issue using the certutil.exe -addstore "TrustedPublisher" "your_local_certificate_path" command

  1. Download the Certificates.zip file in the impacted Robot machine
  2. Extract the folder
  3. Open the cmd.exe as Administrator and run the below command (adapt it based on the local certificate path):
certutil.exe -addstore "TrustedPublisher" "C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\Desktop\Certificate\UiPath, Inc..cer"

Before:

  1. Restart Excel

After:


Approach #3 - Install manually the certificate using the latest Studio/Assistant/Robot Enterprise installer and interact with C:\Program Files\UiPath\Studio\net461\UiPath.Integration.ExcelAddIn.dll file

  1. After installing the latest version of Studio/Assistant/Robot, go to C:\Program Files\UiPath\Studio\net461\UiPath.Integration.ExcelAddIn.dll (in some cases, this file may have been installed in a different location) -> right click -> Properties -> Digital Signatures -> select certificate -> Install Certificate -> Local Machine -> and install it in Under Trusted Publishers -> Finish

  1. Results in certlm.msc for Trusted Publishers Certificates and Excel Trust Center