Excel Solver Finds Solution but Doesnt Modify Sheet
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Solver Add-on fails for simple 2-cell problem in one Sheet but not another.
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I am testing the Google Sheets Add-on "Solver". I find that it fails on a very simple 2-cell problem in a spreadsheet with a few other cells, but it works just fine in another spreadsheet that looks the same.
(I'm trying to do a harder Solver problem to optimize the design of fusion energy power plants based on simple scaling formulas, but it wouldn't work (though it does work in Excel). I then narrowed it down to this example.)
Cell B5 is initialized to 4.0
Cell B6 is set to
= (B5-2)^2
The solver/optimizer is set to minimize B6 by varying B5, and should give the answer that the optimal B5 is 2.0.
Instead, it gives the error message:
"Problem could not be loaded.
No variable cells defined."
I put a simple working example (5 rows long) in a google sheet "Test_Solver_fails" in the publicly-viewable folder:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wS9uG7fpYWJdNY8coNJapJCUnJQHe-_1
The sheet "Test_Solver_works" works just fine. The two sheets look identical to me (except for minor column width variations).
The sheet "Test_Solver_fails_public_editable" also reproduces the error and can be edited by anyone. Please try to leave it in a state that reproduces the error, unless you figure out a way to fix it.
To verify the error really occurred (I've had problems with intermittent problems in google sheets), I put a screen shot showing the error message in
"Test_Solver_fails_screen_shot.png".
Any generous people have any ideas about what is going on or how to fix this?
Also, the side-panel interface to the Solver seems a bit flaky. It would be nice if there was a way to save and load different Solver scenarios like there are in the Excel version. Or is there a way to call the solver from a Google Javascript function, or from a function call from an Excel cell, and specify the scenario (objective cell, variable cells, constraint formulas) as arguments to the function?
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Excel Solver Finds Solution but Doesnt Modify Sheet
Source: https://support.google.com/docs/thread/9845021/solver-add-on-fails-for-simple-2-cell-problem-in-one-sheet-but-not-another?hl=en