I am getting this error inconsistently while working with Excel table connected to a SharePoint list. Similar issue has been reported on TechNet and it indicates it could be due to certain column types such as Date and Time, Lookup, or Calculated ... I would like to know when and why exactly this happens? What's more interesting is the error is not consistent, it just happens randomly. Thanks in advance.
MOSS 2007 on Windows Server 2003 x86 Standard Edition
In my case I exported the list into Access and made some changes which I synched with Sharepoint afterwords.
I found the solution under List Settings > Change Column:
As I exported the List in excel, I saw the error message "Cannot get the list schema column property from SharePoint list". However excel was able to read the data from Sharepoint but two columns were missing. The problem was that the columns with a date format (Not date and time, only date), had "Today's Date" as default value initially. After the synch, the default value was changed into the manual input option below "Today's Date". After I changed the default value back to "Today's Date" the problem was gone. So it was a problem about incoherent cell value and default value. This could also happen in different cell types.
I was debugging this same issue just recently. I ran into a lot of explanations that an update had changed the default value for the Date columns. Solutions presented were to set a new, real default value, save, then clear it out again. Others suggested converting to Text and converting back.
In my case I was able to identify the column was not a Date field but a Lookup field. I was pulling my hair until I ran across this blog post. It mentioned this problem could happen with Lookup columns which pull data from Calculated columns. That's exactly what my problem was. Except it worked when it was first created. It wasn't until after a user accidentally deleted the Lookup column and we recreated it. That's when the trouble started.
Interestingly we have another Lookup column bound to the same list to a different calculated column but it does not trigger the error.
I did a more thorough write-up and explanation on my own blog detailing the steps we went through until we solved it.
In my case, the solution was to check the data pulled by a lookup column. After i selected the value in the lookup column, i pulled also other column data related to that value. The secondary column of the lookup contained some weird characters "#&" . After removing it, the export worked. With office 2013 there was no problem even with the special characters.
