title: Google Spreadsheet Import Range #REF! Error (Randomly)
body: <p>This problem has been persistent for a while, just happens every so often at random times, nothing changing. I also do not know how to reproduce the problem, but I'll give a detailed explanation of what's happening.</p>
  
  <p>Normally the <code>importRange</code> function works just fine, and looks something like the following:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/BQ3U9.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>The Spreadsheet key is typed correctly - I've been using this strategy in Google Spreadsheets for a while now.</p>
  
  <p>Every so often, Google Spreadsheets seems to break down, or at least the <code>importRange</code> function does... and produces something like the following:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/EjYpG.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>Google seemed to be freezing up at times today, which is when this happened. I've tried adjusting the <code>importRange</code> parameters to <em>!X1:X</em>, <em>!X2:X5</em>, changing the title of the Sheet that is being imported, etc.</p>
  
  <p>In the past, changing from <em>!X:X</em> to <em>!X1:X</em> fixed some columns, but not always all of them. The only fool-proof solution to fixing this, that I have found, is recreating both spreadsheets. As the back-end (the one being imported) eventually becomes a report, I would like to spare my boss the extra effort of referencing multiple spreadsheets, and would rather just fix this and be done with it.</p>
  
  <p>Does anyone know the potential cause of this glitch? Sometimes it fixes itself, sometimes it doesn't. It happens randomly, and only to certain spreadsheets (I have a set of 8 or so that all use <code>importRange</code>, and no more than 2 are ever affected at the same time). So I honestly have no clue where this is coming from.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Side note</strong>: Google in general has been a bit unresponsive today in terms of all its services - my university's App Engine email service was down for about half an hour. Could a limitation on resources/network attackers be causing this kind of behavior in Spreadsheets?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update</strong>: I attempted to import to the <em>same Spreadsheet</em> data from a <em>different Spreadsheet</em> (i.e., gave the <code>importRange</code> function a different Spreadsheet key). Though the key and range are valid if imported into a <em>different</em> Spreadsheet, in my original (the one full of #REF!), that range is not imported correctly. This leads me to believe that <strong>this glitch may apply only to a single Spreadsheet, where any attempt to <code>importRange</code> from any other source is <em>not</em> functional</strong>.</p>