Shape/Button hyperlinks on protected sheets worked last week in Excel Online but are now completely unclickable unless the sheet is unprotected."

Dear Chris,

Losing navigation buttons across hundreds of users is a significant disruption, so I understand the urgency here. Unfortunately, as a forum moderator, I am not able to inspect your tenant or workbooks to diagnose and fix this directly. My role here is limited to general guidance you can apply from your side.

I did try to reproduce this and found that hyperlinks on a protected sheet still work on my side, though I should note I tested cell hyperlinks rather than shapes. Shapes and buttons are drawing objects, and they are governed by the Edit objects setting in the Protect Sheet dialog rather than by cell locking. That option is cleared by default, and when it is, objects on the sheet are locked. It is worth unprotecting one file and re-protecting it with Edit objects ticked to see whether the buttons become clickable again. Two things would help pin this down:

• Does the same file behave correctly in desktop Excel, or do the buttons fail there too?
• Can you reproduce it in a brand new workbook with a single shape hyperlink on a protected sheet?

If it works in desktop but fails in the browser, and a clean new file reproduces it, that is a strong indication of a service side change rather than anything in your files. In that case your Global Administrator should raise a service request with Microsoft Support. A technical support engineer can perform a remote session to investigate the situation, verify the backend configurations, and run any necessary synchronization tools to resolve the problem. If the issue requires further attention, they can escalate it to a specialized team for deeper analysis. For detailed instructions on how to get support, please refer to Get support - Microsoft 365 admin. If you don't know who your IT administrator is, please refer to this article: How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support 

I truly hope you get your issue resolved swiftly. Please know that even though I can't directly intervene, directing you to the correct, specialized support is the most effective help I can provide from my position. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please let me know if you need anything else. Wishing you all the best.