broken Excel export in gnumeric 1.0.5?

["Reuben D Budiardja" <reubendb goshen edu>]

Hi,
I have a txt file that I spooled from a database. I then imported the txt 
file in gnumeric, using fixed width. I edited a little bit, then I saved as 
excel format. The next morning when I tried to open the .xls file, it gives 
me an error message, something like:
" the file is not an OLE file. It may be too old for gnumeric to read. Sorry, 
the management".

So, my reaction was, "huh ?". I tried to open the file using Excel in win 
machine, and it gives me "File is not recognizable". 

I deleted the excel file, and tried to reproduce the problem (using the same 
steps I did).  The result: Sometime I can open the file in gnumeric (xls 
format), sometimes I cannot. So it's not totally reproduceable, not sure why. 
But I always can NOT open the file in MS Excel. Now I have the exported xls 
file 'in the state' of: Gnumeric cannot open it (gives that error message), 
and MS Excel cannot open it. 

Then I tried to save the imported text file as gnumeric first, close 
gnumeric, open the file again, and save as excel format. Same thing, I cannot 
open it in MS Excel. It gives me the "file is not recognizable format" 
dialog. 

I then tried to create a small test file, just two colums, ten rows, and put 
random number in it, save it as excel format to see if the export really 
breaks. I can open that small test file. 

Then I tried my other larger gnumeric file, saved it as excel format. Same 
result with excel: I cannot open it in MS Excel.

All the files are located in our file server that are shared using samba. I 
am running RedHat 7.2, with gnumeric 1.0.5-3 installed from rpm found in 
rpmfind.net for RawHide. My other machine I used to check this is Win 98, MS 
Excel 2000

So, is this a known bug? It could be the rpm packager that did something 
wrong, or it could be gnumeric exporter, I am not sure. I have not tried it 
with the latest gnumeric yet. 

I'll be happy to send the file is needed for debugging.

Thanks for the good work from the devel team.
Reuben D. Budiardja