I have now twice had this error, where I email a spreadsheet with macros to another person. It is working when I send it using share via email. When they get it there is a problem. When I go and open the original, I also get the problem. System Error &H8000FFF (-247418113). Catastrophic failure and when I go to look at the code it is all gone. Does anyone know the cause and solution?
One strange this that happened, I would get an error when clicking on the Data tab, something to do with Funcres. When I when I looked online, it said this was an add-in. Since I wasn't using it, I disabled it. Not sure if that is related.
So I figured it out. The issue was I had left a black module in the VBA editor. I had recosted a macro to get a code for a color and then deleted the macro but did not delete the module2.
I did this on two different spreadsheets for two different people. They were working when I sent them but crashed for them. When they sent them back they crashed for me.
The one thing they had in common was this empty module2. I entered each with macros disabled, deleted the module2's and enable macros and both are now working fine and have been for weeks.
I'm running MS Office 2010 on Windows 7 Professional.
I’ve been experiencing this problem periodically for the last month or so, not all the time, but probably once or twice a week.
I’m working on the VBA portion of a fairly complex workbook. I start the day by making a copy of the previous day’s workbook, and make any subsequent code changes on the copy. When I’m finished I’ll run VBA Code Cleaner, do a Debug, Save then exit Excel. I also save a backup copy. I’ll then reopen & close both of these workbooks a number of times just to satisfy myself that everything is still working.
The next day I’ll wake the computer and try to open these files, and as soon as the VBA code starts to run I’ll get the “Microsoft Excel has stopped working” message. This can happen to either the main file or the backup file, and sometimes both.
If I open the bad file with the shift key down, I can get into the VBE area OK, but when I do a Debug or try to run VBA Code Cleaner I get the same message.
The only way I’ve found to recover from this is to:
Manually export the code
Save the file as an xlsx file, thus expunging all the code.
Save the xlsx file as a new xlsm/xlsb file, and then import the exported code.
I just today found another way to recover is to save the file as “xls”, then re-save as xlsb/xlsm, that somehow seems to “clean” something.
After the recovery everything is fine again, at least for a few days.
What I’ve tried so far:
Searched the internet, including StackOverflow, for possible solution.
Run various virus checkers (MS Essentials, Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware)
Repaired MS Office 2010.
Uninstalled and re-installed MS Office 2010
Removed all add-ins
Uninstalled Dropbox
Started using a new user profile.
I came across several articles that suggested xlsb files were prone to corruption, so I started saving as xlsm files. Everything went well for about a week, and I thought I’d resolved the problem. However, it’s now started happening with the xlsm files too, so I’m back to square one.
I’m running out of ideas - the next thing I might try would be re-installing Windows 7, but I really hope to avoid doing that! I would really appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.
Well, I believe I may have found my problem. I noticed that one of my class objects wasn't always terminating correctly, due to it being referenced in a different class. I fixed that, and now it's been 11 days without any problem (touch wood). So I'm reasonably confident that this was the root cause. But I must admit I'm still not quite sure why this occasionally corrupted the workbook.
I'm using Windows 8.1 and for some odd reason, I cannot access Excel help page while learning to code in VBA!
For example, after defining a variable for sheets (Dim sh As Worksheet), I would like to see the option available for sh. Delete and although I have my cursor clicked on and flashing on the word 'Delete', it takes me to the Excel home page in Microsoft instead of directly to the source options for the Delete method!
As far as doing my homework goes, while considering the fact that I am pressed for time, I did implement some due diligence, well to the best of my abilities, which by the way is not a lot and here is the best I could find but that still did not seem to resolve the matter at hand: https://support.microsoft.com/en-za/help/10741/windows-fix-network-connection-issues
In a nutshell, I switched off my MS firewalls and still nothing... When I press F1, the Help window opens however, this message is relayed back to me "Sorry, something went wrong. Please check your network connection and try again."
Problem is, my network connection is functional as I am submitting this question at the very same time that Office seems to be having problems connecting to my already connected internet WiFi session.
Excel crashes when opening files that contain a userform
This is a known problem with a known solution workaround which is to delete a file called Excel.box from here:
C:\Users\SlowLearner\Application Data\Microsoft\Forms\Excel.box
According to this forum post the purpose of the Excel.box (& Word.box) file is:
Files such as Winword.box and Excel.box are associated with the
Control Toolbox you see when you are designing a UserForm in the
Visual Basic editor. The files contain information about the layout of
the Control Toolbox (additional tab pages, controls that have been
added or removed, custom icons, ...) If a user has never modified the
Control Toolbox in any way, there will probably be no .box file. By
deleting a .box file, you will restore the Control Toolbox to its
default (factory preset) configuration - this is the only way to do
that. Sometimes, the .box file becomes corrupted and must be deleted.
There are no negative side effects to deleting it.
Unfortunately Excel.box returns :(
It would seem that for most users the problem is fixed by deleting the file, sadly not for me.
I'd like to understand what is causing this problem to recur. A few points to note:
this (touch wood) is not impacting MS Word on my PC
I am using Office 2010, 64 bit version on Win10
I have not made any conscious change to form settings
if I delete the file > start Excel > UN-DELETE the file: everything works :-/
some other experiences with this issue here
For the time being I'll just check for and delete the file before launching Excel, but this is hardly an acceptable solution for the long term. Appreciate thoughts for a proper fix... TIA
Additional Information:
I have not fully explored the crash but so far it happens when:
starting the application by opening an xl?.m file with a userform
application does not get past the splash screen
crashes with the application's CRASH screen (... encounted an error...)
starting the application with a blank worksheet then adding a userform
crashes immediately with the applications CRASH screen displayed (see below)
The above crash happened after rebooting my PC, had a chance to explore it some more.
First I opened the file I had been working on (contains userforms):
annoyingly it opened without crashing
I did NOT enter the IDE
I closed the file (Excel closed normally)
Then I created a new worksheet
I opened the VBA IDE
right-click 'add UserForm' - Excel crashed immediately
(I aborted the recovery / search for a solution attempt)
Then I re-opened the file I had been working on
opened the VBA IDE (the project is PW protected)
the very instant that I entered the PW and hit enter Excel crashed
crash was same both times...
Safe Mode:
Crash still happens in safe mode - steps to reproduce:
Run: Excel /safe
Open VBA IDE
r-click add userform
crashes immediately
Creation of the EXCEL.box file
Based on visually observing the folder which had the Excel.box file I did some tests to try and see when it was created. Basically it seems to appear when one of the following happens:
- the UserForm tools box is closed
- the IDE is closed (after showing the userform)
I've also now tried to modify the userform toolbox by removing everything from it. Excel is still crashing after every restart of the application (which is odd as I was not able to crash it like that earlier).
Office Repair - not tested (yet)
Reluctant to try Office Repair as based on the following quote from here (scroll down: pg 1 reply 8 by Steve IT) I'm not expecting it to work :-/ (but will try if no other suggestions surface).
Thanks for the continued suggestions, however I have tried a repair and also removed Visual Studio 2013 and Office altogether (just in case VS was interfering) and reinstalled both, but it still throws the errors reported previously.
Other user profiles
Created a brand new user called 'test'. Test has the exact same problem.
This problem eventually resolved itself, not sure why. I continued to use Excel normally and it continued to crash so I would delete the offending .box file and start over...
As of Nov 2017 Excel no longer crashes with respect to this issue; my best guess is there was an automatic update that resolved the issue.
Looks like this issue still occurs and it is not just limited to Excel but also Powerpoint.
The fix as mentioned above works where you move / delete any files in the below folder location resolves the issue.
C:\Users\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Forms
It is highly likely that this error is caused by bad code in a macro or an Add-In that uses forms. The problem is replicating this can be difficult so you have to debug this in some way when it does crash out.
POWERPNT.box
EXCEL.box
are some of the files that get generated, where Excel or Powerpoint crash on the splash screen.
Try adding the command
ThisWorkbook.VBProject.VBComponents("UserForm").Activate
just before your
"UserForm".Show line.
From what I can see on the web, this is a fairly common complaint, but answers seem to be rarer. The problem is this:
We have a number of Excel VBA apps which work perfectly on a number of users' machines. However on one machine they stop on certain lines of code. It is always the same lines, but those lines seem to have nothing in common with one another.
If you press F5 (run) after the halt, the app continues, so it's almost like a break point has been added. We've tried selecting 'remove all breaks' from the menu and even adding a break and removing it again.
We've had this issue with single apps before and we've 'bodged' it by cutting code out of modules, compiling and then pasting it back in etc.
The problem now seems to relate to Excel itself rather than a single .xls, so we're a little unsure how to manage this.
Any help would be gratefully received :)
Thanks,
Philip Whittington
I have found a 2nd solution.
Press "Debug" button in the popup.
Press Ctrl+Pause|Break twice.
Hit the play button to continue.
Save the file after completion.
One solution is here:
The solution for this problem is to add the line of code
“Application.EnableCancelKey = xlDisabled” in the first line of your
macro.. This will fix the problem and you will be able to execute the macro
successfully without getting the error message “Code execution has been interrupted”.
But, after I inserted this line of code, I was not able to use Ctrl+Break any more. So it works but not greatly.
This problem comes from a strange quirk within Office/Windows.
After developing the same piece of VBA code and running it hundreds of times (literally) over the last couple days I ran into this problem just now. The only thing that has been different is that just prior to experiencing this perplexing problem I accidentally ended the execution of the VBA code with an unorthodox method.
I cleaned out all temp files, rebooted, etc... When I ran the code again after all of this I still got the issue - before I entered the first loop. It makes sense that "press "Debug" button in the popup, then press twice [Ctrl+Break] and after this can continue without stops" because something in the combination of Office/Windows has not released the execution. It is stuck.
The redundant Ctrl+Break action probably resolves the lingering execution.
I found hitting ctrl+break while the macro wasn't running fixed the problem.
I would try the usual remedial things:
- Run Rob Bovey's VBA Code Cleaner on your VBA Code
- remove all addins on the users PC, particularly COM and .NET addins
- Delete all the users .EXD files (MSoft Update incompatibilities)
- Run Excel Detect & Repair on the users system
- check the size of the user's .xlb file (should be 20-30K)
- Reboot then delete all the users Temp files
I have came across this issue few times during the development of one complex Excel VBA app. Sometimes Excel started to break VBA object quite randomly. And the only remedy was to reboot machine. After reboot, Excel usually started to act normally.
Soon I have found out that possible solution to this issue is to hit CTRL+Break once when macro is NOT running. Maybe this can help to you too.
Thanks to everyone for their input. This problem got solved by choosing REPAIR in Control Panel. I guess this explicitly re-registers some of Office's native COM components and does stuff that REINSTALL doesn't. I expect the latter just goes through a checklist and sometimes accepts what's there if it's already installed, maybe. I then had a separate issue with registering my own .NET dll for COM interop on the user's machine (despite this also working on other machines) though I think this was my error rather than Microsoft. Thanks again, I really appreciate it.
I have had this problem also using excel 2007 with a foobar.xlsm (macro enabled ) workbook which would get the "Code execution has been interrupted" by simply trying to close the workbook on the red X in the right corner with no macros running at all, or any "initialize" form, workbook, or workheet macros either. The options I got were "End" or "Continue", Debug was always greyed out. I did as a previous poster suggested Control Panel->Programs and Features-> right click "Microsoft Office Proffesional 2007" (in my case) ->change->repair.
This resolved the problem for me.
I might add this happened soon after a MS update and I also found an addin in Excel called "Team Foundation" from Microsoft which I certainly didnt install voluntarily
I would like to add more details to Stan's answer #2 for below reasons:
I faced this issue myself more than dozen times and depending on project conditions, I chose between stan's voodoo magic answer #1 or #2. When I kept on facing it again, I become more inquistive that why it happens in first place.
I'd like to add answer for Mac users too.
There are limitations with both these possible answers:
if the code is protected (and you don't know password) then answer #1 won't help.
if the code is unprotected then answer #2 won't let you debug the code.
It may happen due to any of the below reasons:
Operating system not allocating system resources to the Excel process. (Solution: One needs to just start the operating system - success rate is very low but has known to work many times)
P-code is the intermediate code that was used in Visual Basic (before .NET) and hence it is still used in the VBA. It enabled a more compact executable at the expense of slower execution. Why I am talking about p-code? Because it gets corrupted sometimes between multiple executions and large files or just due to installation of the software (Excel) went corrupt somewhere. When p-code corrupts. the code execution keeps getting interrupted. Solution: In these cases, it is assumed that your code has started to corrupt and chances in future are that your Excel workbook also get corrupt giving you messages like "excel file corrupted and cannot be opened". Hence, as a quick solution, you can rely on answer #1 or answer #2 as per your requirements. However, never ignore the signs of corruption. It's better to copy your code modules in notepad, delete the modules, save & close the workbook, close the excel. Now, re-open the workbook and start creating new modules with the code copied earlier to notepad.
Mac users, try any of the below option and of them will definitely work depending on your system architecture i.e. OS and Office version
Ctrl + Pause
Ctrl + ScrLk
Esc + Esc (Press twice consecutively)
You will be put into break mode using the above key combinations as the macro suspends execution immediately finishing the current task. This is replacement of Step 2.
Solution: To overcome the limitation of using answer #1 and answer #2, I use xlErrorHandler along with Resume statement in the Error Handler if the error code is 18. Then, the interrupt is sent to the running procedure as an error, trappable by an error handler set up with an On Error GoTo statement. The trappable error code is 18. The current procedure is interrupted, and the user can debug or end the procedure. Microsoft gives caution that do not use this if your error handler has resume statement else your error handler always returns to the same statement. That's exactly we want in unwanted meaningless interruptions of code execution.
My current reputation does not yet allow to post this as a comment.
Stans solution to enter the debug mode, press twice Ctrl+Break, play on, save did solve my problem, but I have two unexpected twists:
My project struture is password protected, so in order to get into the Debug Mode I had to first enter Developer mode, click on the project structure and enter the password.
My project is a template file (.xmtl). I opened the file via double click which opens it as .xml with a "1" at the end of the previous file name. I fixed the bug as by Stans instruction and saved it as that ...1.xml file. When I then opened the template again, this time as template, and wanted to apply the same bug fix to that file, the bug was gone! I did not change this file and still no bug at executing the Macro. This means to me that the bug is not actually in the file, but in a (hidden) setting in Excel.
If it's a phantom breakpoint:
1 Delete the offending line of code
2 Run the code again
3 Repaste the line
I found this laughably simple solution after spending a couple days wading through all the answers here and elsewhere. I figured, if I link it to my original question it might help some other poor chap, since the question it's on is VBA break execution when there's no break key on keyboard and this is more applicable.
Link to original answer
I faced the same issue today. Resolved it with these steps.
Create a new module
Move the procedure that is causing the issue to this new module.
Save project
Run macro again.
This time, the code execution will run till completion without any intermediate stops.