I am using VBA in most of my office 365 applications for many years now. Last week an error appeared that I can't fix anymore, without having to create a new profile in windows (according to Microsoft helpdesk). Besides that this is quiet a lot of work that I would like to avoid, if this is the only solution, I like to know what happened and why, to prevent future errors.
Problem: in any office 365 application, when opening the vba editor, in the taskbar, a window appears that I cannot open and that looks like a corrupted editor window. Hence I cannot edit my code anymore. The code is runnable though from the developers-macros-run-menu.
Cause: I ran a code from ms-word, that saves the pages from a merged document into separte files, .docx and .pdf. The code was running fine, but after a little editing started to quit before the last page was reached and after some time trying over, I couldn't open the editor anymore. I am not sure if this error is caused by the code, or something else.
Unfortunately I cannot display the code here, because I can't open it anymore.
I updated Office 365 to the last version, without any result.
Creating a new Windows-account solves the problem, but implies that I have to reinstall many apps and services.
Does anyone have had the same experience, what is the problem and/ or what can I do to restore this error other than the new-account solution?
The VBA Editor window moved off screen. This might have been caused by accidentally pressing WINDOWS KEY + SHIFT + ARROW (not likely), or by a problem in windows 10.
For a solution see https://superuser.com/q/53585
I'd the same problem.
That´s just a question of hidden windows. Just press shift and left click on top of the code window in the task bar. Then select maximze and your window will appear.
Hope it helps.
Joao
Related
Since upgrading to Excel 365, my company has been having all sorts of trouble with VBA-supported Excel workbooks crashing or not functioning properly. The issues have popped up in various workbooks and various departments, including seemingly simple VBA workbooks. I've discovered a fix (see below) but it's not sustainable.
The Issues
The various issues we have experienced are listed below. Note, these issues only occur when you open a file in Excel 365 desktop. The same files, when opened in the Excel 365 browser app or in Excel 2016 will work fine. Also, all these issues happen at random. A user may have been working in a file for weeks and then the next time they open the file they get one of these errors.
"Can't find project or library" errors even when we are using the standard set of libraries and basic VBA. Then when you open the VBA Editor window, all the VBA screens are essentially frozen up and the library list is inaccessible.
Excel hard crashes or locks up when opening these files and enabling VBA. Note, the crash only occurs when the VBA is enabled. If you open a file without enabling VBA, it will work fine (though obviously you can't use any of the code).
The file opens seemingly fine, but the VBA doesn't work and once again, everything is locked up when you access the VBA editor window.
"unhandled win32 exception occurred" error
when executing a command, getting an error 32809 which seems to indicate the compiled VBA has been corrupted
The Fix
Opening the VBA Editor window, then selecting Debug -> Compile VBAProject seemingly fixes the issue. I've yet to experience any of the above issues where the file had been manually compiled this way. The problem with this is that every time you add code to a file or any time you add a new tab to a file, you have to go in and perform this manual compile again.
Yes, apparently adding a single tab in a file changes the workbook structure enough that it is necessary to compile again. The Compiled VBAProject selection will be greyed out. But adding a tab (or adding new VBA) will un-grey it and require another manual compile or the problems start occurring again.
This fix also works to repair files where the above issues are occurring. To fix those files, you can:
Make sure "Disable Trusted Documents" and "Disable VBA macros with notification" are toggled on in your security settings so that VBA doesn't automatically run when you open a file.
Open the file with the errors but do not enable the VBA.
Go to the VBA Editor window, select Debug -> Compile VBAProject.
Save the file, close it, reopen it, enable the VBA, and everything works fine again.
But again, this isn't sustainable because all my users will have to remember to go compile VBA any time they add a new tab to a workbook.
Help?
Has anyone found a more sustainable fix to this issue? Is there a bug with the Excel 365 Desktop automatic compiler that Microsoft is working on?
I think I perhaps found an answer in this thread:
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/814ac2ce-ab45-45dc-8c6a-8ef0775d189a/excel-64bit-crashes-when-activating-macros-but-excel-32bit-does-not?forum=exceldev&prof=required
Per that thread – “the cause is that Excel does not correctly save the compile state of the VBA code and 64 bit Excel cannot recover from that issue when opening the afflicted Excel file (32 bit usually can). A fix was released for only Excel 2016 and not for other versions". That would indeed confirm that it is a bug within Excel and explains why we only see the issue with 365 64 bit Excel.
That also explains why my manual compile fix works. Based on the article I found, there is a more sustainable fix. You can change Excel’s registry and force VBA to compile accurately.
To implement the permanent fix:
Open the start menu and type “reg” and select the “Registry Editor”
Navigate to: Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel\options
On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
Type ForceVBALoadFromSource, and then press Enter.
In the Details pane, right-click ForceVBALoadFromSource, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
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.
About a week ago, I found that all ActiveX buttons stopped working in all spreadsheets, when running on my computer. They work on others just fine. There had been no issues for the past year.
I know there was recently a Windows updates that caused a stir, preventing people from even being able to click on ActiveX buttons. The issue I am experiencing seems to be different... I am able to click on the button (once clicked, it will show the dotted line around the perimeter of the button). however, nothing happens.
I have these buttons created to open User forms. I have checked to verify the PrivateSub code still exists to launch the form on the Button Click.
Since all my staff are still able to use the spreadsheets and ActiveX buttons, I am thinking there is something occurring locally on my computer, and it is not necessarily programming related, but I have had no luck finding any cause.
Any ideas?
I found a solution to the issue. It appears as though my issue WAS still related to the Microsoft update.. I just happened to be experiencing a different symptom, and needed a different solution as well (rather than just delete MSForms.exd files)
I recompiled the projects (Open VBEditor, Debug Menu, Compile VBA Project), saved workbook, closed excel, and re-opened. Everything worked as normal again.
Unfortunately, I need to do this for all files I work with which have ActiveX controls, which is several dozen.
Is there a way to convince the VBA editor in Excel to stop auto-formatting lines to remove the space at the end when I pause in my typing for a quarter second?
I had this exact problem and the following worked for me.
Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Excel Options
Click the Add-Ins category
In the Manage box, click COM Add-ins, and then click Go.
Look for an add in called 'Load Test Report AddIn' then uncheck it
restart excel
This addin is installed with VS2010 Beta2
In Excel 2010, toggling Design Mode button on the Developer Ribbon Tab solves the problem for me.
I've definitely had that issue before, where the vba editor would format as I was typing (not just when I went to another line). For me, it seemed to be related to a Microsoft Web Browser control that I had in an open workbook. When I took out the web browser, the VBA editor started acting normally again. I have no idea why that worked, but it did. Now I avoid using that control in my workbooks.
Something is causing your spreadsheet to recalculate while you are in the VBA Editor and this 'compiles' your code and thus strips the spaces. You need to stop the cells recalculating while you are editing. Turning the calculation to manual in the spreadsheet.
Tools > Options > Calculation should do the trick.
I noticed this when I had cells recalculating thanks to a DDE connection.
There is sort of a way to turn off the auto-"correction" in the VBA Editor.
Tools Menu -> Options -> Editor Tab -> Clear the Auto Syntax Check box
Sadly, this won't solve all your problems, as the VBA Editor tends to have a mind of its own, for better or worse.
Taking it out of design mode fixes it every-time on vba2003 - its was driving me crazy at first ... i did notice it might have something to do with the web control but when i take it out of design mode it works fine ... just toggle that to get it to behave :)
I have had this same problem several times recently, and has driven me crazy.
After reading this post all the different fix-ups mentioned (none worked for me), I recalled I have been playing lately with Internet Explorer Control, opening Internet Explorer from VBA.
This is mentioned in some of the answers in this post.
This got me in the right path and, in order to fix it, I had to first delete all iexplore.exe instances (alt+control+delete), closed Excel and open excel again.
(iexplore.exe had been opened invisible from the VBA code, and I didn't know they were running)
That fixed the bug.
I have been programming quite heavily with VBA for over 4 years, and never had this problem.
Just a couple of weeks ago I started using IE control, and I started getting this problem...so in my case I can only assume the bug is directly related to the IE control.
I am running both excel 2003 and 2007 in same PC at the same time, and the problem only happens with excel 2007.
None of the above for me.
I had a Application.OnTime timer that fired every second and this triggered a recalculation of something: commenting it made my day.
This has started happening to me recently after adding a Timer event to an Access 2007 form. The VB editor "finalizes" the current line (as if you had moved the cursor off of the statement; I have auto syntax checking off) each time the event fires (initially I had it set to 1 second, now it is set to 5 seconds, and the behavior scales accordingly). In order for the event code to execute, the application has to ensure that it has been compiled. Presumably, the editor needs to be in a "sane" state to do this, as it probably has to check for code dependencies among modules. Note that the behavior occurs regardless of whether any dependent code is actually loaded into the editor at the time. Note also that resetting the execution state doesn't affect the timer event firing. As a practical matter, one could close the triggering form, switch it to design view, set a breakpoint in the triggered code, or increase the timer interval while working with the editor.
In contrast to abhishek's comment, changing the settings of Tools/Options.../General/Compile On Demand and/or Background Compile did not affect the issue.
If it helps, none of the previous answers solved mine. Only solution appeared to be to close the xls file and reopen it. Frustrating to have to do every 30 mins but at least it works. Would love to know why it's recompiling and cleaning the text... should really be an option to disable the text cleanup but couldn't find it.
Turn off Tools > Options > General > Background Compile. This solved it for me.
This is a long standing problem that could have various causes. I had this same issue occur in the Access VBE (so naturally the Excel answers weren't relevant). After a LOT of digging I finally got it fixed with the solution below. First a recap though:
If you are here because of this issue in Excel, try the solutions above first. To summarize:
The most common issue in Excel is that the Design button is toggled. Toggle that and see if the behavior changes as submitted by Dmitry Frenkel above
If that doesn't work, check for the "Load Test Report" AddIn as mentioned by Ade.
Those are really the two main causes in Excel, but if neither of those solutions work, then scroll through the rest of the solutions here. All are valid possibilities for the cause. In Access the cause is pretty straight forward. It's a timer issue on a form somewhere. I found this solution from here by User Kevin K. Sullivan.
Copy the following line of code onto the clipboard. (You might need to
paste it into a text editor first and coerce it onto one line, depending on
your newsreader. It must be one line.)
For i = 0 to Forms.Count -1: Debug.Print Forms(i).Name, Forms(i).TimerInterval: Next i
Switch to Access.
Press Ctrl-G to go to the Immediate Window.
Press Ctrl-V to paste in the code.
Press enter to to run the code. All open forms will be listed. Any non-zero timer intervals are your culprits. Simply close that form (It may be invisibly open from another process than the one you thought you were dealing with).
I think the solution for Access here is what the user Dom was trying to say above. I guess the down votes were because it wasn't explained very well and/or because he was speaking of Access when the OG issue was in Excel. Regardless, he is likely on point if you are here because of the VBE in Access.
I hope this helps people. I know I kept finding this page when researching this issue, so that's why I thought I'd update this solution here.
I hit this problem today on a fresh install of Excel 2010 Beta 2. None of the above made any difference, but going into the trust center and disabling all application add-ins fixed the problem for me.
I have Office 2010 Pro and I had the same issue. As I type the space between each word was being deleted. After trying each of the options turning them on and off the only way I found working was to disable the Winzip Courie(excel) add-in. This is done thru the Options dialog box Add-Ins section.
In office 365 I had the same issue - what worked for me is I saved the file with a different name and when I re-opened the new file the problem went away.
I found this issue pops up when I had AutoSave on. Turning that off let me code without it compiling every second.
I don't think I've ever seen the VBE remove a space when I've stopped typing. It will remove trailling spaces from lines if you move to another line, but that's something different and not behaviour that I think can be altered.
The removal of spaces in the VBA editor for Access occurs when a form is open in Form("Execute") mode. This is probably due to background executions based on "On Timer" methods. Close the form in Access solves the problem in VBA.
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Right now, I'm getting it in Excel 2007, but I've gotten the same error in pretty much every version of Excel I've used since 97. The only discernable similarity is that happens on my office PC. It's never bothered me on my home PC.
In Excel 2003, I was able to mess around in the clipboard options until it went away. In 2007, though, the options seem to be seriously limited and generally useless. Google wasn't much help, either.
check this tip. worked for here
http://mobeer.blogspot.com/2009/01/excel-2007-cannot-empty-clipboard.html:
This might save somebody some time and headaches if google picks it
up. I was getting a 'Cannot empty the Clipboard' error every time I
moved cells around in Excel - eventually I mucked around with the
settings and made it go away. Here's how; In the excel main menu
(glass globe w/logo), click Excel options, then Advanced, then turn
off 'Show paste options buttons'
How exciting was this as my first post of the year?
Update: I still haven't found a permanent solution but I found another
thing that seems to help. In Excel 2007, from the "home" tab, the
first thing on the left is the clipboard tool panel. Expand the panel
to view the clipboard and in the clipboard you might find "cannot
empty clipboard" as an entry. Empty the clipboard, keep the panel open
for a second or two while you do a few cut and pastes/drags etc. and
then the bogey seems to go away.
I call this the cable dance because back in the day I had a printer
that only worked if you unplugged the cable, shook it out and plugged
it back in.
Good answers by Paul Simon and Steve Homer, I shut down team viewer and that did the trick.
Skype or other programs may trigger the same glitch, but in this instance, I recalled the problem occurred when I tried to cut n paste a 2MB file from remote system through windows right click rather than using "File Transfer function in TV. An error message appeared, then the problem with Excel "'Cannot empty clipboard' message.
This problem occurs when you are working on a remote system. After copying and pasting a huge amount of data it shows the error. I have found the solution to this problem.
Go to remote systems task manager and perform the following task
Go to Task Manager > Processes
Look for "rdpclip.exe"
End that process
Your problem will be solved.
I found this advice:
There are a few steps to solve your
problem:
First thing to do is Clear items from
the Office Clipboard. If the Microsoft
Office Clipboard is not displayed in
the task pane, click Office Clipboard
on the Edit menu. On the Office
Clipboard task pane, do one of the
following: To clear all items, click
Clear All .
Next thing is to switch off the
clipboard show option. To do this,
what you can do is to again display
the Clipboard menu (select Office
Clipboard from Edit Menu). And in the
selection button "Options" at the
bottom of the screen, select this
particular option: "Collect Without
Showing Office Clipboard"
and now, you are relieved of the bug.
Hope this helps.
here. I have the problem, but it's sporadic. I just tried the technique, and I don't see the problem, but since it's sporadic I won't know for a while if it's gone for good.
I got rid of the problem by unchecking the option for "Alert before overwriting cells" in Excel options. I'm using Excel 2007
If you can't find the clipboard, then close that excel sheet and reopen it again. This will solve your problem.
Try http://support.microsoft.com/kb/207438
which will work for 2007 if you follow v12.0 in the registry.
Are you running Skype? This has been the best solution I have found to get rid of the "cannot empty the clipboard error" in Excel 2007 & 2010. Delete the Skype add-on in IE and/or Firefox and good-bye annoying error!
In reply to rjacobs7 post on February 28, 2011
Cannot clear clipboard error - Windows 7, Excel 2010 -
This error occurs nearly every time a drag and drop of cell contents is attempted. I've had this same error over the past 10 years on older computers and older versions of Windows and Office. It has now reoccurred with a new laptop running Windows 7 64 bit and Office 2010. The issue can be replicated only if a browser - IE or Firefox - is open at the same time that Excel is open. Having Word and/or Outlook open at the same time will not cause the problem to occur unless a browser is also open. This error is extremely irritating and no solutions from Microsoft or other posts on this issue resolve it.
I have a solution - at least for me! Delete the Skype add-in in IE and Firefox and the "cannot clear clipboard" error after a drag and drop goes away when IE and/or Firefox are running. Apparently some sort of memory-management issue with Skype, Office and the browsers.
I've read lots of blogs on this subject going back to 2005!!
I'm sure that Paul Simon is right (see his submission to this thread) and it's a question of finding which program on your machine is locking the clipboard. I do not run the programs listed in various solutons suggested (eg on Microsoft website) nor am I in a networked or virtual environment so for me those aren't the locking programs (but might be for you). Similarly I don't have the RDP task going in my processes. For me the locking program is the Skype Add-in.
I am not a sophisticated user and am scared of altering my registry so didn't want to go there.
I have now been able to reproduce accurately the "cannot clear the clipboard" message by turning on and off the skype addins in internet explorer. This is easy for amateurs to do and might be one of the more common clipboard locking programs:
I first confirmed that I can turn on/off the problem in Excel by opening/closing internet explorer.
Then I disabled the skype addins:
Internet Explorer: Tools menu --> Internet Options ; Programs Tab ; Manage Add-ons button; Toolbars and Extensions selected in panel on left - scroll down to find skype add ons. Press Disable button.
NB have to restart Internet explorer before this works.
.... 4 days later.... it's still working
I copied a picture (instead of text) that I had in my excel 2007 file and that solved the problem for me. The picture copied to the (then empty) clipboard. I could then copy cells normally even after clearing the clipboard of the picture. I think a graph object should also do the trick.
I have seen various answers which say when I uninstalled this or that it worked. I think that the uninstall is probably just sorting out an issue in the registry, rather it being an issue with the particular application that is being uninstalled.
I have also seen cases of people saying kill the RDP task but I don't have that and I still have the error.
I have seen cases of people saying clear the clipboard in Excel, but that doesn't work for me - nor does changing the settings in the Clipboard.
I believe that the issue is that an application has a lock on the clipboard and that application is not releasing it. The clipboard is a shared resource, so that implies that each application has to get a lock on it before changing it and then release the lock once it has completed the change, however, it looks like sometimes the lock is not released.
I found that the following cured it. Close down all MS applications including IE and Outlook. Check Task Manager processes to make sure that they are all gone.
Then restart the application where you had the Copy and Paste issue and it will probably then work.
Regards
Paul Simon