When attempting to open a database file through Access 2016, I'm immediately brought to VBA with a compile error: user-defined type not defined. I've rooted the problem to references not being selected (specifically, Microsoft Excel 16.0 Object Library and similar ones for Word, Office, etc.). I tried to go in, select the references to use them, save the file and try opening it again. However, I'm still brought back to the same error and the references I just selected all are unchecked again.
Does anyone know what could be causeing the references to reset and how to stop them from doing so? My co-workers running the same database file have them selected by default when they run it, but I just installed Access so that might be contributing to the issue. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated!
Try opening the database without any of the onload options and making the necessary changes, then save, close, reopen. To open without additional criteria in Access just open the file while holding the shift key.
i.e. shift + double click the file
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.
I think I have my Excel VBA where I want it (checking for cell completion before allowing saving) but that also means I can't save the blank version of that form for distribution. I'm probably missing something obvious but...I guess, disabling the macros and then reenabling it would work but apparently I can't figure it out. I've tried googling it but I only get system-wide toggling.
So, just to put a bow on things. The correct way to deal with this is to go through the formal file opening process in Excel. Assuming you have the proper macro setting in Excel (disable macros with prompt), if you open Excel, Use File Open (DO NOT SELECT RECENT FILES) and browse to the file, select it and open. Then you should get the standard prompt even if you've enabled it for that file in the past.
I have an Excel spreadsheet with VBA programming, form activex controls, form controls. The spreadsheet has worked normally, until last week. I think the problem started when the automatic installation of windows uptade took place, however it might be only coincidence, since I am not positive if this is the cause. Now, the spreadsheet opens and immediately a small window appears that indicates :
“Visual Basic for Applications - Permisson Denied to use object (OK,
Help)”. Selecting help, minimum information and it is irrelevant.
Selecting OK, another window pops out “Visual Basic for Applications -
Unexpected error 419 (OK, Help)”
I cannot even save the sheet to another name. The VBA code cannot run. If I open any new spreadsheet, Excel functions normally, also with its VBA. Just before having this problem, every time that I opened the spreadsheet a window appeared, indicating that Excel blocked the functionalities of the ActiveX controls and asking that if I would allow the use of ActiveX. Today, I enabled all macros and also all activex controls. My previous backups of this spreadsheet have also the same problem. None works. I went to VBA Edit-->References and compared the Libraries I had and the Libraries that are there on the spreadsheet. It seems that no library is missing. How to solve that?
The permissions have changed on your workstation and/or network. Specifically, the folders that hold the DLL files that contain the objects referenced in the VBA. As an example (and I don't know if this is exactly the case, but an illustration), if your code is referencing the Microsoft Scripting Runtime (many VBA projects do), your code needs permissions to access C:\Windows\SysWOW64\scrrun.dll. (I found this by calling up the VBA editor, selecting Tools-->References, then selecting Microsoft Scripting Runtime and reading the bottom of the dialog window for the location.)
This is the location of the DLL on my workstation. Yours might be different or it might have moved during a systems update or the permissions to access that folder may have changed. You'll have to check the locations of all the references in your VBA project to determine this. Sometimes the libraries referenced are located on network drives, which can complicate matters if the network permissions change.
I decided to try to export all the forms (*.frm; *.frx). Everything went fine until I came across to a specific form that had a shockwaveflash object. At this point the message "Permission denied to use object". Bingo!
I then tracked the location on my workstation of such shockwave object reference and applied full administrator control. However, I still could not use shockwave objects. I then uninstalled flash and downloaded the lates shockwaveflash plugin from Adobe. When I open Excel->Developer->Insert->ActiveX Controls->More Controls -> ShockwaveFlashObject and then insert the object in a sheet, the message: "MS Excel - Cannot insert object" appears. I have manually deleted the "*.exd” from C:\Users\[User ID]\AppData\Local\Temp\Excel8.0. Also deleted from C:\Users\[User ID]\AppData\Local\Temp\VBE\, but the problem was still there: "Microsoft Excel - Cannot insert object".
To solve the issue I finally accessed the VBA editor and deleted the userform that had the ShockwaveFlashObject in it. All went back to normal afterwards.
I'm having an issue with tool I developed in excel for one of our offices. It is a big enough file with couple of macros in it, but it works smooth day to day.
However every few days file will through error 'Can't find project or library' and file will crash. I know the standard guides are that when this error appears, it is to go to vba>tools>referneces and uncheck the missing library, however this is not the case in here. Simply when this happens file crashes and restarts and if it will happen once, every other attempt to open back the file will result in same error in crash. I mean file can be absolutely fine, you will save it, go back to it and error happens. So I always have to recover the file which absolutely destroys it, however I can at least recover from it information uploaded there by the users and copy it into the template.
So 2 questions I have is what is causing this to happen? Both myself and the other office are using the same version of excel so compatibility should not be an issue.
2 questions is is there anything that can be done to prevent this error from happening.
I have exactly this problem. As stated, once the error occurs, it it results in a permanent "unfixable" loop. I use powerquery and linked data and this appears to randomly "damage" the file as described - most frequently when excel crashes for some reason.
I have found either of the following to work:
- Open the file on a different computer that is not on the LAN. This
appears to be a key requirement.
- Open the file with "Excel Online"
In each case, simply open the file and save it with a new name. Move the new file back to the work PC and it will once more open perfectly.
On rare occasions (if powerquery is in use), it is necessary to "refresh all" data connections before saving the new file.
As a bonus, the new file is often smaller than the original.
This worked for me:
In VB go to Tools » References
1) Uncheck the library "Crystal Analysis Common Controls 1.0". Or any library.
Just leave these 5 references:
1) Visual Basic For Applications (This is the library that defines the VBA language.)
2) Microsoft Excel Object Library (This defines all of the elements of Excel.)
3) OLE Automation (This specifies the types for linking and embedding documents and for automation of other applications and the "plumbing" of the COM system that Excel uses to communicate with the outside world.)
4) Microsoft Office (This defines things that are common to all Office programs such as Command Bars and Command Bar controls.)
5) Microsoft Forms 2.0 This is required if you are using a User Form. This library defines things like the user form and the controls that you can place on a form.
Then Save.
I've had similar nasty issues.
First thing to do is use the CodeCleaner a free utility from AppsPro
This will export your modules and then re-import them, because internally they get a lot of binary "lint" which can cause problem.
Second thing to suggest is start breaking up your code base. So start removing modules to see which module is the offender. Horrible I know but how can you tell otherwise where the problem is.
Third suggestion is to always fully qualify your functions. So instead of Len(sMyString) write VBA.Len(sMyString) that helps prevent false negative compile errors.
So I'm having to run someone else's excel app on my PC, and I'm getting "Can't find Project or Library" on standard functions such as date, format, hex, mid, etc.
Some research indicates that if I prefix these functions with "VBA." as in "VBA.Date" then it'll work fine.
Webpages suggest it has to do with my project references on my system, whereas they must be ok on the developer's system. I'm going to be dealing with this for some time from others, and will be distributing these applications to many others, so I need to understand what's wrong with my excel setup that I need to fix, or what needs to be changed in the xls file so that it'll run on a variety of systems. I'd like to avoid making everyone use "VBA." as an explicit reference, but if there's no ideal solution I suppose that's what we'll have to do.
How do I make "VBA." implicit in my project properties/references/etc?
-Adam
I have seen errors on standard functions if there was a reference to a totally different library missing.
In the VBA editor launch the Compile command from the menu and then check the References dialog to see if there is anything missing and if so try to add these libraries.
In general it seems to be good practice to compile the complete VBA code and then saving the document before distribution.
I had the same problem. This worked for me:
In VB go to Tools » References
Uncheck the library "Crystal Analysis Common Controls 1.0". Or any library.
Just leave these 5 references:
Visual Basic For Applications (This is the library that defines the VBA language.)
Microsoft Excel Object Library (This defines all of the elements of Excel.)
OLE Automation (This specifies the types for linking and embedding documents and for automation of other applications and the "plumbing" of the COM system that Excel uses to communicate with the outside world.)
Microsoft Office (This defines things that are common to all Office programs such as Command Bars and Command Bar controls.)
Microsoft Forms 2.0 This is required if you are using a User Form. This library defines things like the user form and the controls that you can place on a form.
Then Save.
I have experienced this exact problem and found, on the users machine, one of the libraries I depended on was marked as "MISSING" in the references dialog. In that case it was some office font library that was available in my version of Office 2007, but not on the client desktop.
The error you get is a complete red herring (as pointed out by divo).
Fortunately I wasn't using anything from the library, so I was able to remove it from the XLA references entirely. I guess, an extension of divo' suggested best practice would be for testing to check the XLA on all the target Office versions (not a bad idea in any case).
In my case, it was that the function was AMBIGUOUS as it was defined in the VBA library (present in my references), and also in the Microsoft Office Object Library (also present). I removed the Microsoft Office Object Library, and voila! No need to use the VBA. prefix.
In my case, I could not even open "References" in the Visual Basic window. I even tried reinstalling Office 365 and that didn't work. Finally, I tried disabling macros in the "Trust Center" settings. When I restarted Excel, I got the warning message that macros were disabled, and when I clicked on "enable" I no longer got the error message.
Later I re-enabled all macros in the "Trust Center" settings, and the error message didn't show up!
Hey, if nothing else works for you, try the above; it worked for me! :)
Update:
The issue returned, and this is how I "fixed" it the second time:
I opened my workbook in Excel online (Office 365, in the browser, which doesn't support macros anyway), saved it with a new file name (still using .xlsm file extension), and reopened in the desktop software. It worked.
Even when all references are fine the prefix problem causes compile errors.
What about creating a find and replace sub for all 'built-in VBA functions' in all modules,
like this:
replace text in code module
e.g. "= Date" will be replaced with "= VBA.Date".
e.g. " Date(" will be replaced with " VBA.Date(" .
(excluding "dim t As Date" or "mydate")
All vba functions for find and replace are written here :
vba functions list
For those of you who haven't found any of the other answers work for you.
Try this:
Close out of the file, email it to yourself or if you're at work, paste it from the network drive to your desktop, anything to get it to open in "protected mode".
Now open the file
DON'T CLICK ANY ENABLE EDITING OR THE YELLOW RIBBON
Go to the VBA Editor
Go to Debug - - Compile VBA Project, if "Compile VBA Project" is greyed out, then you may need to click the yellow ribbon one time to enable the content, but DO NOT enable macros.
After you click Compile, save, close out of the file. Reopen it, enable everything and it should be OK. This has worked for me 100% of the time.
In my case I was checking work done on my office computer (with Visio installed) at home (no Visio). Even though VBA appeared to be getting hung up on simple default functions, the problem was that I had references to the Visio libraries still active.
I found references to an AVAYA/CMS programme file? Totally random, this was in MS Access, nothing to do with AVAYA. I do have AVAYA on my PC, and others don't, so this explains why it worked on my machine and not others - but not how Access got linked to AVAYA. Anyway - I just unchecked the reference and that seems to have fixed the problem
I've had this error on and off for around two years in a several XLSM files (which is most annoying as when it occurs there is nothing wrong with the file! - I suspect orphaned Excel processes are part of the problem)
The most efficient solution I had found has been to use Python with oletools
https://github.com/decalage2/oletools/wiki/Install and extract the VBA code all the modules and save in a text file.
Then I simply rename the file to zip file (backup just in case!), open up this zip file and delete the xl/vbaProject.bin file. Rename back to XLSX and should be good to go.
Copy in the saved VBA code (which will need cleaning of line breaks, comments and other stuff. Will also need to add in missing libraries.
This has saved me when other methods haven't.
YMMV.