12.1.0 Excel "open recent files" command triggers corruption ofpreferences

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Excel 12.1.0 was working fine, as did 12.0.1 before it with the PPC version
of OS 10.5.2.

After opening previous "recent files" (my preference was for 20) with no
difficulty, Excel crashed. I OKed the sending in of a crash report to
Microsoft.

After Excel re-launched, the same problem happened with "recent files" but
not if I just navigated to a file to open or double-clicked on a previously
saved file. But "open," also became corrupted.

Trashing Excel preferences did not initially fix the corruption. Trashing
and then re-starting the G5 worked fine, at least in opening previously
saved filed via simply navigating and "open," via "open recent," and
double-clicking.

The lengthy crash log, which was sent to MS, is way beyond my level of
technical understanding.

It starts with such information as:

Microsoft Error Reporting log version: 2.0

Error Signature:
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS
Date/Time: 2008-05-20 15:47:56 -0700
Application Name: Microsoft Excel
Application Bundle ID: com.microsoft.Excel
Application Signature: XCEL
Application Version: 12.1.0.080409
Crashed Module Name: CoreFoundation
Crashed Module Version: unknown
Crashed Module Offset: 0x0006b6a8
Blame Module Name: CoreFoundation
Blame Module Version: unknown
Blame Module Offset: 0x0006b6a8 . . . .

The technical information for the four threads (0-4) that followed,
hopefully, will make sense to the person/s at Microsoft who read such user
crash reports. Would it help in this newsgroup for me to post or email
parts or all of the copy I made?

It would be good to know what caused the crashes and corruption so that I
could prevent it from happening again. Any hunches?

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Pat McMillan]

Thanks for the report.

If you could copy the entire crash log from the Microsoft Error Reporting
tool and send it my way, it would be a great help. Without the full log we
usually can't fully investigate.

Also, could you describe the scenario a little further? Are you saying that
you got into a state where Excel would crash when selecting *any* file from
the Recently used file list? Or did the crash only happen with a particular
file? Also, after restarting your machine, are you able to get the crash to
occur again?

Thanks,

Pat McMillan
(e-mail address removed)

 

[gizlby]

i am having a similar problem

i can't open files that were previously opened in excel and saved to excel 97

i also can't open my preferences

any suggestions -- seems like the update is giving me more problems then
before

 

[Pat McMillan]

Thanks for passing this on. Could you please give me more details of the
problems you're seeing?

With respect to the problem opening files, is this just on double-click of
the file or dragging them onto the Excel application icon, or is it the case
that some files that could be opened previously will no longer open at all?
Or is Excel crashing when you try to open the files from the Recent Files
list? If the problem is that you simply can't open certain files, would it
be possible to send a file to me to investigate ([email protected])?

With respect to the preferences problem, could you please explain what you
mean by not being able to open preferences? Are you saying that when you go
to Excel/Preferences no dialog appears? It might help if you could send me
your Excel preferences file (com.microsoft.Excel.plist in
Users/Library/Preferences).

Thanks,

Pat