Corrupt Excel File?

[MDW]

I have a question I’m not even sure where it belongs.

In brief, my department has a process that involves two linked Excel
workbooks. One of the workbooks contains source data, and is called
“Source.xlsâ€. The other workbook contains macros, and it takes the data from
the source, runs some calculations using macros, and generates an output file.

These files are replicated every day (manually copied into a new folder from
the day before). The files are named with the month/day from which they
correspond – “Source_Nov_09.xls†and “Model_Nov_09.xls†for example.

At some point at the end of last month, Source_xx.xls got “corrupted†(for
lack of a better term). Every time I run the model, Excel generates an error
that says “Excel cannot complete the task with the resources available. Close
files or programs and try again.†This doesn’t appear to be a real error – it
doesn’t seem to affect the running of the model or the output it creates.

I’ve been able to pinpoint the day it happened, it was October 31. Because
we copy the same files from one day to the next, the “corruption†has spread
to every day since 10/31. I know this is the case because if I run the
Source_Oct_30.xls with ANY model file, I don’t get the error. Conversely, if
I run the Source_Oct_31.xls file with ANY model, I do get the error.

I hope that’s enough background for my question: Is the behavior I described
above consistent with an actual “corruption†of an Excel file? Is there
anything I can do to try and figure out what exactly happened between the
30th and the 31st?

 

[Hank Youngerman]

I have had that problem, and when I do, it almost always involves a lot
of cells with lookups into a large range in another workbook. I don't
know just what the threshold is for how many lookups will trigger it.
I get this error when I am trying to save the file that has a lot of
lookups in it. I don't know how this squares with your exact
situation.

 

[MDW]

Yes, that's exactly my situation here. "Model_xx.xls" has VLOOKUPS down to
about 8,000 rows in "Source_xx.xls"

I just checked, and there were no changes to the size of the ranges being
looked up between the two days.

Still, I bet it's the same thing. What have you been able to do to get
around that issue, if anything?

 

[Alan]

Hi,

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