Excel and SNow Leopard

[JonGreenAU]

Version: 2004
Processor: Intel

I was using Excel and was marking certain cells. I was also transferring between different workbooks. To my surprise, I was thrown out of Excel and was sent back to the password screen. This happened a number of times this morning. This afternoon I went into Excel again and when I was quitting the same thing happened. I use Excel extensively for work and this situation is incredibly frustrating. I am using a MacBook Pro and Snow Leopard as the operating system.

None of my files are large and I use the files on both a Mac and a PC. Today was the first time that this has occurred.

JonGreenau

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Version: 2004
Processor: Intel

I was using Excel and was marking certain cells. I was also transferring
between different workbooks. To my surprise, I was thrown out of Excel and was
sent back to the password screen. This happened a number of times this
morning. This afternoon I went into Excel again and when I was quitting the
same thing happened. I use Excel extensively for work and this situation is
incredibly frustrating. I am using a MacBook Pro and Snow Leopard as the
operating system.

None of my files are large and I use the files on both a Mac and a PC. Today
was the first time that this has occurred.

JonGreenau

What do you mean by "marking certain cells"? What do you mean by
"transferring between different workbooks"? What is "thrown out of Excel"?
What password screen? Do you get any errors? Is Excel fully updated?

 

[James Brown]

What do you mean by "marking certain cells"? What do you mean by
"transferring between different workbooks"? What is "thrown out of Excel"?
What password screen? Do you get any errors? Is Excel fully updated?

Happens to me all the time. And others. See http://openradar.appspot.com/7186317

I'm using version 11.5.5 (090512).

By password screen, Jon means the OS's login screen. The entire user
environment dies and you are taken back to the start as if you were
just starting the computer.

We can't use Excel 2008 until MS put Visual Basic for Applications
back.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Happens to me all the time. And others. See
http://openradar.appspot.com/7186317

I'm using version 11.5.5 (090512).

By password screen, Jon means the OS's login screen. The entire user
environment dies and you are taken back to the start as if you were
just starting the computer.

We can't use Excel 2008 until MS put Visual Basic for Applications
back.

Well, VBA is not coming back to Office 2008. But it WILL be present in the
next version of Office:mac.

I looked at the link, and now better understand your original question.
However, it appears to be a configuration issue. Excel 2004 works fine for
me, including VBA in snow Leopard. I can not reproduce the problem you are
reporting.

 

[CyberTaz]

FWIW, I'm in tune with Bob G on this... There's nothing I can think of that
any program can do to cause OS X to log the user out all together. Each
program is managed in its own "space", which is why the Force Quit
functionality works. If a program crashes or hangs to the point where it
locks up the Mac it's most likely due to issues rooted in the OS or the
hardware (such as file system errors). But even when that occurs the Mac
doesn't exit to the Log In screen, it requires a restart. I guess it's
conceivable that a corrupt user account might cause a program to crash that
OS X may log that user out to protect the operation of the overal system,
but I've never seen it happen that way.

I'd suggest creating a new User Account, run Excel there doing the same
activity & see if it reproduces the behavior.

It might also be worthwhile to check in the Apple Discussions Forum to see
if there are any similar reports.

--
HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
Office:Mac MVP

What do you mean by "marking certain cells"? What do you mean by
"transferring between different workbooks"? What is "thrown out of Excel"?
What password screen? Do you get any errors? Is Excel fully updated?

Happens to me all the time. And others. See
http://openradar.appspot.com/7186317

I'm using version 11.5.5 (090512).

By password screen, Jon means the OS's login screen. The entire user
environment dies and you are taken back to the start as if you were
just starting the computer.

We can't use Excel 2008 until MS put Visual Basic for Applications
back.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

FWIW, I'm in tune with Bob G on this... There's nothing I can think of
that any program can do to cause OS X to log the user out all together.
Each program is managed in its own "space", which is why the Force Quit
functionality works. If a program crashes or hangs to the point where it
locks up the Mac it's most likely due to issues rooted in the OS or the
hardware (such as file system errors). But even when that occurs the Mac
doesn't exit to the Log In screen, it requires a restart. I guess it's
conceivable that a corrupt user account might cause a program to crash
that OS X may log that user out to protect the operation of the overal
system, but I've never seen it happen that way.

I'd suggest creating a new User Account, run Excel there doing the same
activity & see if it reproduces the behavior.

It might also be worthwhile to check in the Apple Discussions Forum to
see if there are any similar reports.

Hi,

This might fall into the category of something else being the culprit. I
had a different issue, but similarly, the windowserver was causing a
crash while using Excel. It turned out to be that an incompatible
printer driver.

Something like this with reproducible steps may need to be tried staring
with a clean Snow Leopard install without any extras (no printer
drivers, no other software, all other SL options except Rosetta
omitted). Try connecting the second monitor and see if you reproduce. If
you do, then you know it's the second monitor and Excel. Then you've got
something to report to Microsoft via your feedback channel.

-Jim

 

[Zeb0dee]

I upgraded to Snow leopard and also experience this issue
(MacBook2.4GHz/SL10.6.1/MSOffice 2004). In my case the behaviour is fairly
consistent when (1) the arrow keys are used to move from cell to cell along a
row and you reverse and go back to a previous column, (2) you click on a cell
not adjacent to the one previously selected and (3) if you add a value to a
cell and then select an alternative cell without hitting 'enter'. The only
variable is how many times you do one of these three things before the
'crash' and you end up back at the session login (Mac OS login screen).

It only happens in Excel and only since upgrading to Snow Leopard. It
happens in at least two spreadsheets I spend a lot of time in. Interestingly,
if you move the spreadsheet to a Windows XP machine running Excel do all the
things you are unable to do in the Mac version (because it continually
crashes), save and then try again on the saved file on a Mac, the behaviour
goes away (for a while). It becomes more prevalent the longer a spreadsheet
is open and manipulated - it manifests itself a bit like a memory leak but
not being a programmer I wouldn't dare comment further.

 

[mcuenca]

I am having the same issue. While working in Excel 11.5.5 on Snow Leopard, the computer will suddenly go to a blue screen and then restart the Finder with no applications active. Everything I had open is closed and anything I had not saved is lost.

I have reinstalled Snow Leopard and Office 2004. I have deleted and/or inactivated all fonts other than the system fonts and those installed by Office. I have cleared all caches. None of this has helped.

This is not our imagination.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

I am having the same issue. While working in Excel 11.5.5 on Snow Leopard, the computer will suddenly go to a blue screen and then restart the Finder with no applications active. Everything I had open is closed and anything I had not saved is lost.

I have reinstalled Snow Leopard and Office 2004. I have deleted and/or inactivated all fonts other than the system fonts and those installed by Office. I have cleared all caches. None of this has helped.

This is not our imagination.

Hi,

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be that I had selected an
inappropriate printer driver for my printer. I can't say that your
problem will be cured with a new printer driver, but it does point out
that the problem could be something Excel uses, rather than Excel
itself, so don't limit your troubleshooting just to Excel.

-Jim

 

[agenda]

I too have Excel 2004 and just installed Snow Leopard on Macbook Pro. After a random number of key strokes I get the blue screen and the computer restarts delivering me to the desktop in about 10 seconds. I have tried removing orange and red fonts in Font Book, checked the printer driver is HP (should have been updated on instal), restarted computer, reinstalled SL, but Excel continues to shut down.

How can such a major programme not be working with the new system?????

 

[RM]

I have the same problem with my Excel 2004 on Snow Leopard. I will have to
create and try out another user account to see if I can get it to reproduce
there.

You asked why a major program wouldn't work with a new system. The key word
there is "new." Office 2004 was designed during an older OS, so it wouldn't
be expected to always work with newer OS upgrades. As much as I dislike
being stuck using M$ Office, I can't fault them for not making a program to
be compatible with an OS that didn't exist at that time of creation.

If there is an anomaly with Excel 2004, hopefully, they can find it and send
us an update to fix it. Maybe, while they're at it, they could fix the issue
with documents not saving properly to AFP servers. It's just as annoying to
work on a document and an Office program refuses to save it back to the
server....but I digress.

Although, I wouldn't be surprised if it could be an HP driver that was
causing the problems. My office has several HP printers, some several years
old, so likely the drivers are not all completely compatible with Snow
Leopard either.

 

[Phaedrus1962]

Yes, me too. For me it's using Excel 2004 and trying to make changes to
custom menus I've created to allow for easy access to VBA scripts I've
written. I've got hundreds of hours invested in VBA and its support on the
Mac was dropped with Office 2008.

The crash that results is unique in my experience. I've never had an app
crash the whole workspace, dropping me back to the login screen. Pretty
disappointing.

I understand the expense involved in providing support for older software,
but without VBA support, 'upgrading' just isn't an option.

I hope either Microsoft, Apple or both, can resolve this matter.

David

 

[wadefr]

I am also using Excel 2004 (11.5.5) on my mac mini core duo. I get the same crash (blue screen, then back to the OS login screen). I have found that if I do a Save in Excel after almost every paste or entry of data, then it doesn't crash. Wierd!

Wade

 

[wadefr]

PS I also have an HP printer (Deskjet 810C) with the Gutenprint driver.

Wade

 

[wadefr]

I also had multiple crashes of Snow Leopard when copying/pasting in Excel 2004. After some research of various boards, I think I have solved the problem (fingers crossed) by

1. Eliminating Type 1 fonts
2. Using the Araxis 'Find Duplicate Files' app to eliminate duplicate fonts (all were in Microsoft Font folder), and
3. Using Font Finagler to clean my font caches (there were some errors in the MS font cache, but others were OK).

Since I did this, I haven't had the problem again. But I've only run Excel 2 or 3 times so far.

Wade

 

[CyberTaz]

Good work & thanks for sharing your solution. I just hope you didn't go to
any expense as this is in keeping with what has been previously suggested...
Duplicate fonts can be handled by the Font Book app supplied with OS X &
cache cleaning ‹ unless it's gotten way out of hand ‹ is usually
accomplished by simply shutting down & starting up the Mac (or can be done
manually). Unfortunately you splashed down in a thread that was already
focused in a different direction based on the original poster's feedback.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Steve]

This is actually not a new problem with Snow Leopard. I had the same
problem in Leopard - but it didn't cause an OS crash. I just did a
fresh install (to a blank hard drive) of Snow Leopard and Office 2004,
and encountered the same problem you all are describing. In Leopard,
the bug would cause Excel to stop receiving keystrokes. It could be
"fixed" by switching to a different program, and then back to Excel
(without even an Excel relaunch).

The OS crash is far more frustrating!

 

[Uncle_Fink]

Assorted Issues with Excel

1: When opening a spreadsheet it usually opens up a narrow spreadsheet wide enough to fill the screen. I have a couple of spreadsheets that are only 10 or columns wide but several hundred rows deep. I want to see just to Column J (or so). I don't need to see the emptiness of Column Z and beyond. If the Spreadsheet has minimized it isn't so bad, but when opening from disk I see dozens of unused columns that I have to shrink. There has to be a way around this.

2: After I update areas of the spreadsheets I have to Sort them. Sometimes it's a dozen or so lines; sometimes it can be hundreds of lines. The Parameters never Change: No Header Row. I can just finish a sort telling it No Headers several times, but on the 5th, 7th, or even the 2nd sort it and the Button will say "Header Row: ". I never once change which columns are to be sorted, just which rows. I desperately need an Option Button that keeps The Parameters the same!

3: The Blue Jelly Bean of Death! I accidently hit it and the Toolbars are gone. They will NOT come back. Everything I’ve tried hasn’t worked. It’s Not a Problem with Word. It can be hit and the Toolbar comes back. Not so with Excel. It’s gone and it won’t come back.

 

[CyberTaz]

I'm sure someone will be glad to lend a hand, but we need to know exactly
what your versions & update levels are for both Office and OS X.

Also, please don't post NEW questions as a REPLY to an existing thread,
though. This conversation has already gotten misdirected several times.

Submit your questions as NEW messages. It helps keep the focus on your issue
so it's easier & clearer for everyone involved, including yourself Your
message is also less likely to be seen when injected into an existing thread
like this because most of the responders who weren't participating in this
one will probably never look at it.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac