Excel Crashes continuously (Tiger?)

[Michael Jardine]

Excel (Office 2004) crashes constantly. I thought Mac was supposed to be
more stable than PC? What gives?

Incidentally, I've got a PowerBook G4, 1.5GB ram, just upgraded to OSX
Tiger, using little overhead. Using the Notebook view. It just keeps
freezing then I have to force-quit.

Same with Word.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Excel (Office 2004) crashes constantly. I thought Mac was supposed to be
more stable than PC? What gives?

Consider the possibility of user error...<g>

XL has been rock solid for me under Tiger.

General troubleshooting first:

- Reset your disk permissions, using the Disk Utility application found
in Application:Utilities.

- With all Office apps closed, trash or rename the

~:Libraryreferences:Microsoft

folder. Restart XL.

- Troubleshoot your fonts:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313535

Incidentally, I've got a PowerBook G4, 1.5GB ram, just upgraded to OSX
Tiger, using little overhead. Using the Notebook view. It just keeps
freezing then I have to force-quit.

XL doesn't have a Notebook view...

 

[Michael Jardine]

Thanks, I'll take a look at this when I get a chance. At the moment I'm in
the middle of my MBA class (all-day). I'm the only one with a Mac and my PC
classmates are all laughing at me hilariously. I feel particularly stupid
because I am a recent convert and had been bragging about how "stable" the
Mac OS X system is!

 

[Edwin Tam]

You didn't describe what is actually inside your Excel workbook which caused
Excel 2004 to crash constantly. Also, you didn't mention what you was doing
when Excel crashed, and whether that step is reproducable. These are crucial
information for the Microsoft engineers to sort out the problem and produce a
fix.

Therefore, I recommend you provide the above information. And MS is
definitely going to help.

Also, have you installed the MS Office 2004 update? It's available from the
MS web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

Also, please run the AutoUpdate function of the MacOS X from the System
Preferences.

Having used Excel 2004 for quite a while (since before it's launched when it
was still beta), I find it quite stable when handling normal workbooks. The
only way to crash it constantly is with VBA and UserForms developed for the
PC. Some VBA code and UserForms need to be modified in order to run on the
Mac.

An example is, if a multi-column list box on a UserForm is populated using
an array instead of using the "AddItem" method to add the list items
one-by-one, Excel 2004 is higjhly likely to crash. The PC version has no
problem with this. Also, if a JPEG file is insert onto a UserForm in Windows
Excel, Mac Excel 2004 could also become unstable on opening such a file.

Edwin Tam
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.vonixx.com

 

[Michael Jardine]

Edwin,

Thanks for helping. I was not doing "anything", just trying to enter
information in a cell. No macros, nothing fancy. Just a spreadsheet with
normal formulas. Also there is a strange thing happening between mouse and
spreadsheet. When I have the spreadsheet in page layout view, if I move to
the "page" on the right (which is just columns GHIJ), when I use the mouse
to highlight a cell, it automatically chooses the furthest left cell. The
only way I can highlight a cell further right is by using the arrow key.

By the way I've been using Excel since 1988 and am quite familiar with it.
This is the most bizarre situation I've ever encountered.

Often if I do a clean reboot, the problem disappears. But then it will crop
up later in the day. This leads me to believe that it is something to do
with the operating system or something else that is corrupting the memory
space.

Michael

 

[cannonball]

I seem to be having the same problem. I run excel 2004 on a powermac g5
(2x2) and 1,5gb of ram.

My files are relatively heavy (40MB) but that has not been a problem in
the past (just a bit slow at times that's all). I have a couple pivot
tables and a lot of reference formulas but nothing more fancy than that
(i.e. no macros).

It's gotten to the point that if I want to simply copy a field or
change a specific formula, the yellow microsoft error reporting icon
pops up and I have to force-quit excel twice (once isn't enough). I've
also noted some of the formulas do not update (even for a simple
"sum").

Though I've had a few excel crashes in the past and under panther.
Since upgrading to Tiger, it's getting so repetitive that I can't work
on certain files.

I've tried what Edwin advised (trashing the pref's etc...) but it did
nothing for me. I'm adding a couple gigs of ram later today to see if
that helps - but I suspect it'll only make the crash execute quicker!

I would appreciate anyone's help... before I "up"grade back to
Panther.

Benjamin

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

I read through this thread and have not found solid indications that the
following steps were taken:

Go to the Excel Help menu and check for updates. If updates are
available, install them. Repeat process until there are no additional
updates.

Next use Apple's Disk Utility (it's in Applications > Utilities) to
repair permissions.

Third, run Alsoft DiskWarrior.

The problems you and Michael are experiencing are very unusual. If your
operating system is in good working order then I would try to find out
what other software is running and turn the other ones off. It's
possible that some other software is misbehaving.

-Jim