Excel will not open "out of memory"

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Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Hi there, excel fails to open a file or to open on its own. Every time ther is an out of memory warning. The Hard Drive has 80GB left and the system has 2GB physical memory.

What I have done so far

Fully updated OSX 10.5.7
Fully updated Office 2008

this did not work.

Unistalled Office and re-installed, again no effect. Opening excel on its own or a file gives the memory warning and quits.

Anyone with any pointers I see there is a lot of posts with the same issue.

 

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Just for Info I also repaired permissions after every install and uninstall

Ross

 

[CyberTaz]

First & Foremost: Reinstaling complex apps such as Office is *never* the
first step to correcting a problem & rarely is it a part of the corrective
process. In fact, it can make matters worse & even cause other problems.
Applications seldom go bad & the files that do go bad aren't
changed/fixed/removed by reinstalling, so at best it's a waste of time.

No disrespect, but "fully updated" doesn't tell what needs to be known.
Please give the exact 3 part version number of Office just as you did for OS
X [X.X.X]. This is especially necessary info since you reinstalled Office -
Did you reapply all updates after reinstalling? That's another down side of
a reinstall... You have to re-update as well, otherwise everything is out of
sync.

The "Out of Memory" error is one of the most inaccurate & ambiguous messages
in existance. It rarely has anything to do with RAM or disk space, but
instead often indicates that needed data isn't available.

Once you confirm that all updates have been applied & permissions are
repaired [again] log out then hold the Shift key while you log in to see if
the problem continues.

Second, create a new User Account, try running Excel while logged in as that
user.

Also, log in normally, hold Shift while launching Excel to see if that makes
a difference.

Reply with your results for each of those methods.

 

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Excel is back to 12.1.9,

To delete I followed the advice on the mactopia website to trash the plist and the folder.

Holding shift on excel start up does not fix the problem. Will try that on login.

Will try and create a user and see what happens then, as it currently happens for all users but I have not tried a new user.

 

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Ok so created new account, that did not work, Also started with shift, again that did not work.

The machine is actually my mothers and she is new to Mac. When this first happened she was talking about all these picture and how she moved some to trash and emptied the trash.

What I suspect she has done is click on all the documents search in finder and removed something to do with excel.....

So why doesn't a full re-install fix the issue.

Ross

 

[CyberTaz]

Did you actually run the Remove Office utility? What "folder" did you
delete? Had you used the Remove Office utility there would be no need to
trash any folder or .plist file. I'm not sure what instructions you
followed, but what you describe doesn't do what needs to be done. Follow the
procedure detailed here:

http://www.entourage.mvps.org/install/remove_office.html

Empty the Trash & restart after the removal.


Then follow these instructions to reinstall Office:

http://www.entourage.mvps.org/install/install_office2008.html

Repair permissions & restart after installing, then apply the updates.


If that doesn't correct the problem it's quite possible that what was
deleted may very well have been something which wasn't an Excel/Office
component. I'd suggest that you retrieve the OS X 10.5.7 Combo Update from
the Apple Downloads site, apply it & repair permissions again:

<http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/macosx1057combou
pdate.html>

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