"Not Enough Memory"/hangup with Excel 2004/MacOSX 10.4

[aomepoiu]

Hello,

I'm trying to open a mid-sized (1.8M) Excel spreadsheet. I have Office
2004 and Mac OSX 10.4. I'm getting one of two results: 1) a "Not
Enough Memory" error message, after which Excel opens with a blank
spreadsheet; 2) the process hangs up and I have to Force Quit Excel.
In this latter case, Microsoft Error Reporting comes up on the dock,
and I have to Force Quit that too. Needless to say, there's plenty of
memory.

This document is one I've used often in the past, but I recently
transferred all my files to a new machine, upgraded to Tiger, switched
servers, and made various other adjustments, so there are many points
at which some key setting could have been changed.

Here's what I've tried:

1) Looked for updates to Office and Tiger. All updates installed.
Same results.

2) Verified and repaired permissions. Same results.

3) Renamed Preferences/Microsoft folder. Same results. Trashed new
folder and restored old one.

4) Disabled all fonts, in two sets. Same results.

5) Tried to open the same spreadsheet on two other computers in the
office. One of these is a similar setup to mine, the other has OS 10.3
instead of 10.4. Same results in each case.

6) Copied the file to a local disk (it ordinarily resides on a server)
and tried to open it there. Same results.

Other Excel files seem to open normally. Any ideas? Corrupted file?
If so, any suggestions for restoring it? The actual data isn't too
much, and I have hard copies of all of it, but many of the formulas are
very complex.


Thanks for any help,

Brian

 

[Socrates]

"...but many of the formulas are very complex."

That may be the key, especially since the problem was repeated on
different machines. Which Mac are you using and how much RAM do you
have?

 

[Socrates]

"...but many of the formulas are very complex."

That may be the key, especially since the problem was repeated on
different machines. Which Mac are you using and how much RAM do you
have?

 

[aomepoiu]

Thanks for replying. It's a G4 with 1GB RAM. By "very complex," I
just meant, "complex enough that I don't want to contemplate recreating
this spreadsheet"--I don't think they should test the power of the
computer. In any case, I have opened this file hundreds of times
before and had no problems.

 

[Socrates]

Throw my idea out the window.

It is really strange that the file acts up on several computers. That
certainly points to the file itself. Some wild guesses:
1. Excel preferences - under Calculation, the number of iterations.
Default is 100.
2. Could it be looking for a font that isn't there?

If the info is not confidential and you're willing to email me a copy,
I'll look on my machine. Beyond that, I'm clueless - you've already
tried the standard solutions.

 

[Socrates]

Throw my idea out the window.

It does appear to be the file itself as the problem appears on several
machines.

Some wild guesses:
1. Excel prefs - Calculation, Iterations default is 100. Is it set
significantly higher?
2. Could it be looking for a font that doesn't exist on the machine?

If the info is not confidential and you're willing to email me a copy,
I'll check it out on my computer. Beyond that, I'm clueless. You've
already done all the standard trouble-shooting.

 

[Socrates]

Throw my idea out the window.

It does appear to be the file itself as the problem appears on several
machines.

Some wild guesses:
1. Excel prefs - Calculation, Iterations default is 100. Is it set
significantly higher?
2. Could it be looking for a font that doesn't exist on the machine?

If the info is not confidential and you're willing to email me a copy,
I'll check it out on my computer. Beyond that, I'm clueless. You've
already done all the standard trouble-shooting.

 

[aomepoiu]

I'm suspicious of the fonts as well. A quick experiment this morning
showed that when a spreadsheet calls for a font the system doesn't have
access to, it just substitutes a generic-looking font wihtout missing a
beat. Still, there's a whiff of witchcraft about the Font Book.

As for Maximum Iterations, I'm guessing it's still at 100 in the
suspect file--it appears to be 100 in all my other files--but of course
there's no way to tell for sure without opening the file, which I can't
do.

Thanks for the suggestions, and the offer. (The content of the file
is, unfortunately, confidential--firm billing records). If nobody else
has any ideas here, I'll probably take it to MS tech support this
afternoon.

 

[CyberTaz]

Something not mentioned in any of the prior postings leads me to believe
that you are having difficulty opening the file when you double-click the
icon. Have you tried launching Excel first and then using the Open command
from within? If not, it might be useful to know what happens then.

If that doesn't work, try using the Finder's 'Duplicate' command & attempt
to open the duplicate from within the program.

Another thought is some type of utility software such as TechTool Pro which
may be able to repair the file.

BTW- What is the origin of the file?

Regards |:>)

 

[aomepoiu]

I have tried to open from within Excel a few times, and it always hangs
up. I never get the "Not Enough Memory" message going that route, just
the hangup/Force Quit, which may be a clue. That duplicating the file
trick is clever, and it got my hopes up for a minute, but it ended in
the same hang.

The file is just a spreadsheet we created in-house. Somewhat
convoluted, but nothing that should break Excel.

I may well end up hunting down some kind of file repair software and
using that. Thanks for the suggestions--if I actually solve the
mystery, I'll post it here in case anyone's curious.

 

[CyberTaz]

Sorry the suggestions didn't work, but at least if further confirms
that the file is the problem. It may have a damaged or missing resource
fork.

Try Cmd/rt-Clicking the file in the Finder to bring up the Get Info
window to see if it is recognized to be opened by Excel. If not, assign
Excel as the correct app & see if that makes a difference... Probably
won't, but worth a try. If not, I still think a good file repair
utility is in order.

Good Luck |:>)

 

[aomepoiu]

I got this neat trick for recovering data from a corrupt Excel
spreadsheet from Microsoft tech support. I'll put it here in case it
might come in handy for anyone else:

Open two blank worksheets. From one of these, copy to the clipboard a
range of blank cells to correspond to the range of cells you'd like to
recover from the corrupt worksheet. (I don't think there's any harm in
copying too many cells here, so you can estimate high.) In the second
blank worksheet, go to Edit > Paste Special, and click Paste As Link.
You've now pasted a link to the (blank) Worksheet 1 cells into
Worksheet 2. You can now, in Worksheet 2, go to Edit > Links, and
choose Change Source to change the target of the link from (blank)
Worksheet 1 to the corrupt worksheet. If all goes well, Excel imports
the data without having to actually open the corrupt file. If the
corrupt file is a workbook with multiple worksheets, Excel asks which
one you want to link; you can just repeat this process for each
separate sheet.

This did work for my file, and I got the data back. Unfortunately, I
didn't get any of the formatting, but what the heck.

 

[qt31412]

I've actually had a lot of experience with this problem. I beleive it'
a problem with Excel for X handling files that have been opened wit
lower versions of Excel, particularly Excel 98, on different computers
If you open an Excel file in 98 and then save it, for some reason Exce
X will not recognize it and will give you this error. What you need t
do is open in in Excel 98 again, and save it in an even earlier versio
of Microsoft Excel. Then your Excel X should open it.

I hope this works

 

[CyberTaz]

With all due respect for the suggestion, I'm not sure it goes quite far
enough. If it stops with changing the source, you are still linked to the
problem file which could create even more problems or fail further down the
road. You might want to also go back into the Links dialog box and Break the
Link. This will give you the content in the new file with no dependence on
the old one.

However, the formulas from the old file will _not_ be in the new file either
way, so they will have to be retyped.

I don't know where the posts re an older version of Excel are coming from as
you have not mentioned that being the case. So, if the file was not created
by an earlier version, I'm not sure the Linking idea will work, anyway. In
order to create the link, Excel has to read the file, and if it can read the
file it should be able to open it.

OTOH- If it is a file made by an earlier version or by MS Works, a
translator like MacLink Plus may be in order.

Regards |:>)

 

[tvman]

I am having this same problem with a sheet created in v.X under OSX.
It is a rather large sheet with several pages of between 10,000 and
20,000 lines. I am using list manager and running a set of conditional
statements against each line. I also have sets of Pivot tables, but I
don't believe they update on open. I started to receive "out-of memory,
run without undo" messages during some line duplications and inserts. I
saved the file and then had Excel crash. This has happened before and
the sheet opens fine the next time, but twice now I have had the sheet
hang on open. I don't want to revert to back-up (thankfully only 4
days of work lost!), but if anyone has found a solution (has anyone
tried bringing the file up on a WinTel machine?) it would be great to
know.

tvman