not enough memory

[mspine]

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

I bout a new Macbook and Office 2008 two weeks ago. When I try to open Excel or any Excel file I receive a message that says not enough memory. All the other programs work fine. Thanks for any help

 

[Localboy]

I've started having the same problem in the last few weeks. I'm using Excel for Mac 10.1.9 which as far as I know is the latest for Mac Office v.X. (I never upgraded to Mac Office 2004 figuring I'd wait for the Intel native upgrade. However, since Mac Office 2008 didn't support VBA I had to remain with v.X since I rely heavily on macros in Word and Excel.)

I have found through trial and error that trashing any of the following files in my Username/Library/Preference/Microsoft directory corrects the issue temporarily and allows Excel to launch:
• Carbon Registration Database
• Office Font Cache (10)
• Office Registration Cache

Once I quit Excel, one of these files needs to be deleted to launch Excel again. It doesn't seem to matter which one. I put an alias to the Microsoft preference folder in my user home folder to make that easy to do.

Word and Powerpoint are unaffected by this problem and launch properly.

I'm using an iMac G5 PPC 2 GHz with 1 GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.5.5.

It looks like Out of Memory is a common problem in Excel for Mac judging by the number of postings on the subject. Hope this helps.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I've started having the same problem in the last few weeks. I'm using Excel
for Mac 10.1.9 which as far as I know is the latest for Mac Office v.X. (I
never upgraded to Mac Office 2004 figuring I'd wait for the Intel native
upgrade. However, since Mac Office 2008 didn't support VBA I had to remain
with v.X since I rely heavily on macros in Word and Excel.)

I have found through trial and error that trashing any of the following files
in my Username/Library/Preference/Microsoft directory corrects the issue
temporarily and allows Excel to launch:
• Carbon Registration Database
• Office Font Cache (10)
• Office Registration Cache

Once I quit Excel, one of these files needs to be deleted to launch Excel
again. It doesn't seem to matter which one. I put an alias to the Microsoft
preference folder in my user home folder to make that easy to do.

Word and Powerpoint are unaffected by this problem and launch properly.

I'm using an iMac G5 PPC 2 GHz with 1 GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.5.5.

It looks like Out of Memory is a common problem in Excel for Mac judging by
the number of postings on the subject. Hope this helps.

I think the other posts about "out of memory" are quite different, they are
referring to Excel 2008. I suggest that you really are out of memory. 1G is
not nearly enough for 10.5.5. At least double your RAM and I'll be the
problem will go away.

 

[Localboy]

Hi Bob:

I don't think it's a RAM issue. Apple specs Leopard as requiring 512 MB. and I haven't had any problems with OX 10.5 since it came out. I know more memory would be better but I hate to add more RAM to my PPC iMac since I would have to replace one or both of the SIMMs I already have installed in the two memory slots. I'm going to get an Intel iMac in the not too distant future.

As I said, once I trash one of the three preference files I identified, Excel launches and runs flawlessly, as it has ever since I bought Office X several years ago. This problem is a recent thing and seems to be some kind of conflict that damages the preference files that are written when Excel quits.

Interestingly, I don't have any problem with Excel X on my Macbook Intel and I notice that the Microsoft Preference files "Carbon Registration Database" and "Office Registration Cache X" are NOT updated every time I quit Excel on the Macbook, unlike what happens when I quit Excel on my iMac PPC.

I'd love to hear the results from others experiencing the "Out of Memory" problem when launching Excel after they've tried trashing one of the problematic Microsoft preference files.

Thanks for your quick response, Bob!
William

 

[CyberTaz]

.... And how's your free space on the HD?

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

 

[Localboy]

100 GB freespace - don't think this is an issue.

 

[CyberTaz]

Yeah - that was just a thought. I'd forgotten that iMac model did ship with
a 160 However, "Out of Memory" often doesn't have anything to do with
RAM. It's a indication that what the program is seeking isn't *in memory*,
can't be accessed, & is therefore *out* of memory. It's one of the most
inaccurate, vague & deceptive error messages ever contrived.

Do you have any utilities or haxies on the iMac that aren't on the MacBook?
What about an antivirus app? Can you think of anything else that may have
changed coincident with the start of this problem? I'm not sure but I don't
believe Excel *writes* to either of the files you noted - it simply reads
from them, so I'd look to something external to the program itself. Have you
tried launching Excel while holding the Shift key?

One thing to consider is booting from the OS X DVD & running Disk Utility -
Repair Disk to see if any errors are found. If so run it more than once. I'd
also consider grabbing the 10.5.5 Combo Updater from the Apple Downloads
site & reapplying it.

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

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your suggestions Bob.

Disk Utility didn't find anything wrong and reinstalling OS 10.5.5 using the combo updater didn't correct the problem. I logged in using my troubleshooting account, which doesn't have any haxies or login items, and surprise! Excel runs fine in that account.

So that tells me there's a conflict between Excel and something. It's not with any login items since the Excel out of memory startup issue continues with all of them removed.

I'll try some more things tomorrow and post results. Thanks again!

 

[Localboy]

Looks like FruitMenu 3.7.1 has something to do with this. When I disable FruitMenu, Excel launches and relaunches fine. Enabling FruitMenu causes the Excel Out of Memory problem to immediately recur.

I tried adding Excel to the excluded applications in FruitMenu and that did not correct the problem. Since FruitMenu is one of my indispensable utilities so I'm going to have to remember to trash the Carbon Registration Database before opening Excel.

 

[CyberTaz]

I'm not familiar with that program, but you might get some help from their
support site. Perhaps there is an update or known fix.

Good Luck |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Localboy]

Just a postscript to my Excel Out Of Memory issue. I ran Cocktail today and had it clear all caches, run the maintenance scripts, trash the log files, and repair disk permissions. I'm still not sure what the cause of the Excel memory problem was but Cocktail seems to have corrected it, I'm hoping permanently!

 

[Guest]

Out of memory errors seem to occur also with Autosave when running Office 2008 Word. I am running under OS 10.4.11 on an old G5 and have plenty of free RAM and hard disk space, but it is behaving as though the disk is full. I am guessing that it is a more generic memory allocation conflict issue that is coming up here. Also, the speed of both Word and Excel is atrocious. I would advise if you are thinking about "upgrading" to the new office, be advised that you could be buying problems.

 

[CyberTaz]

Word has no "Autosave", but even if it did, what bearing would that have on
Excel? Any program can be hamstrung by external influences which interfere
with the processes they call for, and memory mgmt is handled by the OS.

I'm just trying to understand the relevance of this reply... Can you be more
fully expressive of your thoughts?

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

 

[Guest]

Word has no "Autosave", but even if it did, what bearing would that have
on Excel? Any program can be hamstrung by external influences which interfere
with the processes they call for, and memory mgmt is handled by the OS.





I'm just trying to understand the relevance of this reply... Can you be
more fully expressive of your thoughts?





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

Out of memory errors seem to occur also with Autosave when running Office

2008 > Word. I am running under OS 10.4.11 on an old G5 and have plenty
of free RAM > and hard disk space, but it is behaving as though the disk
is full. I am > guessing that it is a more generic memory allocation conflict
issue that is > coming up here. Also, the speed of both Word and Excel
is atrocious. I would > advise if you are thinking about "upgrading" to
the new office, be advised > that you could be buying problems. ********************
* ***********************
* ********************** Sure, be happy to more fully explain, to try
to get this very annoying problem fixed. The autosave I was referring
to is the usual AutoRecover saving that the Word program performs. Since
the problem has only come to light with the installation of a new Office
2008, my suspicion was that there is a connection between all of the Office
components and how they are designed to use memory. Perhaps I do not understand
the design of microsoft products, but the connection between Excel and
Word that suggests itself would be a logical consequence of the tight
integration. Perhaps this is not logical, but then, it appears to be a
rather strong coincidence that peculiar (and totally baseless) out of
memory errors are coming up with different parts of the new Office 2008
package.

 

[CyberTaz]

Thanks for responding! I don't mean to be a picky old cuss, but I've seen
too many people lose their work because they were under the mistaken
impression that Save AutoRecover Data is something that saves their work for
them as they merrily toil away for hours. It most definitely does no such
thing and it only reinforces the misconception to refer to it as "Autosave".

See some other interjections below:

Word has no "Autosave", but even if it did, what bearing would that have
on Excel? Any program can be hamstrung by external influences which
interfere
with the processes they call for, and memory mgmt is handled by the OS.





I'm just trying to understand the relevance of this reply... Can you be
more fully expressive of your thoughts?





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









2008 > Word. I am running under OS 10.4.11 on an old G5 and have plenty
of free RAM > and hard disk space, but it is behaving as though the disk
is full. I am > guessing that it is a more generic memory allocation
conflict
issue that is > coming up here. Also, the speed of both Word and Excel
is atrocious. I would > advise if you are thinking about "upgrading" to
the new office, be advised > that you could be buying problems.
********************
* ***********************
* ********************** Sure, be happy to more fully explain, to try
to get this very annoying problem fixed. The autosave I was referring
to is the usual AutoRecover saving that the Word program performs. Since
the problem has only come to light with the installation of a new Office
2008, my suspicion was that there is a connection between all of the
Office
components and how they are designed to use memory.

Well, Save AutoRecover Data is by no means a new feature in Office 2008. It
has been included in both PC & Mac Office apps for several versions. AFAIK,
it has never been directly associated with or responsible for this type of
problem. It has been known to affect speed & other things of a relatively
minor nature, but the most serious aspect of it [IMHO] is as noted above -
it is so commonly mistaken as "autosave" [and the name as well as including
it in the Save Preferences only serves to perpetuate the deception.

Perhaps I do not
understand
the design of microsoft products, but the connection between Excel and
Word that suggests itself would be a logical consequence of the tight
integration. Perhaps this is not logical, but then, it appears to be a
rather strong coincidence that peculiar (and totally baseless) out of
memory errors are coming up with different parts of the new Office 2008
package.

Please understand that there is no reference to RAM or availability of disk
space in the error messages people are reporting. The "out of memory" error
is one of the oldest & most misleading error messages on the planet, and
basically serves as a catchall for errors that can't be more explicitly
identified by the OS or the software. All it basically means is that the
program is trying to access something it can't locate. If that information
was "in memory" it would be findable, but since it's not findable it must be
"out of memory".

I honestly believe that's why resolution of the issue is taking so long. If
the causes were clearly be recognized & translated to some of the more
specific error messages it might be easier to identify & fix.

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

 

[UncleBob]

We have 4 Macs here running 10.5.6 and Office X.--- A G5 with 6 gigs of
memory and 1.2 TB of storage, an Intel iMac, a 12" Macbook, and a PowerBook
G4. The G5 has the problem. I have to clear the font cache every time to
get excel to start. It's an easy thing to do, but takes about 2 minutes to
wade through all the menus. I don't know AppleScript, but since this is a
fairly universal problem, maybe someone could come up with an applescript to
clear the font cache. Yes I have Fontnuke, and that takes as long to start
the program and run the cache clearing as doing it manually.

What I would like to know is why the font cache is getting corrupted in the
first place.

By the way, regarding Autosave... AppleWorks does actually save your
document. It has saved me a bunch of times. Currently my first choice in
word processing is Pages, 2nd choice is AppleWorks and last choice is Word.

Thanks for responding! I don't mean to be a picky old cuss, but I've seen
too many people lose their work because they were under the mistaken
impression that Save AutoRecover Data is something that saves their work for
them as they merrily toil away for hours. It most definitely does no such
thing and it only reinforces the misconception to refer to it as "Autosave".

See some other interjections below:

Word has no "Autosave", but even if it did, what bearing would that have
on Excel? Any program can be hamstrung by external influences which
interfere
with the processes they call for, and memory mgmt is handled by the OS.





I'm just trying to understand the relevance of this reply... Can you be
more fully expressive of your thoughts?





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









2008 > Word. I am running under OS 10.4.11 on an old G5 and have plenty
of free RAM > and hard disk space, but it is behaving as though the disk
is full. I am > guessing that it is a more generic memory allocation
conflict
issue that is > coming up here. Also, the speed of both Word and Excel
is atrocious. I would > advise if you are thinking about "upgrading" to
the new office, be advised > that you could be buying problems.
********************
* ***********************
* ********************** Sure, be happy to more fully explain, to try
to get this very annoying problem fixed. The autosave I was referring
to is the usual AutoRecover saving that the Word program performs. Since
the problem has only come to light with the installation of a new Office
2008, my suspicion was that there is a connection between all of the
Office
components and how they are designed to use memory.

Well, Save AutoRecover Data is by no means a new feature in Office 2008. It
has been included in both PC & Mac Office apps for several versions. AFAIK,
it has never been directly associated with or responsible for this type of
problem. It has been known to affect speed & other things of a relatively
minor nature, but the most serious aspect of it [IMHO] is as noted above -
it is so commonly mistaken as "autosave" [and the name as well as including
it in the Save Preferences only serves to perpetuate the deception.

Perhaps I do not
understand
the design of microsoft products, but the connection between Excel and
Word that suggests itself would be a logical consequence of the tight
integration. Perhaps this is not logical, but then, it appears to be a
rather strong coincidence that peculiar (and totally baseless) out of
memory errors are coming up with different parts of the new Office 2008
package.

Please understand that there is no reference to RAM or availability of disk
space in the error messages people are reporting. The "out of memory" error
is one of the oldest & most misleading error messages on the planet, and
basically serves as a catchall for errors that can't be more explicitly
identified by the OS or the software. All it basically means is that the
program is trying to access something it can't locate. If that information
was "in memory" it would be findable, but since it's not findable it must be
"out of memory".

I honestly believe that's why resolution of the issue is taking so long. If
the causes were clearly be recognized & translated to some of the more
specific error messages it might be easier to identify & fix.

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

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I have to clear the font cache every time to
get excel to start. It's an easy thing to do, but takes about 2 minutes to
wade through all the menus. I don't know AppleScript, but since this is a
fairly universal problem, maybe someone could come up with an applescript to
clear the font cache.

One way:

set prefpath to (path to preferences as string)
tell application "Finder"
try
delete prefpath & "Microsoft:Office Font Cache (10)"
end try
end tell

 

[CyberTaz]

Perhaps AppleWorks does, but MS doesn't make that

AppleWorks is a completely separate suite of applications from a different
developer - Apple. There are, indeed, some programs that have an autosave
option, but MS programs for the Mac aren't among them. In fact, most PC
Office programs don't have an autosave feature either.

My remarks pertain to the AutoRecover feature of the MS Office applications
which are NOT the same as autosave.

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