Excel crashes when chart wizard is launched

[itscatherine]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Every time the Chart Wizard button or the Insert - Chart function is used, Excel crashes. This behavior happens in multiple user accounts.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled several times now. I always use the Remove Office utility, and supplement that with manually deleting other Microsoft preferences. I also run Applejack after uninstalling to repair permissions and empty the cache files.

The last time I reinstalled, I apply the first Office patch and was able to launch the Chart Wizard. I installed the second update (11.5.0) and found that it no longer worked.

I used the software fseventer to record everything that was happening when Excel crashed and found that the only difference after applying the 11.5.0 update was the following preference file:
/Users/admin/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/VBA Preferences

Does anyone have ideas about what I can do next to fix this issue?

 

[CyberTaz]

The first thing I'd suspect is that [according to your post] you're
neglecting to update beyond 11.5.0 ‹ 11.5.3 is the current level recommended
for Office 2004 on an OS X Leopard system. Update completely & try again.

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

 

[itscatherine]

Thanks for your response, Bob.

The first two times that I reinstalled Office, I applied all Office updates and experienced the same issue. So, I decided to reinstall and test the functionality between all patch levels in hopes to isolate the issue.

Here is the crash report from an instance when Office update 11.5.3 was installed:

Process: Microsoft Excel [805]
Path: /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Microsoft Excel
Identifier: com.microsoft.Excel
Version: 081114 (11.5.3)
Code Type: PPC (Translated)
Parent Process: launchd [756]

Date/Time: 2009-01-23 16:41:10.455 -0500
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.6 (9G55)
Report Version: 6

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000000000004
Crashed Thread: 0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 translate 0xb80bcd58 0xb8000000 + 773464
1 translate 0xb80b7007 0xb8000000 + 749575
2 translate 0xb80d49c0 0xb8000000 + 870848
3 translate 0xb813ce79 spin_lock_wrapper + 1981

Thread 1:
0 ??? 0x800bc1c6 0 + 2148254150
1 ??? 0x800c39bc 0 + 2148284860
2 translate 0xb818b6ea CallPPCFunctionAtAddressInt + 202886
3 ??? 0x800ed095 0 + 2148454549
4 ??? 0x800ecf52 0 + 2148454226

Thread 2:
0 translate 0xb81529ef spin_lock_wrapper + 90931
1 translate 0xb8183633 CallPPCFunctionAtAddressInt + 169935
2 translate 0xb81861e2 CallPPCFunctionAtAddressInt + 181118
3 translate 0xb80dfb0b 0xb8000000 + 916235

Thread 3:
0 translate 0xb815289e spin_lock_wrapper + 90594
1 translate 0xb816e8a7 CallPPCFunctionAtAddressInt + 84547
2 translate 0xb80bdb8b 0xb8000000 + 777099
3 translate 0xb80b7007 0xb8000000 + 749575
4 translate 0xb80d49c0 0xb8000000 + 870848
5 translate 0xb813d75f spin_lock_wrapper + 4259

Thread 0 crashed with X86 Thread State (32-bit):
eax: 0x00000004 ebx: 0xb80bcd30 ecx: 0x00000000 edx: 0x00000004
edi: 0x00000004 esi: 0x80303820 ebp: 0xb7fffa08 esp: 0xb7fff9d0
ss: 0x0000001f efl: 0x00010202 eip: 0xb80bcd58 cs: 0x00000017
ds: 0x0000001f es: 0x0000001f fs: 0x00000000 gs: 0x00000037
cr2: 0x00000004

Binary Images:
0xb8000000 - 0xb81d7fe7 translate ??? (???) /usr/libexec/oah/translate

Translated Code Information:
Rosetta Version: 21.03
Args: /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Support/LaunchCFMApp /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Microsoft Excel
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)

Thread 0: (0xb011cd60, 0xb815289e)
0x924d028c: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib : __pthread_cond_wait + 1260
0x94b3bb0c: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CarbonCore.framework/Versions/A/CarbonCore : _TSWaitOnConditionTimedRelative + 244
0x94b3b8e0: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CarbonCore.framework/Versions/A/CarbonCore : _TSWaitOnSemaphoreCommon + 432
0x94b6d954: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CarbonCore.framework/Versions/A/CarbonCore : _TimerThread + 72
0x9251e17c: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib : __pthread_body + 40
0x00000000: /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Support/LaunchCFMApp : + 0

PPC Thread State
srr0: 0x00000000 srr1: 0x00000000 vrsave: 0x00000000
cr: 0xXXXXXXXX xer: 0x20000000 lr: 0x924d02cc ctr: 0x9248d1d0
r00: 0xffffffd9 r01: 0xf0101c90 r02: 0xa036f53c r03: 0x00006203
r04: 0x00006303 r05: 0x00000008 r06: 0x13cbeea0 r07: 0x00000000
r08: 0x00000001 r09: 0x00000001 r10: 0xf0101e4

 

[JE McGimpsey]

The first two times that I reinstalled Office, I applied all Office updates
and experienced the same issue. So, I decided to reinstall and test the
functionality between all patch levels in hopes to isolate the issue.

Since you replied to your own post I can't see what was recommended by
Bob (or even which Bob replied), but it's critical to know whether,
before you reinstalled Office, you:

a) Tried to duplicate the problem in a fresh user account, and
b) Uninstalled it using the Remove Office application (i.e., not
just putting the Office folder in the Trash).

If the problem went away after a, then the problem's isolated to your
user account - either Preferences or some haxie/other application is
interacting with XL to cause the problem - reinstalling/updating will
have no effect

If you didn't use Remove Office, then all the preferences and perhaps
some hidden files didn't get deleted, so it's impossible to isolate the
problem.

Reinstalling Mac applications is nearly always a waste of time -
applications just don't get corrupted very often. Generally the problem
lies in corruption of documents or preferences.

 

[itscatherine]

Hi there,

Bob suggested that I install the latest Office update (11.5.3), since did not clarify that I was testing the issue after each Office update. All patches have been applied and the issue continues.

The issue has been confirmed in two admin accounts and one shared account on the computer.

I always uninstall using the Remove Office utility, and manually delete the remaining Microsoft files that I can find. I also used AppTrap to confirm that I was catching all associated files. Additionally, I tried deleting the Open XML converter app to rule that out too.

My latest test was to delete only the VBA Preferences file, since I think those are related to the chart wizard. This didn't fix the issue either.

It seems strange to have an issue across user accounts when Office seemingly has few preferences in the local library...ideas?

 

[CyberTaz]

Since you haven't specifically stated having done so the number of Framework
references in the failed thread of your error message causes me to wonder
whether disk permissions have been repaired recently. That could further
explain failure regardless of User Account.

 

[itscatherine]

Each time after uninstalling, I run the utility Applejack which includes permissions repair. So, permissions repair has been done about 6 times since the issue was reported!

 

[JE McGimpsey]

It seems strange to have an issue across user accounts when Office seemingly
has few preferences in the local library...ideas?

Corrupt/missing fonts come to mind, as do bad system permissions.
System-wide haxies.

A normal install should install all the necessary fonts, of course.

Have you run monolingual, or any other app that would have removed
system resources?

 

[itscatherine]

It seems strange to have an issue across user accounts when Office seemingly
has few preferences in the local library...ideas?

Corrupt/missing fonts come to mind, as do bad system permissions.
System-wide haxies.

A normal install should install all the necessary fonts, of course.

Have you run monolingual, or any other app that would have removed
system resources?
[/QUOTE]

The issue is finally fixed and it was indeed a corrupt font causing the problem. This computer is in a classroom setting and is used by many people. It looks like someone tried to install Office 2008 (there were two instances of 2008 in the Receipts folder...) so my guess is the fonts got messed up that way.

Thanks everyone for the help.