Excel crashing randomly

[Donna Ebbett]

I am finding that Excel crashes frequently. At least 20 times in the last 40 minutes. I opened an Excel file that was last saved in 2004 version. I copy and paste new data into it and it crashes whenever I try to save. I renamed the file and saved it on my desktop, then saved and the same problem. A third time, downloaded new data in csv format and when I tried to save, it crashed. I am on a Intel-based Macbook Pro with Tiger 10.4.11.

It seems consistent that when I save, any of my work does not get saved and Excel crashes.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I am finding that Excel crashes frequently. At least 20 times in the last 40
minutes. I opened an Excel file that was last saved in 2004 version. I copy
and paste new data into it and it crashes whenever I try to save. I renamed
the file and saved it on my desktop, then saved and the same problem. A third
time, downloaded new data in csv format and when I tried to save, it crashed.
I am on a Intel-based Macbook Pro with Tiger 10.4.11.

It seems consistent that when I save, any of my work does not get saved and
Excel crashes.

Have you repaired permissions after you installed Office 2008?

 

[Chris Lyle]

I HAVE LOST HOURS OF WORK DUE TO EXCEL RANDOMLY CRASHING. THE GREAT PART IS EVEN FREQUENT SAVING OF FILES DOES NOT HELP. THE RESTORED FILES CANNOT BE SAVED AND THE LAST COPY OF THE FILE BEFORE THE CRASH CANNOT BE REOPENED BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN "MODIFIED OR DAMAGED"

THIS IS REALLY IRRITATING AND ANNOYING, THIS SOFTWARE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN RELEASED IN THIS CONDITION, FIX IT ASAP OR RECALL IT.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I HAVE LOST HOURS OF WORK DUE TO EXCEL RANDOMLY CRASHING. THE GREAT PART IS
EVEN FREQUENT SAVING OF FILES DOES NOT HELP. THE RESTORED FILES CANNOT BE
SAVED AND THE LAST COPY OF THE FILE BEFORE THE CRASH CANNOT BE REOPENED
BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN "MODIFIED OR DAMAGED"

THIS IS REALLY IRRITATING AND ANNOYING, THIS SOFTWARE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN
RELEASED IN THIS CONDITION, FIX IT ASAP OR RECALL IT.

Calm down a little. While I have seen other reports of this, I personally
have not experienced it, and I am using Excel 2008 every day for hours at a
time and have not yet had a single crash. While it may indeed be Excel's
fault, I'd be more inclined to believe that it is somehow related to your
configuration. Have you tried creating a new user, logging on there and
using Excel?

 

[Chris]

Bob no other program as far as I am aware requires you to create a new user to run a freshly installed program to work as it should out of the box, so why does Excel 2008 require you to?
I use Excel 2008 everyday as an accountant and it crashes everytime I go to print so I still use 2004 to print anything, annoying but easier than changing user account which is counter productive.
Microsoft needs to ship the update to resolve these issues very soon.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Bob no other program as far as I am aware requires you to create a new user to
run a freshly installed program to work as it should out of the box, so why
does Excel 2008 require you to?
I use Excel 2008 everyday as an accountant and it crashes everytime I go to
print so I still use 2004 to print anything, annoying but easier than changing
user account which is counter productive.
Microsoft needs to ship the update to resolve these issues very soon.

Chris,
Excel does not require you (or anyone else) to create a new user either. As
I said, I did not and it works fine for me and a whole lot of others. I just
offered that as a suggestion to try to get to the root of the problem with
your configuration. I agree with your frustration and need to get this
resolved. But, so far it is not clear to me that this is indeed Microsoft's
problem. Therefore it is unreasonable to expect them to fix it until it can
be determined that it is. I'm just trying to help you identify the cause.

We are all pretty sure that Microsoft is working on an update to Office
2008. However, we don't have any idea what that update may contain, or when
(or even if) it will ever be available. So, now is the time to make sure
that if this is indeed their problem, report it so that it can get on their
to do list.

 

[Chris]

If as you say it is a configuration problem. It must be one of the strangest I have ever come across as a Macuser and Excel user in 19 years of using both.

How on earth does one track it down if no other program experiences this issue, I am using some of the latest intel based kit with standard products all installed from scratch, no shareware, freeware or minor programs and no unusual settings either.

I have trapped the crash log details follow which seems to indicate that it is a known issue to be updated. I also note that Excel is very busy requesting the first line at about 4 times a second for every second it is up and running which can not be efficient. I do not know whether this means anything to you?

21/02/2008 16:39:16 Microsoft Excel[530] CGBitmapContextGetData: invalid context
21/02/2008 16:39:16 Microsoft Excel[530] CGBitmapContextGetData: invalid context
21/02/2008 16:39:16 Microsoft Excel[530] The function `CGPDFDocumentGetMediaBox' is obsolete and will be removed in an upcoming update. Unfortunately, this application, or a library it uses, is using this obsolete function, and is thereby contributing to an overall degradation of system performance. Please use `CGPDFPageGetBoxRect' instead.
21/02/2008 16:39:16 [0x0-0x55055].com.microsoft.Excel[530] Ignoring Quickdraw drawing between QDBeginCGContext and QDEndCGContext
21/02/2008 16:39:16 [0x0-0x55055].com.microsoft.Excel[530] Thu Feb 21 16:39:16 Macintosh.local Microsoft Excel[530] <Error>: The function `CGPDFDocumentGetMediaBox' is obsolete and will be removed in an upcoming update. Unfortunately, this application, or a library it uses, is using this obsolete function, and is thereby contributing to an overall degradation of system performance. Please use `CGPDFPageGetBoxRect' instead.
21/02/2008 16:39:16 [0x0-0x55055].com.microsoft.Excel[530] Ignoring Quickdraw drawing between QDBeginCGContext and QDEndCGContext

There is a lot more of this together with Excel trying to communicate through the firewall for some reason trying to listen to an IP address 0:0:0:0: followed by various port numbers is this the problem perhaps, the use of a firewall?

 

[Phillip Jones]

I wonder if you can copy all the information in the cells open a new
document the paste information in new document and save.

BTW: Pleas don't use all caps that's equivalent to shouting at the top
of your lungs and that will never get you anywhere.

I HAVE LOST HOURS OF WORK DUE TO EXCEL RANDOMLY CRASHING. THE GREAT PART IS EVEN FREQUENT SAVING OF FILES DOES NOT HELP. THE RESTORED FILES CANNOT BE SAVED AND THE LAST COPY OF THE FILE BEFORE THE CRASH CANNOT BE REOPENED BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN "MODIFIED OR DAMAGED"

THIS IS REALLY IRRITATING AND ANNOYING, THIS SOFTWARE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN RELEASED IN THIS CONDITION, FIX IT ASAP OR RECALL IT.

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[PeterFV]

To crash Excel:

Enter a table of data.
Make a pivot table of that data.
Create a chart of that pivot table.
Move the chart to another sheet
Ctrl-click on the top-right-hand corner of the chart and choose "Select data"
Excel crashes.

Who the **** tested this?

 

[bhorv67]

Helloooooo..... it's Microsoft....

If they released software that was tested and worked properly, they'd be called Apple.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

To crash Excel:

Enter a table of data.
Make a pivot table of that data.
Create a chart of that pivot table.
Move the chart to another sheet
Ctrl-click on the top-right-hand corner of the chart and choose "Select data"
Excel crashes.

I can't replicate this when I try to follow your steps - I get the
Select Data Source dialog. Does this happen for you with a new workbook?

If you can replicate it, can you either post very detailed steps in a
reply, or post a file to somewhere it can be downloaded along with
detailed steps?

Who the **** tested this?

FWIW, I have yet to be able to cause XL08 crash in many months of
regular and fairly heavy use.

Doesn't mean that it *should* have crashed for you, of course but it's
likely to be something related to your setup or perhaps workbook
corruption.

 

[Mike]

My brand new MS Excel 08 crashes my entire MacBook Pro. Charts that looked OK in 04 look like vomit in 08. Most charts can't be rescaled to show the full data set (even the "Auto" checkbox gives an error dialog; "The entry is invalid for the data used by this chart". I thought that maybe the worksheet was somehow corrupt but that doesn't solve the problem of fixing it by any means other than reverting to 04.
I have tried another account. Still crashes but doesn't take out the whole computer.

 

[Chris Lyle]

Maybe us mac users are expecting too much. It would be helpful if the software packaging came with the following information.

Warning: Use of this software may cause workbook corruption.

 

[Jeremy]

I too have see excessive crashing of Excel '08, especially with copy and pasting. A reliable way to cause a crash seems to be...

1) Select a cell in Excel and copy it.
2) Switch to the Finder, or any other application.
3) Switch back to Excel.
4) Select any other cell and try to copy it.
5) Excel will now crash.

I've found that I could usually prevent Excel from crashing in this instance if, after switching back to Excel (step 3), I hit Enter or Esc (to make the marching ants around my copied cell go away) before selecting a second cell to copy.

 

[Jeremy]

FYI...

For the above example I was running XL08 on a new MacBook Pro, with Mac OS X 10.5.2 and all other Apple updates installed.

 

[iThomasM]

I too have see excessive crashing of Excel '08, especially withcopyand pasting. A reliable way to cause acrashseems to be...

1) Select a cell in Excel andcopyit.
2) Switch to the Finder, or any other application.
3) Switch back to Excel.
4) Select any other cell and try tocopyit.
5) Excel will nowcrash.

I've found that I could usually prevent Excel from crashing in this instance if, after switching back to Excel (step 3), I hit Enter or Esc (to make the marching ants around my copied cell go away) before selecting a second cell tocopy.

My Excel crashes all the time when I copy text and then Apple+tab to
another application like Firefox to use the content (like a URL).
This is extremely annoying.

Here is the best work around I found. Save your file as a .xls and
then download NeoOffice and use that. Seriously. One man can only
handle so many crashes. After about the 5th time in a row, I tend to
find other outlets. I hope Microsoft fixes this soon.

 

[Mike]

Deleting Excel 08 and going back to 04 worked for me. I gave up after 4 crashes and reboots in a row. I still have work to do fixing the mess that 08 made of my charts but at least it keeps working.

I have a feeling that part of my problem might have been something to do with Apple's preview function in Leopard.

But there is nothing in Excel 08 that makes me desire to work through problems that MS should have already sorted.

 

[JR Hansen]

I find it arrogant to use the standard reply of "I haven't experienced that"
and I don't think that the world suddenly is full of corrupted workbooks that cause all these crashes - HELLO! - it's the software.
I've experienced so many crashes in Excel now - and - surprise, surprise - in different workbooks... and the same thing happens...
My crash pattern is usually linked to Pivot tables- change data source areas and have Excel update the Pivots - when finishing the new Pivot from the wizard - Excel crashes most of the times. I instinctively save all the time now - which is very annoying...
How new is this version of Excel? Why do we Mac users still have the ancient Pivot interface - while the PC version of Excel is far more advanced and professional in terms of toolbars, Pivot palette, etc?

 

[Claire]

I have the "random crashes" problem in spades. Happens with pivots consistently, with large files, when I add charts. It appears to be related to poor memory management (a specialty of Excel in the old days), though I have 2 GB of RAM which should be more than enough.

Clearly, this version of Excel was not properly tested, though it was late. In addition to this annoying problem, I also found out today that there is no simple way to add x-axis labels as there was in the old version. Did Microsoft have any real world users actually try this before releasing it? Based on just these 2 issues, I'd have to say NO.

 

[Adam]

I have to say that I've always been saddened at Excel for Mac compared with for Windows. That being said, this version of Excel surprised me even with my lowered expectations. It is awfully slow and incredibly prone to crashes. I'm not using pivot tables, charts or large workbooks and Excel has crashed on me about 10 times in a few hours of usage. It's currently locked up...trying to open a menu with the spinwheel of death. This makes me want to just run the XP version on parallels...

Oh, and I keep getting an "out of memory" error. as though 3GB with nothing running isn't enough memory? It's not even doing calculations, it's just tables of text. How can you get this wrong?