Excel COM Automation Fails with RPC_E_CALL_REJECTED and EXCEL.EXE Crash After Recent Office Update

Question

Excel COM Automation Fails with RPC_E_CALL_REJECTED and EXCEL.EXE Crash After Recent Office Update

Abhishek Mendon 0

We have an intermittent Excel COM automation issue that started after recent Windows/Office updates.

Environment:

Windows Server 2022
Excel Version 16.0.20228.20186
PowerShell COM automation using New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
Automation initiated remotely via SSH -> PowerShell

Symptoms:

Excel workbook opens successfully, then subsequent COM calls fail with:

RPC_E_CALL_REJECTED (0x80010001) - "Call was rejected by callee"

Occasionally cleanup fails with:

0x800AC472

Event Viewer shows EXCEL.EXE crashes:

Faulting module: mso98win32client.dll

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Example log:

Excel Object created

Opening workbook...

Excel workbook opened

ERROR: Call was rejected by callee. (0x80010001)

The same PowerShell script and workbook run successfully when executed interactively on the server, but intermittently fail when launched remotely through our automation process. This behavior began after the recent Office/Windows updates.

We would like to know if there are any known issues with Excel build 16.0.20228.20186 related to COM automation, RPC_E_CALL_REJECTED (0x80010001), mso98win32client.dll crashes, or non-interactive/server-side Excel automation.

0 comments

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Hi Abhishek,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum.Thank you for sharing the detailed information.

Based on your description, I understand that the issue only occurs when Excel is automated through a non-interactive session (SSH > PowerShell) and does not occur when the same script is executed in a direct interactive user session.

This suggests that the root cause may be related to Office automation in an unattended environment, rather than the workbook file itself.

At this time, we have not identified any publicly documented known issue specific to Excel build 16.0.20228.20186 that causes the RPC_E_CALL_REJECTED error or results in a crash of mso98win32client.dll.

To further investigate the issue, could you please help check the following:

1/ Run the same script in an interactive RDP session

Instead of executing the script through SSH, please try running the same script within an interactive Remote Desktop (RDP) session and verify whether the issue still occurs.

2/ Test with a different workbook

Please create a new workbook containing only a few cells of simple data, then run the script again and check whether the issue persists.

3/ Disable all Excel add-ins

Please try disabling all Excel add-ins to rule out the possibility of an add-in conflict causing the issue.

Once you have completed the steps above, please let me know the results so that I can continue assisting you and recommend more appropriate troubleshooting measures.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.