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Excel 2016 64-bit Crashes (Seems to be caused by Macros)

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Wednesday, July 5, 2017 2:43 PM | 2 votes

Hi All,

Over the holiday (4th July, 2017) all my workbooks went from "working fine" (6/30) to "crashing excel all the time" (7/5). 

Currently running Excel 2016 MSA 16.0.4549.1000 64-bit on Dell Laptop w/ 16G Memory.  My workbooks have data models, power queries, and macros (xlsm workbooks).

Symptoms:

  • Click run on any macro, excel will crash.
  • Click the Developer Menu, and click "Macros" option, excel will crash.
  • Hit the "Hot Keys" to run a macro such as Ctrl+Shift+T, excel will crash.
  • This is not "sometimes crashes" it's all the time, every time.

Error Message:

What I have done:

  • Clicked on Control Panel, Programs, Program Features, Right-Click on Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016, Select "Change", Click on "Repair".
  • Run "OffCAT" to be sure the latest software and KBs are installed.  They are and no issues found.
  • If I open VBA (Alt+F11), click in the macro I want to run, and use the editor to "step through" the macro, it runs just fine and Excel will not crash.

What changed? Only thing that I am aware of that changed is our IT department installed "Dell Data Protection" in an automatic install.  This is a disk encryption software that protects your hard drive from unauthorized use at startup.  But none of my files are on my C: drive, they are all on our network drive.

I have run out of ideas... any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance...

John Thomas

All replies (10)

Saturday, July 8, 2017 3:42 PM ✅Answered | 1 vote

Emi,

As stated in my post, that is the correct version of Excel and according to Microsoft offCAT, it is the latest version.  I notice you have the 32-bit "MSO" version, where as I am running the 64-bit "MSA" version.  Could this be the source of the confusion?

The problem was happening in all workbooks with macros.  Doesn't matter which one.

I did fix it. I when to my Personnel.xslb workbook, added a blank module, saved, re-hid personnel workbook, and closed excel.  Then opened up excel again and everything started working again.  I have no clue how this fixed it, but it did.

Thanks for the reply.

Any follow up questions let me know.

John Thomas

Thursday, December 21, 2017 6:10 PM ✅Answered

Thanks ZOption for the updated.  I just updated with December 2017's update..  We use the MSO version, not Office 365.

There was a rather simple fix that other readers may wish to know.  If you open the workbook in Excel 2013 and save the macro workbook as xlsx (which strips out all macros), you can then open it up with Excel 2016, resave as xlsm, and import your VBA modules.

Cheers...

John Thomas

Thursday, July 6, 2017 9:19 AM

Hi John Thomas,

Do this problem appear in all Excel files with macros or a specific Excel file?

If this problem is only related to specific Excel file, please provide the Macro.

You provide the version is Excel 2016 MSA 16.0.4549.1000, as far as I know this is Office original version. I suggest you installed the latest updates for Excel.

And you also said this problem is after installing "Dell Data Protection", if possible please try to uninstall this software and check if this problem is related to it.

I also suggest you check if the version of Excel 2016 you provide is correct, please go to File- Account- About Excel:

Any updates please let me know, I'm glad to help you.

Regards,
Emi Zhang
TechNet Community Support

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they helped.
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Monday, July 10, 2017 1:21 AM

Hi John Thomas,

Thanks for sharing the workaround about this problem.

If this is the solution of your problem, I suggest you marked it as an answer. Other partners who read the forums with the same issue can get more information from the correct result.

Thank you.

Regards,
Emi Zhang
TechNet Community Support

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they helped.
If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].

Monday, July 10, 2017 10:26 AM

I'd go further than say "I have no clue how this fixed it" to the point of being doubtful it was simply adding a new module to your Personal!

What happens if you remove the module?

In passing you don't need to unhide/hide when making changes to your Personal. You can either save it within the VBE or wait until you close Excel and respond to the Save prompt that will appear.

Monday, July 10, 2017 1:40 PM

I marked it as the "answer" but it's really not an answer, just a workaround.  There should be a FIX that identifies why it happened and provides a solution so it will not happen again...

John Thomas

Monday, July 10, 2017 1:41 PM

That's odd you would say that.  When I try to make changes to my Personnel.xlsb workbook, Excel prompts me saying I can't make changes to a "hidden" workbook and i have to unhide it first.

John Thomas

Monday, July 10, 2017 4:06 PM

I suspect you might be editing via the 'Macros' button on the Ribbon. Instead open your VBE with the 'Visual Basic' button or simply Alt-F11. Look for your Personal in Project Explorer (top left panel by default or Ctrl-R if not visible) and go from there. 

If you're new to this be sure to put ordinary macros in 'normal' modules (insert as required), not in a 'sheet' module unless you know what you're doing.

This is unlikely related to your original problem and I agree your marked answer is more likely a lucky fix:)

Thursday, December 21, 2017 4:43 PM

I have found that after installing recent O365 Excel patches are at the root of the problem:

Monthly Channel

November 27, 2017Version 1710 (Build 8625**.2139**)

Excel: Non-security updates

This channel release contains the following non-security updates:

    • Fix an issue where the user incorrectly sees a "catastrophic failure" error message when opening an Office 2007 or older workbook (.xls or .xla) with macros.

  • Fix an issue where Excel might crash when a user opens a context menu.

We had to modify our software to no longer create a context menu in order to get past this egregious error!   Thank you M$

Tuesday, December 10, 2019 6:08 PM

John,

I've been struggling with the same issue for many days and finally I found the reason at least in my particular case.

The macro that I use starts from a command button and opens an excel file by executing

Set EXCELAPP = GetObject(, "Excel.Application")
Set wbInputs = EXCELAPP.Workbooks.Open(strFilePath)

It used to work for a long time in an old tool version in Excel 2007 & 2010 32bit. Now we are migrating to Excel 2016 32bit (only way to access a 32bit dll-file) and  suddenly calling the same macro causes following error:

"there isn't enough memory to complete this action....."

If one tries to start the macro twice, all Excel windows crash without warning.

The reason for the discribed behauviour was that I was trying to open a new file from a full screen display:

Application.DisplayFullScreen = True

It looks like Excel 2016 dosn't like that sort of full display.

Hope, it helps.

Regards, Stefan