Mail Merge Times Out

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  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Hi,

When I have a Word document and then I choose Mail Merge etc

After Open data and getting the data source, (Excel spreadsheet) when you
click on Insert Merge Field an immediate error pops up, "The session has time
out. Please login again"
Other users on the same network do not get the message. It is just on some
machines

Any ideas
 
Hi =?Utf-8?B?Q2hhcmxpZW1hYw==?=,

Which version of Word is involved? Is the Excel sheet on your local drive, or in
a network location? Have you contacted your IT department about the problem?
When I have a Word document and then I choose Mail Merge etc

After Open data and getting the data source, (Excel spreadsheet) when you
click on Insert Merge Field an immediate error pops up, "The session has time
out. Please login again"
Other users on the same network do not get the message. It is just on some
machines
Click to expand...

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)
 
Hi,

I am in the IT department. It is Word and Excel 2000 and yes the data is on
the network. The error message only appears on some machibes?

Thanks
 
Hi =?Utf-8?B?Q2hhcmxpZW1hYw==?=,
I am in the IT department. It is Word and Excel 2000 and yes the data is on
the network. The error message only appears on some machibes?
Click to expand...
I'd say you're looking at a network connection problem. If it's always on the same
machines, start checking the network cards and connections. Network stuff isn't my
area of expertise (but mail merge is), so I'd say go over to word.setup.netwroking if
you can't track it down. The origin of the problem isn't the mail merge functionality
(otherwise, the question would pop up more often).

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in
the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)
 
New type of problem.

It is not network cards/connections etc because all network resources, email
etc can be seen and pinged etc. It's not user accounts, Office has been
reinstalled etc.
Oh well
 
Hi =?Utf-8?B?Q2hhcmxpZW1hYw==?=,
It is not network cards/connections etc because all network resources, email
etc can be seen and pinged etc. It's not user accounts, Office has been
reinstalled etc.
Click to expand...
Could the Excel file be locked (by another user, perhaps), so that mail merge
can't connect?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)
 
Hi Cindy,

I've just checked with another attempt, the excel sheet is not locked or
read only. The laptop has been wiped and Office 2000 is a clean install. But
the problem continues.

Regards,

Charlie
 
Hi =?Utf-8?B?Q2hhcmxpZW1hYw==?=,
I've just checked with another attempt, the excel sheet is not locked or
read only. The laptop has been wiped and Office 2000 is a clean install. But
the problem continues.
Click to expand...
I'm still convinced this isn't a Word issue, but something to do with the OS
and/or network. I'm going to "think out loud" about Word-Excel mail merge, and
perhaps something will ring a bell with you and lead you to the source of the
problem...

In Office 2000, the default connection method Word's mail merge uses for an
Excel data source is DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange). This is an old technology
(been around for well over a decade), and there are increasing problems with it
that appear to be based in Windows. There are cases (individual machines) where
it is so slow as to be useless. I had a machine like that, once, with multiple
partitions; the problem occured on the partition with Win98, but not under
Win95.

More recently, the message that a DDE connection could not be established is
being seen increasingly. In this case, Word is timing out (or Excel or Access
options have been set to ignore DDE requests - you might want to check that in
Tools/Options).

There are, for Office 2000, two other connection methods available for Excel:
ODBC and Word's internal text converter. Activating the "Select method" checkox
in the "Open data source" dialog box will allow the user to choose. One of
these usually work when DDE does not. The major drawback is that date and
number formatting in Excel are not carried over into the mail merge, so
formatting switches may be required in the merge fields.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)
 
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