On opening workbook - it kinda half closes :-S

[Guest]

Morning all, I have possibly the weirdest situation I've ever come across and
would appreciate any suggestions as to what might cause it, and any possible
solutions.

On opening a certain workbook, the following occurs:
1. Asked for "open" password
2. Asked for read/write password
3. The workbook "half" closes....

At point 3, the workbook appears to close. However, the title of the
workbook is still present at the top of the application ("Microsoft Excel -
Authorised KEI", where "Authorised KEI" is the name of the workbook.)"
There are no macros present, and security is set to Medium - not presented
with the Enable/Disable dialogue box.
The "Body" of Excel is blank.
All toolbar options that would normally be available on an open workbook are
blank.
There are no sheets visible.
Opening the VBE, the workbook name is not in the Project List on the left.
Selecting "Record New Macro" only allows the options to record in a New
Workbook or in Personal.xls
Selecting "Windows" from the main toolbar does not allow selection of the
workbook.
No options to amend Format properties are available for row/column/sheet.
No options to (un)protect sheets or workbook, share workbook etc are
available.
No options to Save/Print Preview/Print etc are available.
Same response for multiple users on different pcs.


And yet, on Task Manager the workbook shows as open, and the title of the
workbook is in the Excel application title bar...

Confused. Help?

MikeC

 

[Dave Peterson]

First, these are just guesses...

The only time I've seen the titlebar not update when a workbook/worksheet
changes is when there is code in the workbook that changes the titlebar--and
doesn't "release" it back to excel when it's done.

This kind of sounds like it's happening to you--since you don't see the
workbook's project in the VBE.

But just one more test.

When you don't see anything, try file|print preview.

If that works, maybe the worksheet window is just not visible. Try
Window|Arrange|tiled and resize the way you like.

If that doesn't work, close excel and try opening excel in safe mode (which
stops macros/addins/toolbars and other stuff).

Close excel
windows start button|Run
excel /safe
and hit enter

Then File|Open your workbook.

Do things look ok? If yes, it's time to go back to the developer and ask what
the heck is going on. (Could be some sort of security macro that's trying to
keep your prying eyes off that data(!).)

If that doesn't help, maybe it's time to read these and do some detective work:

Chip Pearson has some notes on how to diagnose startup errors:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/StartupErrors.htm

And Jan Karel Pieterse has more notes:
http://www.jkp-ads.com/Articles/StartupProblems.asp

 

[Guest]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your suggestions, unfortunately we haven't had any joy!

None of the workbook-specific File options are available, including Print
Preview etc, so it wasn't so much of a schoolboy error as having it hidden
behind another workbook - for which I'm thankful, as that would be really
embarrassing...!

Safe mode doesn't help, same issue when trying to open that way. There's no
code in there that's causing this, that I'm certain of, as I would, on a
Medium Security, have the option to disable. I had wondered if there was an
addin, but thought it unlikely as the corporate security here tends to
disable anything that even looks like one. But, as Safe Mode would disable
these, it was worth a try.

I've had a look through Chip's site, JKP's site, along with Tushar Mehta's,
Ron deBruin's, Simon Murphy's and Dick Kusleika's, and I've found nothing
which relates to this issue, as other workbooks are opening just fine, within
the same instance of Excel, which would indicate that it's a specific
workbook issue rather than something with Excel as a whole. Most of the
startup issues these fine gents describe relate to general Excel application
startup problems.

As an additional note, I've tried remotely linking in through a new workbook
(e.g. fresh workbook, link cell A1 to cell A1 on Sheet1 on the problematic
workbook) and received a "unable to read file" error message on calculation.


Luckily, it's not my spreadsheet, and I don't personally need it!!! But it
would be nice to know what's causing the issue (even if we can't get back
into it) to try and avoid in the future.

Thanks
MikeC

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't have another guess.

But lots of people have praised openoffice for being able to recover damaged
files (I still don't know if that file is damaged, though).

http://www.openoffice.org, a 60-65 meg download or a CD

It might be worth the effort--or be useful later????

 

[Guest]

Sounds like it might just be worth a try - Thanks Dave!
MikeC