Dean
I read this thread because you asked me to, but with the likes of Tom and
Dave involved, there's not much for me to add. Whenever I see stuff like
this I just "know" it's user error. That is, Excel is operating properly
and it's your expectation of what the data should be that is wrong.
I don't say that to diminish your point of view, I've just seen quite a few
cases of "bugs" that turned out to be user error. It's so difficult to
troubleshoot unless you can reproduce it. Maybe your computer is right next
to an x-ray machine. Maybe you had your elbow on the control key and didn't
know it. Maybe the woman at the IT help desk at your company is super hot,
and your brain is forcing you to see errors so you have an excuse to call
her.
There are instances were workbooks become corrupted, but it seems in those
cases that the workbook won't open, not that it appears to act normally some
of the time and abnormally other times. This situation just doesn't sound
like corruption cases I've seen before. We both know that doesn't mean the
problem doesn't exist. The Name error you brought up was something I'd
never seen before, so there are undiscovered bugs out there to be sure.
Sorry I don't have anything constructive to add. Here's what I would do if
this happened to me: First, be hypersensitive to the situation when you're
in Excel, even if that means you have to work a little slower than you're
used to. You definitely want to be in a position to catch every single time
this happens. When it does happen, immediately stop what you're doing and
write down what's happening, what the state of your computer is (which
programs are open, etc.) and anything else you can think of. Don't do the
things that you know fix the problem. First, see how much you can get away
with before it rights itself. Try to replicate the problem you see in
another cell exactly. Then try to replicate it, but change a couple of
things, always documenting what you're doing. Do that five times and see if
you can see a pattern of some sort. Also, make sure your hard drive is
healthy - up to date virus definitions, no adware, no spyware, that kind of
thing.
--
Dick Kusleika
Excel MVP
Daily Dose of Excel
www.dicks-blog.com
I'm not sure. Once again, my experience is that EXCEL gets
overloaded and if you save the file and close EXCEL (maybe reboot the
computer, don;'t recall) and re-open the file, all will be well. Perhaps
that ctrl-alt-F9 would even do it, just editing the
problematic cell equation and then hitting enter seems to work (just
hitting F9 doesn't)
Once again, it's the fear of never knowing if all your spreadsheet
data has reacted to changes. The fix is easy, but only if you know
you have a problem, which is unlikely most of the time.
If I knew the real cause, perhaps I could find ways to avoid putting
myself in that situation.
Dean
