Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations strongm on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Excel file won't open with Filter on

Status
Not open for further replies.

Loomah

Technical User
Mar 4, 2002
1,911
IE
Hi All
Just wondering if anyone has come accross this problem before....

I have a fairly large file (5Mb) which has been fine but recently it decided (all by itself) that it wasn't going to open anymore. Just froze Excel.

Guys in tech support could open the file but not me!

Tried various things such as copying data into new books etc etc which worked fine. However I had a rush of blood and suggested they removed the Auto Filter from the main data sheet for me.

When they did this the workbook opened just fine. Does anyone know why the AutoFilter would be causing such difficulties???

Specs:
xl97 SR-2, NT4.0 SP-6a

Any insights would be appreciated
Happy Friday

;-)
If a man says something and there are no women there to hear him, is he still wrong? [ponder]
How do I get the best answers?
 
It's not shared as well is it?
Had the same problem (but no resoloution) and put it down to sharing, you may well be onto something with the filter idea though no idea why.

Regards, Phil.

M.U.F.C. Show your true support here:
"Shares not Shirts
 
gizmo
Thanks for the response

No, it wasn't shared. It's on a shred drive but even when moved to my home folder it wouldn't open.

Removed the filter and hey presto!!!!

;-)
If a man says something and there are no women there to hear him, is he still wrong? [ponder]
How do I get the best answers?
 
Had the same problem with a shared file.
I changed the filter options on different columns until I could view the entire sheet. Realized then, some one formatted an entire column (rows 1 to 65536 )in a specific way.
 
Have you had someone try logging onto your machine under their NT ID and se if they could open it OK? If they can then I would suspect the fault lies with your *.xlb file which is specific to your Profile and has been known to corrupt, causing problems with opening files. It caused the most problems in XL2000 but was around in 97 also.

If it is that then it's an easy fix to simply delete the *.xlb file as excel will just create a new one. You will however lose any toolbar customisations as this is the toolbar customisation file. Worth a try anyway.

Regards
Ken.............

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[peace]It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission[2thumbsup]
---------------- Click here to help the tsunami victims ----------------

 
Hi Ken
I didn't try your specific suggestion but had tried using another PC with my own logon and another PC with someone elses log on.

However, for a different issue relating to the mystical Dr Watson kicking in and closing xl when I tried saving or pasting in other files, Office has been reinstalled on my PC and then the PC was re-imaged!! So effectively the .xlb has been replaced, hasn't it?

That's a whole different issue though! I was just wondering if there was a known reason why having the Auto Filter on in a big(ish) file would freeze xl?

I'm really glad to be working again. Even following up stuff at home at the moment!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Daze

;-)
If a man says something and there are no women there to hear him, is he still wrong? [ponder]
How do I get the best answers?
 
2 possible reasons. If your temp file was close to the max setting, that might do it. Run Disc Cleanup utility reguarly. Or if the IT guys were using a new version of Excel than you were. There are memory limits that are internal to Excel and the newer versions have a larger limit.

Excel 95, Excel 97 and Excel 2000 are limited to 64MB
Excel 2002 is limited to 128MB
Excel 2003 is limited to 64MB 1 Gig
 
Loomah - *.xlb file is unaffected by either uninstall or a reinstall.

bubbaredneck - The limits you refer to are for formula memory (Heap Space) only:-


Must admit though I had forgotten about cleaning out the temp files :)

Regards
Ken..............

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[peace]It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission[2thumbsup]
---------------- Click here to help the tsunami victims ----------------
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top