Opening Excel file hangs computer

[goombawaho]

Got a problem that is really bugging me. I have a customer with XP 2GB of memory in a Server 2003 Domain environment.

Their email is Outlook 2007, their PST is LOCAL (not on the sever/not Exchange) and they received an 8MB Excel file as an attachment in a mail message. If they click on the attachment in the Outlook, it locks up their computer (not dead locked up, but like totally occupied - with a white screen where the Excel program and the Outlook program should be). Can't kill the processes off like you normally could - it took 5 minutes for the "end process" to work.

Same thing happens if I try to SAVE the attachment to another part of the hard drive. Happens on two different PCs, so it's not just the one PC.

Don't know how to troubleshoot this other than asking the SENDER if it is a valid Excel file that is actually 8MB in size.

 

[JockMullin]

Since you are able to save the file to disk and the same problem happens from there it does not seem likely this is a problem with Outlook or the PST.

An 8mb Excel file is pretty large - what format is it (.xls, .xlsx)?

I have seen this happen with a corrupt .xls spreadsheet file created in an older version of Excel (2003). The same file was being updated and resaved on a daily basis with a lot of rows being deleted and added and for some reason it just started to grow in size.

In that case I was able to open it (partially) with Open Office's Calc module. It gave an error but didn't hang. Then saved the file as a .csv and imported it back into Excel and rebuilt it that way.

No guarantee this will work in your case (and for sure it won't if it is an .xlsx). However it sounds like a corrupt file.

Jock

 

[NESWalt]

Excel files track changes so as they get used more and more, even if small column/row-wise, they can get pretty massive. if possible, you want to have the original sender do a Save As and send that new file. I know in the past, the Save As actually dropped the tracked changes.

But as Jock said, it sounds like a corrupt file. 8 Meg is fairly large for an Excel document.

 

[linney]

Sometimes files from other computers have an "Unblock" check box that is ticked, this can be seen when you right-click on the file and select Properties (it is near the bottom of the page).

Can the original sender open the file on his computer?

 

[goombawaho]

Since you are able to save the file to disk and the same problem happens from there it does not seem likely this is a problem with Outlook or the PST."

The above is NOT correct. I cannot save it to the hard drive in another location without the same problem happening - i.e., it hangs while it's trying to copy. It doesn't even look like it's saving. Nothing ends up in the destination, though I did kill the process rather than waiting 20 minutes.

I'm focusing the customer on talking to the sender to verify the version of Excel on their computer, whether the sender can open it and whether it's actually 8MB.

 

[JockMullin]

Sorry, when you said "same thing happens" I thought you meant the same thing was "a white screen where the Excel program ... should be".

In that case it may be a corrupt email msg. Can you save the entire email as a .msg?

Jock

 

[goombawaho]

I'll wait to see what the sender of the message has to say as I'm still suspicious of the file itself.

 

[xkjdhdg]

check out this link :

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/StartupErrors.aspx

 

[goombawaho]

Thanks for the link. All other Excel files open, so it must be just related to this file being corrupted or some funky script (wrong word maybe) running when it's opened.

I was actually more concerned that I couldn't CTRL ALT DEL and kill the processes (Outlook & Excel) off for over 5 minutes. It just took over the PC like it was running in PIO mode.

The computer is otherwise healthy.

 

[xkjdhdg]

download Malwarebytes and run it. It sounds like your file got taken over by some malware.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

 

[goombawaho]

No no. I'm a tech and I've already checked for anything suspicious. There are no processes running that would warrant a malware scan at this point, especially given the otherwise normal behavior. Remember - two PCs do this exact same thing.

 

[xkjdhdg]

Take look at this :
This was caused by a recent Microsoft patch. There were apparently also about 40 instances of verclsid.exe running, and some other problems. For info on how to fix this, see the Microsoft Knowledgebase Article with the fix (

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918165).

Here is an excerpt:

SYMPTOMS
After you install security update 908531 (security bulletin MS06-015), you may experience one or more of the following problems:

• You cannot access special folders such as "My Documents" or "My Pictures."
• Microsoft Office applications stop responding when you try to save or to open Office files in the "My Documents" folder.
• Office files that are located in the "My Documents" folder cannot be opened.
• If you open a file by clicking Open on the File menu, the application stops responding.
• When you type an address in the Address box in Microsoft Internet Explorer, nothing happens.
• When you right-click a file and then click Send To, nothing happens.
• When you expand a folder in Windows Explorer, nothing happens.
• Some third-party applications stop responding when you open or save data in the “My Documents” folder.

To see security bulletin MS06-015, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/...n/ms06-015.mspx

 

[goombawaho]

I'll keep that one in my back pocket, but circumstances don't match exactly as listed and I would have seen the multiple instances of verclsid.exe when I was running process explorer. That would have popped into my eye like a cork from a champagne bottle.

Let's cool the posting down until I get a response from the user. It may be that they just forget about it and then all these brilliant suggestions would be for naught. People have a habit of just moving on or forgetting about it and then I'm left frothing at the mouth thinking that they are waiting with baited breath for a solution, when in fact they have totally blown it off.

P.S. I don't get paid for frothing at the mouth. It's on my own time.

 

[cdogg]

mrfixit,
That is not likely the problem here for a number of reasons. First and foremost, if the workstations in goombawaho's situation are running XP Service Pack 3, then they already have the updated version of security update 908531 that was released 2 years before Service Pack 3. Secondly, other Excel files open just fine. If there were any reported instances of this same problem occurring with other Office documents, I'm sure goombawaho would have mentioned that.

goombawaho,
Any idea what the size of the user's PST is? I know in the past when dealing with Outlook 2002 and 2003, PST file sizes needed to stay well under 2GB and it was preferred to have less than 200MB in the inbox folder. Not sure if that holds true with Outlook 2007 but thought I'd mention it. You could also forward the email to another inbox that was relatively clean as a test.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
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[goombawaho]

PST is about 2GB, so that's not an issue with Outlook 2007 from what I understand UNLESS it was grandfathered in from Outlook 2003 and not converted. But the other computer on which the same problem occurs has like an 8GB PST - so again, not likely the case.

She is running on XP SP2 I noticed the other day. Didn't want to change too many things at once, but I intend to fix that soon. I installed IE8 and Office 2007 SP2 + Windows installer 4.5 while I was there, so (you know) don't stir the pot too much at one sitting.

 

[stduc]

I've seen similar issues with Microsoft Office, mainly with word but also excel hanging when using certain files that has been due to bad or corrupted printer drivers. I've solved it by deleting all printers and then going into server setting (right click some white space in printers and faxes) and removing all printer drivers. The re-installing printers. I doubt you have to be that drastic, but I find doing the lot quicker than trying to guess which one is corrupted!

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