Excel 2013 crashes on opening

[OxMB]

I'm really hoping someone can help. We have an issue on our network where Excel (2013) will crash on opening. Here is more detail.

 

It seems to be triggered by those grey rectangular messages that may pop-up at the beginning when you open a file, such as 'need to update links', 'cannot update links due to one being broken', 'password required', or most commonly 'locked for editing by someone else, would you like read-only?', BUT IT NEVER QUITE GETS THIS FAR, so you never see the message itself.

 

(BTW: what frustrates my internet searches is that there has been a lot of recent issues with false Excel file locks. This is not our issue.) Other people genuinely have got the file open, so there is a genuine and appropriate lock. But the second user never gets the chance to click 'read only' and continue.

 

IF THEY OPEN THE FILE FROM WINDOWS EXPLORER (after someone else has already got it open), the Excel 2013 green intro box pops up as normal as the program loads to open the file. But it hangs there. You can use the cross at top right of the green intro box. Then launch Excel again. Nothing. Then again, and message will tell you something like 'Excel cannot be stopped at the moment'. Then you get the choice to restart the program.

 

IF YOU OPEN EXCEL FIRST AND BROWSE TO THE FILE FROM WITHIN PROGRAM then the notification such as 'file locked' opens JUST FINE and there is no problem because you get to click 'read-only' and continue.

 

When trying to open from Explorer, it is almost as if the component of Excel 2013 that will display the grey message box needs to be launched first, but isn't and so the program gets stuck unable to display the message. I have hoped that this, that, or the other update would solve our problems, but it hasn't happened and I need to seek wider advice.

 

Any ideas? We are Win7 x64. We did not have this problem when we had Office 2010, but we also went to a 64bit OS about the same time as we went to Office 2013.

Edited March 3, 2014 by OxMB

[ChrisH]

Have you tried the new service pack ? You never know....

[OxMB]

Chris - pinned my hopes on the service pack. But just tested for the issue on two machines with Office 2013 SP1 installed recently. The bug presented itself, just as ugly as ever.

 

On a large site with many workbooks being viewed by many people, viewings will inevitably overlap. People don't necessarily want shared editing, but they do want to be able to click Read-Only. They don't want the program to crash if they accidently open a spreadsheet through Explorer. So its a fairly bad bug really.

[mac_shinobi]

Not sure how much this helps as not had experience with Excel 2013 however just from experience of Excel 2010 :

 

1) Ensure the excel file is shared correctly, have had it on some excel files where it shows as shared and we have had to disable sharing and then re-enable sharing on the excel file ( by getting the creator of said excel file to open the excel file and be the only person with it opened ) to do the disabling and re-enabling of the sharing of the excel file and then test ie get other users to launch the excel file, linky to an article, not sure how good the instructions are , you may be able to find a better article, I appreciate this is for 2010 so not sure how relevant the steps or instructions are but will need to ensure that you have given the relevant people access rights to this shared excel file within excel whilst you are sharing the relevant excel document : How To Share Files In Excel 2010

 

2) The shared area of where the excel file is contained ( whether it is a shared unc path / folder on a shared drive ie R Drive or whatever ) that each user has relevant permissions ie NTFS access rights to read / write to the excel file correctly

 

3) Within both Internet Options --> Security tab to add the path or failing that at least the FQDN of the domain so that Internet Security settings for both Intranet and trusted sites will trust the shared area on the domain

 

4) Within Excel, I think it is within the trust centre settings ( Open excel --> File --> Options --> Trust Centre --> Trust Centre Settings --> Trusted Locations --> add new location button --> either navigate to the root directory or type the path out to the root directory of where all the excel documents are located. You can add the full path to where the Excel file(s) are stored and tick a tick box to trust all documents within sub-directories of that path

 

See attached screen grab ( ensure to tick the tick box so as to include all sub-directories )

 

Edited March 3, 2014 by mac_shinobi

[OxMB]

Thanks for your help mac_shinobi.

 

Its getting late now, and I shall look through some of your suggestions tomorrow.

 

However, looking at your point no.1 it seems you are talking about shared workbooks. I'm afraid I'm not.

 

I'm talking about situations where a file is locked for editing, then a second user can't even click to view Read-Only because that box doesn't appear - Excel has already hung before it even gets to display the 'this file is locked' message.

Edited March 3, 2014 by OxMB

[ZeroHour]

Does this happen when opening the file from a local memory stick rather than share?

[OxMB]

ZeroHour, the main example I raised was where someone else already had the file open and the grey box giving the read-only option didn't appear.

 

It would not be possible to test this using a memory stick. You'd have to share the memory stick so that two people could attempt to open the file. But then it would be a share!

 

I could test re the other grey boxes you can get when an Excel file opens, like 'cannot update links'. I need to investigate the circumstances in which they cause a problem too. I suspect it may also be when someone else has the file open.

[ZeroHour]

ZeroHour, the main example I raised was where someone else already had the file open and the grey box giving the read-only option didn't appear.

 

It would not be possible to test this using a memory stick. You'd have to share the memory stick so that two people could attempt to open the file. But then it would be a share!

 

I could test re the other grey boxes you can get when an Excel file opens, like 'cannot update links'. I need to investigate the circumstances in which they cause a problem too. I suspect it may also be when someone else has the file open.

 

What permissions are applied to the share and ntfs?

If possible can you grab a screenshot of the advanced permissions for a group the user is a member of. There are a few quirks with hidden temporary files if I recall which can have issues with certain permissions.

[OxMB]

ZeroHour, thanks for your input.

 

It doesn't matter whether you are an admin with every tick in the Allow column and no ticks in the Deny column. It still happens.

[ZeroHour]

ZeroHour, thanks for your input.

 

It doesn't matter whether you are an admin with every tick in the Allow column and no ticks in the Deny column. It still happens.

 

Do you redirect user profile appdata folders at all?

Just running through a list of things that can cause weirdness.

[OxMB]

I've just found a machine where it doesn't happen. Now to find out what's special about it.

[mac_shinobi]

Maybe make the spreadsheet a shared workbook and see if that resolves the issues ?

[OxMB]

mac_shinobi, that might be an interesting experiment. But this happens with any spreadsheet. We are not going to make all spreadsheets shared workbooks. Shared workbooks are for when you wish to collaborate in creating the spreadsheet. I am talking about the scenario where only one person should edit it, but loads of people need to be able to look at it from time to time.

 

Now that I have found a computer where the problem does not occur, my focus will be on comparing it to other computers. I may even add software, change permissions, change policy, change location of this good machine toward the bad machines and see what breaks it.

[mac_shinobi]

mac_shinobi, that might be an interesting experiment. But this happens with any spreadsheet. We are not going to make all spreadsheets shared workbooks. Shared workbooks are for when you wish to collaborate in creating the spreadsheet. I am talking about the scenario where only one person should edit it, but loads of people need to be able to look at it from time to time.

 

Now that I have found a computer where the problem does not occur, my focus will be on comparing it to other computers. I may even add software, change permissions, change policy, change location of this good machine toward the bad machines and see what breaks it.

 

Just wondering the file type associations on the computers - what file type / extension does an excel 2013 create versus 2010 that you are saying you used to use before ?

 

Also if you look at the default associations for file types for excel spreadsheets, does it link the excel 2013 file type or extension to excel as the default application or do these computers still have other versions of office installed ie 2010 ?

 

As you mentioned above regards to when opening Excel 2013 and going through it that way it prompts to view it in read only mode and then opens it straight away versus if you try to launch the file ie double click the excel file --> it launches excel 2013 splash screen and won't go any further.

 

Just wondering if there are any options within excel to load an excel workbook straight away in read only mode if it cant be opened fully ie in edit mode ( whatever it is called )

[OxMB]

I know it's been a while since I last updated this. I wanted to let you all know the cause of, and solution to the problem.

 

We use Smart interactive whiteboards here. With it comes Smart Notebook and Smart drivers. I can't remember exactly which part of their software suite it is (perhaps Smart Ink), but it installs Add-Ins for the MS Office Suite.

 

Within MS Excel, if you go to File>Options>Add-Ins and within the COM section disable the Smart add-in you'll see there, the problem then disappears! NOTE for new people to this post, the problem that disappears is the EXACT one I have described, please do not confuse this with some other Excel problems.

 

There are various Smart related Add-Ins (I think), but we could find no adverse effects from disabling the particular add-in I described.

 

It is rather surprising that Smart Tech's add-ins interfere with the type of MS Office functionality I have been discussing in this thread. I believe my boss has checked that our Smart software version is not that old. Not too pleased with Smart's software development testing in this respect.

[JSchlackman]

This is far from the only compatibility problem SMART Ink has with both Office and other standard applications. My favourite is how at one point it was interfering with the current version of IE (at the time) so that a random selection of websites would simply display an entirely blank page (including our on-premises OWA).

 

I have disabled SMART Ink across the entire site. Not a single person has complained.

[edutech4schools]

Within MS Excel, if you go to File>Options>Add-Ins and within the COM section disable the Smart add-in you'll see there, the problem then disappears! NOTE for new people to this post, the problem that disappears is the EXACT one I have described, please do not confuse this with some other Excel problems.

 

 

I have 1 laptop with this issue, odd that the rest are all ok. Cheers

[laserblazer]

I've only skimmed this so apologies if I'm repeating anything but we have what sounds like a similar issue which I think is to do with file associations because "open with" and then selecting the correct application and it is fine.

[Valyyn]

I know it's been a while since I last updated this. I wanted to let you all know the cause of, and solution to the problem.

 

We use Smart interactive whiteboards here. With it comes Smart Notebook and Smart drivers. I can't remember exactly which part of their software suite it is (perhaps Smart Ink), but it installs Add-Ins for the MS Office Suite.

 

Within MS Excel, if you go to File>Options>Add-Ins and within the COM section disable the Smart add-in you'll see there, the problem then disappears! NOTE for new people to this post, the problem that disappears is the EXACT one I have described, please do not confuse this with some other Excel problems.

 

There are various Smart related Add-Ins (I think), but we could find no adverse effects from disabling the particular add-in I described.

 

It is rather surprising that Smart Tech's add-ins interfere with the type of MS Office functionality I have been discussing in this thread. I believe my boss has checked that our Smart software version is not that old. Not too pleased with Smart's software development testing in this respect.

 

Just wanted to say thank you - had the exact same issue and this was a massive help - it was a really awkward thing to be searching for!

[berkshireicttech]

Hi, did you ever get a permanent solution for this? I have exactly the same problem, and Smart Tech are saying I need to un-install and reinstall Smart notebook and all its affiliates. With 90 classrooms running this its a pain in the backside.....

[huntstewie]

Sounds like a dodgy build to me.

[Valyyn]

Our solution is in place now - one of my colleagues set up an Office 2013 GPO which disables the Smart add-in across the domain. I'll ask him to pop on and put more info if you want! We've not had any complaints since (and it's been a few days now), so looking good.

[berkshireicttech]

I think that's the best bet, I know if I disable the addon, there will be some maths teachers who are not happy with the way Excel works with the Smartboard, but I think its better it opens then not at all. Smart say they they are not going to fix this with 11.4 and instead the fix has been applied to the latest paid version. Bit of a kick in the teeth when you have around 90 boards.

 

I would like to know if its "smart ink" or office ink" that is being disabled, if you could find that out I would really appreciate it.

[bigal06]

Our solution is in place now - one of my colleagues set up an Office 2013 GPO which disables the Smart add-in across the domain. I'll ask him to pop on and put more info if you want! We've not had any complaints since (and it's been a few days now), so looking good.

 

Thanks very much - been having this problem for a while now and couldn't work it out

 

GPO Location is

Group Policy location: User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Excel 2013\Miscellaneous\Block all unmanaged add-ins - Enabled Yes

[berkshireicttech]

Please note that Smart have resolved this now with the latest "Smart Product Drivers". I'm not sure if they have updated the version that comes bolted with Smart Notebook, but I can say 100% that if you download the latest product drivers download and install, it will fix the issue. On our MDT server I have just created a software group for Smart Notebook, with 2 dependencies, one being the full install, then 2nd re installation of product drivers.