*.XLS file takes 30 minutes to open

**electro-89** · 01-19-2015, 08:42 AM

I have an *.xls file on a file server that is around 11 MB. When any user tries to open this one specific file, Excel freezes for about 30 minutes, then the file is usable. The strange this is that we save nightly backups of all our files, and even past versions of this file do the same thing, even though they were working fine at the time.

Without success, I've tried:

-Copying the file to a local hard drive
-Saving as an *.xlsx and *.xlsm (this made the file open up faster, but I was unable to use the drop down list macros)
-Disable Macros
-Disable Add-ins
-Check for broken links (there was one, and once repaired, it did not change anything)

**Special-K** · 01-19-2015, 08:50 AM

Try saving as a Excel 97 (you may lose some formatting, macros etc)
Open up the Excel 97 file and Save As .xlsx /.xlsm

**electro-89** · 01-19-2015, 08:59 AM

This file is already a 97 xls, and as I mentioned, I already tried re-saving as an xlsx and xlsm. The problem with that was that the drop down list macro was not working properly (you could see the drop down list, but it was not clickable). I did not program this file, so I don't want to go through re-writing it if I don't have to. I don't see why all of a sudden this file, and all its backups would stop wo

**Special-K** · 01-19-2015, 09:07 AM

Try creating a new spreadsheet and copy and paste each worksheet across to the new one, macros, addins too.
Save it and see if there's any difference when opening.