Excel Crashing Only When Opening Chart Worksheets

[63falcondude]

I have a workbook that has been crashing lately. Here is what I have been able to diagnose so far:

1) Only crashes when on one of two worksheets. These worksheets contain about 5 charts each.
2) Still crashes in Safe Mode
3) Only one COM add-in (MapPoint) enabled. Disabling this has no effect on the crashes.
4) Repaired Microsoft Office 2016. No effect on crashes.
5) Deleting all of the data in cells B5:CS27 of the 'Data' worksheet makes the chart sheets not crash anymore.
6) Deleting only the #N/A cells has no effect on crashes.

I have attached a much simplified (and desensitized) workbook that shows the crashing issue. The crashing happens a couple of seconds after selecting either one of the chart worksheets.

Any help to get rid of this crashing issue would be much appreciated.

Edit: I tested the deletion of data (#5 above) again and it only delayed the crash. Still crashes after deleting the data in B5:CS27.

[dominicb]

Good afternoon 63falcondude

Do you have access to other PCs with Office installed?
The attached file opens fine on my system - I can see the charts select, move or resize them without any issue.

On this setup, I am using Office 16, Windows 10, 32 bit.
Have you considered attempting to run a repair on your installation? I can see nothing within this file that should cause this issue. It's a fairly small file, consisting of a simple table and two pages of charts.

Sorry I can't be of any more help

DominicB

[63falcondude]

The attached file opens fine on my system - I can see the charts select, move or resize them without any issue.

Maybe it is my computer then. I will send it to a co-worker and see if they experience the crashing too.

Have you considered attempting to run a repair on your installation?

Yes. I repaired Microsoft Office (#4 above).

It's a fairly small file, consisting of a simple table and two pages of charts.

The actual workbook is 2.43 MB. I cut it down to show only the part that crashes (for me). I had to remove a lot of sensitive information.

Sorry I can't be of any more help

No that does help. As mentioned above, I will see if other computers in my company experience the same thing.

I will update this thread with anything new that I find out. Thank you.

Edit: Sent to a co-worker and she experienced the same crashing after some time with the charts on screen.

[CK76]

Hmm, hard to pinpoint cause. But looks like chart objects are the offending culprit.

If I delete all charts using...

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It becomes stable.
Or even with charts still on sheet, as long as charts are outside of display area. It does not crash.
Tested with hardware acceleration turned off, but this had no effect, as long as charts were displayed on screen.

Try recreating charts, after you remove them with above code. And see if it replicates the issue.

I'd recommend restructuring your data. Your series formulas are very disjointed and may be cause of the issue.
Ex: Data Chart 4, XT series

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See attached for full export of series formula using below code.

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EDIT: I'm using Office 365, 64 bit install on Windows 7 machine.

[63falcondude]

looks like chart objects are the offending culprit.

I agree. It crashed for you too when the charts are displayed on screen?

I'd recommend restructuring your data.

I would normally say the same thing. The issue is that I am getting the data from a system that I have no control over.
I copy and paste the data from the system into Excel and then everything is taken care of automatically.

I suppose that I could create an area that pulls that unstructured data into a structured form and use the structured data for the charts.
If that worked, I guess that would mean that the structuring of the data was the culprit.

I am using Office 2016, 32 bit, windows 7.

I'll try some restructuring and see if it still crashes. Thanks.

[63falcondude]

I saved a copy of the workbook to test on.
On a new sheet of that copy workbook, I separated the data into four sections so that the SERIES formulas are not disjointed like in the original.
I created one chart using the first section and then Excel crashed.

I'm at a loss.

[CK76]

Hmm, by chance was your Office installation an update from previous version?
And what's the version# of update that's applied?

[63falcondude]

Upon further testing, it seems that the workbook doesn't crash if I have all of the Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels checked.

I uncheck all months outside of the previous 13 (e.g. right now, only Apr-17 through Apr-18 are checked).

Once I do this and leave the chart on the screen for a little bit, Excel crashes.

Hmm, by chance was your Office installation an update from previous version?
And what's the version# of update that's applied?

It was. We (my office) had 2010 up until about a year ago when it was switched to 2016.
Version #: 16.0.4639.1000 32-bit

[CK76]

Did further testing and it will crash on my laptop (Office 365 ProPlus) Version 1708 (Build 8431.2242) - Semi annual channel.
But not on the desktop (Office 365 business) Version 1804 (Build 9226.2114) - Monthly channel.

This leads me to believe it's either registry issue, or update messing something up.

For test I reverted back to Version 1705 (Build 8201.2258) and I no longer experience crash on my laptop.

Try either applying latest update, or rolling back update.

See below for article on rolling back.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...fice-2016-clic

Though it's bit misleading. updatetoversion string is based on 16.0. & build#. So... updatetoversion=16.0.8201.2258 to roll back to version 1705.

[sandy666]

Link doesn't work

[CK76]

Clicking it works for me? Does it work if you right click, copy link address and paste into URL bar?

You can google 'office 365 revert to previous version' and it should be one of the first search result.

[63falcondude]

Update: On my actual workbook, I clicked on the worksheet with the charts and quickly scrolled down to put the chart mostly out of view before it crashed.

I went far enough down so that I could only see the bottom of the chart. I then checked all of the Horizontal Axis Labels. Then, when I scroll up to see the chart, Excel doesn't crash.

Try either applying latest update, or rolling back update.

Link worked for me. I read that article and I'm not sure that I have the ability/access to do that on my work computer. I could try but that also goes into unknown territory for me and I would rather not go down the rabbit hole.

For now, I got it to the point of not crashing even though I would rather not have all of the axis labels checked (which shows more months than I want).

It's odd because I do the same thing on other workbooks without issue.

For now, I'll leave this thread unsolved but you deserve a rep for going through all of that for me. Thank you.

[sandy666]

@ck76

urleffect.jpg

link from Google to MS shows exactly the same

[CK76]

No problem and thanks for the rep
Glad you got at least a workaround.

[CK76]

@sandy666

Hmm, beats me. You should be able to find the article by googling at least.

[sandy666]

Yeah, I found it on CNET but not on MS

maybe MS doesn't like firefox but usually FF works with MS