I am using some large workbooks that have some formulas that have some VB components to them. I'm VB illiterate but pretty adept at the rest of Excel. There are a number of formulas that contain some components that I don't recognize, and I'm told by the author of the workbook that those are VB functions, and reference data outside the workbook that I'm using. And that's fine, I'm not trying to calculate anything myself - I just need to understand the flow of the workbook.

I'm using 2007, the file is xls, and running in compatibility mode. The problem is that sometimes, but not always, I will get reference and name errors in those cells with the VB formulas (and all dependent calculations). Often the workbook will be fine for 10 o 20 minutes, then suddenly all the errors will show up. Other times I can't even open the workbooks without getting the errors. I've tried disabling macros to no avail. The recalculation setting doesn't make any difference.

I might mention that when I open any of these workbooks, a VB edit screen automatically pops up, and I have to "OK" a compilation error dialog box and a box that says "this command will stop the debugger" before I can actually view the data I'm interested in.