"MS Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action" error

bugs
1

Hi, I’m running the latest version (7.3.4) and trying to export some relatively small (< 10MB) tiff images. Frequently, but not always, where I click the export button on the single graphic export window, I name my file and click “save,” and the “single graphic export” window does not go away and MS Excel remains frozen for a couple of minutes. (Usually after clicking save it takes half a second for the file to save and everything to disappear.)

After those couple of minutes, a window appears that says “MS Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action.” I can click “OK” or “cancel.” If I click “cancel” the tiff file saves fine and excel is ready to move forward. If I click “OK” it moves back to the frozen state. Once this error happens a single time, if I close Excel and re-start, the Toolbox add-in does NOT load, and I have to re-start my system to get the Toolbox to load with Excel.

I’m not running any other add-ins, and I’ve tried running Excel with no other applications at all to make sure it’s not an incompatibility with another application but it’s still happening. I’ve also tried un-installing and re-installing the toolbox.

I have logging enabled but can’t figure out where that’s saved, if you can’t point me to the location.
Any ideas?
Thanks!

2

Hi Laura,

this sounds as if there is another instance of Excel lingering around that you don’t see. Could it be that you opened an Excel file from within another application, for instance from an Outlook e-mail?

I agree that the log file may be informative, especially if you capture the sequence of events that you described above. It is saved in your user profile folder. A shortcut to open that folder is in the Preferences dialog. You may need to scroll down to see the blue link.

Best

Daniel