Forum Discussion
Excel crashes when opening a specific (complex) .xlsb file (and all previous versions of it too)
There are several possible reasons why Excel crashes when opening an .xlsb file, such as corrupted cache, outdated software, incompatible add-ins, conditional formatting, antivirus interference, or system issues.
Some of the solutions that you can try, perhaps you have already tried a few, here with the order:
- Restart your computer and try opening the file again.
- Run Excel as administrator and see if it can open the file.
- Install the latest software update for Excel and Windows.
- Clear Microsoft Excel cache by deleting all files in %appdata%\Microsoft\Excel folder.
- Remove conditional formatting from your file by using Format Painter on a blank cell and applying it to the entire worksheet.
- Close unused applications that may be using up memory or resources.
- Disable your antivirus temporarily and check if it affects Excel’s performance.
- Update your system drivers and BIOS to ensure compatibility and stability.
If none of these solutions work, you may have a corrupted .xlsb file that needs to be repaired.
You can try saving the file in an old format (.xls) on a different computer that can open it, then re-saving it as .xlsb. This may fix some of the corruption issues.
You can also use a third-party tool to repair your .xlsb file, such as Stellar Repair for Excel or Kernel for Excel Repair. These tools can scan your file and recover data from damaged worksheets. Have not used these tools myself, but are recommended by some, so without guarantee.
I hope this helps you resolve your issue.
I know I don't know anything (Socrates)
- Hahaha NikolinoDE I think you must be from call center, m$oft RTS we call it - Restarting Team Support 🙂 ... I suggest additional step when you click those Restart option in Windows, use left hand to punch you vaccination point and right hand to hit your forehead - in the same time, so you can click mentioned restart with nose properly 🙂 Maybe in lucky time BIOS be updated also 🙂 If you lost vision in this complicated action, you need to change graphic card and connect next pipe with helium or water. Good luck.
Unfortunately, with so many posts without more detailed information and inappropriate comments, I can only provide general information that I think is correct.
First of all, I am not an employee of any call center or Microsoft. I'm a simple user like most people here. My answers are voluntary and without guarantee.
To be clear, not everyone has the same problem, even though it might seem so. That's why it's always recommended to publish a new post, as everyone can have a different hardware and software configuration.
If a lot of things are unclear from the start regarding the hardware and software configuration, it is good to give general step-by-step instructions that ignore the basic sources of errors.
In this link you will find some more information about it:
Welcome to your Excel discussion space!
At the same time, I ask you to behave politely and not to make yourself important with personal direct or indirect insults.
I will no longer participate in this post, thank you for your patience and understanding.
Its been my experience that Office 64 bit has serious defects, and back in 2011 or so they published on their developer website no intention of fixing the known issue causing your file to automatically close. It has to to with VISUAL BASIC. They released office with a 32 bit VB in it, despite being 64 bit office. Bug #1. They also have an unwanted Book1.xlsx that the save process will automatically create, and it is unneeded and causes the error. The VB code gets saved correctly in the xlsm file, then it adds the unwanted hidden file in error. This goes way back to Office 1998, then they thought having one file hidden that would contain all your macros was a good idea. They still have snippets of code in office that they cannot fix or locate that is trying to still save this hidden file. This is then causing your machine to open the xlsm file today, and it acts like there is an error in the file. There are no errors with your file. Just OPEN EXCEL first, a blank workbook, then click FILE OPEN and browse to your file, then in the dialogue where it sayd OPEN inthe lower right, click the tiny down errors, and use Open and Repair. It will open the file file and get rid of the unwanted file that windows adds as a brazen defect of windows .
This sounds interesting and could be the problem with my .xlsb file. It is around 12MB with 80 worksheets and 250 macros.
After some saves, when reopening it crashes with no message. Then opening after crashing it does repair and seems to work okay. I always now keep saving after every minor change so that if I have a crash I can go back to previous saved version that doesn't crash. It does mean I end up with hundreds of saved versions! Very annoying!
I have to constantly check after I save a version if it will open without crashing. I was thinking it could be a memory issue as sometimes (rarely) when saving Excel says something about Out of Memory. However I can't find any reason for why sometimes it gets corrupted and crashes without any error message.
Duwat13 Definitely good idea need to try it and check for unneeded files. Good suggestion. From my side I can include that Microsoft never fixing real bugs because peoples and teams not work so long in this fake company. Guys which create it or know something they are gone from m$oft and they don't have any documentation. In the times of Windows 3.1 I wrote in Visual Basic for Atari Falcon completely replicate Word with exact the same GUI in 2 weeks, so can imagine what kind of mess they have in m$oft to make any positive actions and fix this problem (as many other) asap? Impossible, amateur company and programmers, that's all about any software from m$ created for it's own operating system windows. I am just thinking why 365 for Apple Mac OS X do not have such a problems, with the same files I never detect there is bugs. M$oft is like a covid, this is the first virus in the World not any thing else.
- Hi NikolinoDE
Thanks for the response, I have tried some of this, but as per my post, I think these are highly unlikely to be the problems, to reiterate:
- the file opens fine on a laptop with an older version on Excel, so it is not corrupted
- even if it WAS corrupted, how could all the old versions of the file, which had not been opened in some cases for over year, corrupt at the same time (saved on different drives, local and the cloud)
- the file suddenly stopped opening on 2 separate PCs (with different hardware, graphics cards/drivers etc), on the exact same day, so it is highly unlikely this problem is PC related - how could they both go wrong in the same way at the same time? It could maybe be a virus issue, but:
- the file will not open in Excel in the browser either (where it would before) - as a browser version of Excel it is not affected by any hardware issues, except those affecting the browser itself.
So it seems to me the most logical culprit is Excel itself, both desktop and that running in the browser.Hi, did you ever get this resolved? I seem to have a similar problem where my .xslb file immediately closing when opening with no error message. Excel then does a repair and it works. But after a while making some macro changes, it happens again. I have tried removing all macros and reloading. Same problem after a while. I am on Windows 10, Office 360 16.0.16501.20074 64 bit.
BTW. My Workbook has 82 sheets and 276 marcos.
Duwat13 Sorry no. I was able to convert the file to .xlsm and all was fine. It did take a bit of sorting, but if you are able to open the file occasionally then I'd do this. For me, the only real advantage to a .xlsb file was smaller file size, but not much of an advantage if it doesn't work....!
