Excel Files Crashing - .xlsb, but not .xlsm

Copper Contributor

This issue started up over the weekend, first on my desktop and one other user's computer, and this morning it started on my laptop. I maintain a design tool in excel, with multiple iterations over the past 2+ years. Starting this weekend, none of the files are able to be opened, even the oldest ones from years ago. 

I have tried the following steps:
- Uninstall and reinstall Office, as well as repair
- Save the file multiple times from a computer where it works, and send it to myself

- Open the file in Protected View: If calculations are set to automatic it will still crash, but it will work if calculations are set to manual before opening the file in question.

- I have repaired my installation of Visual C++ on both computers


- I have saved the file as a xlsm instead of xlsb, and then the file does work successfully.

- Upon re-saving this file back to xlsb format, it crashes upon opening again


One thing I noticed this morning is that when I open the Object browser for the xlsb version, it will say "Object library invalid or contains references to object definitions that could not be found." 

My laptop updated again this morning, and it began to crash after that update. I reverted the updates and the file didn't crash, until an Intel Graphics driver was installed. I reverted the driver after that error returned, but it still will not work. From my bit of googling, I am wondering if the above findings indicate there is some sort of issue with VBA, or the graphics driver?

Any help would be immensely appreciated; if this issue becomes much more widespread it will drastically affect our ability to work effectively.

Thank you,

1 Reply

One thing is for sure, newer updates of Office 365 are total crap!  @Christopher_Bahr  Applications in Excel using VBA to periodically fill cells use work flawlessly, unit they run on new Excel.  The application starts slow, soon there is no mouse available, the computer locks up until the Excel totally crashes.  No help from Microsoft either.  My suggestion is to go to a older version of Excel.  I have had to uninstall any version newer than Version 1908.