no links/VBA/addons, but : Microsoft excel waiting for another application to complete an ole action

[Helen_M]

Hi,

Excel stops working about every 20 minutes for a few minutes -I just have to wait - and then this message pops up: ""microsoft excel waiting for another application to complete an ole action". Thereafter it works again, I can save etc., but it is highly interruptive and annoying. 

The excel files does not have any links, embedded files, not a single add-on is activated in excel. 

I have checked all the common hints that can be found, ticked "ignore other applications using DDE" in excel options, updated the office package, updated windows - nothing I have tried so far helps.

Again, the weird thing is that there are no embedded links or the like, and I have no idea what the reason could be for this error message to keep emerging.

Any advice is highly appreciated!  

Thanks

Helen

[#2]

@NLysette Your suggestion to check to ignore other applications that use DDE seems to have fixed my issue. Now I want to understand what a DDE?

[#3]

Hi @BirdieErnie, I think I can answer that...
DDE - Direct Data Exchange works by creating a memorised link between objects.  A bit like typing '=A1' into cell A2 on a spreadsheet will link the two cells together, such that typing anything in cell A1 will magically appear in cell A2.

However, as simple as that sounds, it gets more complicated when you link cells to locations in other places.  It's OK between 2 cells in the same spreadsheet, or even between tabs, but if you're linking between two or more spreadsheets, between tables and charts or other MS packages (Word, PowerPoint, etc.) then the links can be difficult to follow.  And the more links, the more time it takes to locate and update them. 

That's what causes DDE to hang/fail.  If you send/receive a file from someone and it has links then when it's opened Microsoft will try to update the file with the latest data.  To achieve this it will try to find the links.  It only takes one of these links to point to say, a SharePoint directory, a spreadsheet that you haven't shared, or a spreadsheet sitting on the powered-off laptop in the boot of your car and hey presto - DDE failure!  

As another little bonus, there is also likely to be a time limit for searching for those links.  Microsoft (quite rightly) don't expect you to wait forever, so it gives up searching after a set amount of time - result = DDE failure!

[#4]

@Nauthstar 

I found that the ASAP Utilities add in has a find and remove external links. 

Hope that helps.

Eric

[#5]

Over 30 years of OLE and Microsoft was unable to make the Cancel button in that error dialog aborting the OLE action. Shall we proposed this for an entry in the guiness book of records?

We do always get new office versions, even sharepoint online with an excel with stripped down functionality that noone can use. But noone cares about annoying bugs that make you lose your work.

As you can guess on my frustration level I have 12 excel sheets open that I need to force close because of that bug. Two of them containing changed data that I can't save. I dared trying to open an excel embedded in word.

[#6]

so I solved mine by logging off my GDrive application on my laptop (right-clicked on the GDrive logo on the lower right corner of the Taskbar and clicked on "Quit"). I have some Excel files that had links to GSheets (offline access) and I think that even when I didn't open those files specifically, it was running in the background. 

[#7]

I'm sure I'm wasting my breath/time with this post, but hey Microsoft ... why haven't you fixed this problem or provided official workaround instructions (that actually work) that we can use until you fix it? It's great that community members share potential fixes, but those fixes clearly don't work for everyone, so we waste a lot of valuable time trying various fixes that end up not working. I do not have enough free time to keep searching for and trying potential fixes until one works (because frankly most of them don't work). As you can see from just this one post, this particular problem has been occurring for YEARS and affects many Office users. We pay you a lot of money to use your software, why can't you fix serious problems (like this one) when we bring them to your attention? Or at least provide official RELIABLE workaround instructions that actually work? Please fix this problem now because we have suffered long enough!

[#8]

Neither my simple brain can understand why a leading company like MS lets people around the globe waste hours of their time to finish Office programs with Task Manager just because there is not an option available that allows the user to

- STOP ALL ONGOING PROCESSES and save the work they've been doing the past 2 hours. 

or

- AUTOMATICALLY SAVE their work every 15 min. to a selectable temp folder 

[#9]

Thanks. That's worked for me. The issue was almost ruined my day. I just went to online repair Microsoft excel 365 and uninstalled all previously installed office version and cleared DDE. Now it's works fine. The file were shared in Google drive. Thanks a lot.

[#10]

Hi @Harikumar_Ganesan 

Glad that worked for you.  What version of Excel and Windows were you using at the time?

[#11]

Excel 365

[#12]

That's sad it still has a problem after soooo mannnny years! I've had to redevelop many of my spreadsheets in Excel 365 to use Power Pivot and Power BI connections, they appear to be a little more stable.