XL2002: Excel May Stop Responding If You Call Calculate from an Asynchronous COM Event (331401)

SYMPTOMS

Excel may stop repainting and stop responding to user events. This may occur when you use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in Microsoft Excel 2002. If you sink events for a COM component that raises those events asynchronously (from another thread or timer) and then you call Calculate on the Application or Worksheet object from the event, you may receive the following error message:

Microsoft Excel has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

The crash information reports one of the following crash addresses:

   Module: EXCEL.EXE  Version: 10.0.2614.0  Offset: 0x0001590b
   Module: EXCEL.EXE  Version: 10.0.3506.0  Offset: 0x000ff708
   Module: EXCEL.EXE  Version: 10.0.4302.0  Offset: 0x00149a67

CAUSE

This problem typically occurs when Excel runs in the background, and a foreground window moves across the Excel window while Excel is in the process of calculation for a complex worksheet.

Excel stops responding when the calculation peeks messages from the message queue and then allows another asynchronous event to fire. This occurs even though Excel has not completed the previous COM event and calculation. The reentrant call may result in state corruption that may cause Excel to stop responding during the recalculation.

RESOLUTION

Service Pack Information

This problem is corrected in Office XP Service Pack 3.To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

307841 How to obtain the latest Office XP Service Pack

Hotfix Information

A supported fix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article. Apply it only to computers that are experiencing this specific problem. This fix may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, Microsoft recommends that you wait for the next Office XP Public Update that contains this hotfix.

To resolve this problem immediately, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the fix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS

NOTE: In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The typical support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

After the hotfix is installed, the English version of this fix will have the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

   Date           Time    Size         File name     
   ------------------------------------------------
   26-Nov-2002    03:27        6,663   Readme.txt
   26-Nov-2002    03:17   12,885,592   Excel.msp
   26-Nov-2002    04:00   15,005,792   Excelff.msp

The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

   Date          Time   Version      Size       File name     
   ---------------------------------------------------------
   25-Nov-2002   10:50  10.0.4721.0  9,177,672  Excel.exe