XL97: Error Activating Chart Not on the Active Worksheet (172639)

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Excel 97, when you run a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro or a Microsoft Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro that attempts to activate a chart object on a worksheet, you may receive the following error message:

This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.
If the problem persists, contact the program vendor.

If you click Details, you receive an error message similar to either of the following:

EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in module MSO97.DLL at 0137:30705766.

EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in module EXCEL.EXE at 0137:301240ec.

CAUSE

This problem occurs if all of the following conditions are true:

The macro uses a line of code similar to either of the following to activate the chart object:

      ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").ChartObjects("Chart 1").Activate

-or-

      =UNHIDE("[Book1.xls]Sheet1 Chart 1")

-and-

The worksheet that contains the chart object is not the active worksheet. -and-
The active worksheet contains split or frozen panes.

WORKAROUND

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact a Microsoft Certified Partner or the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about Microsoft Certified Partners, please visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/partner/referral/

For more information about the support options that are available and about how to contact Microsoft, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

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

To work around this problem, modify the macro so that it activates the worksheet that contains the chart object before it attempts to activate the chart object.

Visual Basic Macro

If you are using a Visual Basic macro, modify the macro so that it contains code that is similar to the following:

   ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Activate
   ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").ChartObjects("Chart 1").Activate

XLM Macro

If you are using an XLM macro, modify the macro so that it contains code that is similar to the following:

   =ACTIVATE("Sheet1")
   =UNHIDE("[Book1.xls]Sheet1 Chart 1")

In each example, the first line of code activates the worksheet that contains the chart object. The second line of code activates the chart object. If you use this method to activate chart objects, the problem described in this article does not occur.