Madness inducing problem at work. <Office 2007>

KGhaleon

So I've been working on and off with this issue since early march and I've got management breathing down my neck to find a solution. I have a department of people who work heavily with Powerpoint and excel, they produce reports related to employees all over the sector.

These reports are really large, powerpoint files with over 150+ slides. Each slide contains a linked excel chart which is automatically updated. All the powerpoint and excel charts are contained in the same network share folder on their server. They generally don't work with these large charts that often, usually only a few times a year. The last time they worked on these reports was prior to our Office 2003-Office 2007 migration.

Now all the users are running Office 2007 and they have numerous problems. >_>;

The gist of what's happening, is that while working in the excel files they are seeing graphical problems like black lines and charts are being cut off. This generally happens after pasting one or two excel charts from Excel 07 to powerpoint 07. Then after a random number of slides(say 10-20) Excel 2007 will crash and ask the user if they want to send a report to Microsoft(groan).

At first when I couldn't remedy the problem, we reimaged one users desktop to see if it was related to a patch, but the problem started back up again immediately.

I tested and verified that this issue happens on ALL computers, even recently imaged ones. Even my own computer, and it seems to happen in both Windows XP and Windows 7(a test machine) as well. I've tried different models of computers and laptops, all the same.

I tested using different excel files and this problem occurs with all of the files they have on their share directory. I moved some test files to our IT server and tested, but the issues arose again. Hell, the Excel file crashed after only pasting two charts.

For kicks I asked both the server and network team to look, and they found no problems on their side. I ran out of options and the users/managers were getting pretty stressed out about this, to the point where they screamed at me a few time. ^^;

I'm almost scared to go to their office now, they are pretty upset as none of those reports are getting done and they are long past due. I've told them that it was an issue effecting all computers and that it wasn't that simple to pinpoint the problem, but they argued that it wasn't happening on some of their computers. I had them show me the computers and I verified in front of them that the issue was indeed happening on those devices.

I've discovered that the trigger which seems to cause this problem begins when you first copy an excel chart to powerpoint, then use the mousewheel(between the buttons) to scroll down the excel charts. Boom, graphical problems. After repeating this many times, excel will crash. If I don't use the wheel on the mouse and just focus on using the slider in the charts, the problems don't occur. I've tried different models of mice, and that isn't the cause.

The issue was out of my hands, so we escalated to Microsoft and I have been working with one of their techs for a good two weeks or so now, with no success. Many hotfixes later, excel is still crashing and tripping out. I've sent tons of logs to microsoft.

I had a little more success earlier today. I couldn't enjoy my weekend because this was still lingering in the back of my head...so I noticed I still had some copies of the powerpoint/excel files in question stored on my blackberry. I loaded them onto my home laptop computer here running Vista/Office07.

Immediately I noticed that the problem begin upon copying charts and scrolling through excel. It crashed and I also got some error about, "Not enough resources to display properly." I got this same error occasionally on all our work computers.

So clearly it's not our company network or servers, so I'm certain that it's their files. I ran a compatibility test and it came back with:

"Minor loss of fidelity"
Some cells or styles in this workbook contain formatting that is not supported by the selected file format. These formats will be converted to the closest format available.

I had sent an email to one of the managers to see if they have created any newer files in 2007 format, since all the files we are working with were converted from 2003. He hasn't responded.

Any thoughts, suggestions?

chmorin

At first I was going to say to go get a Microsoft Tech with you, but you did that.

Assuming your hosts all have enough hardware to run office 2007, the problem obviously occurred between the changeover of 2003 to 2007. It also looks like the staff is using an application (powerpoint) to store and manage information stored in a spreadsheet (excel). To me it seems a proper use would be to educate the staff on Microsoft Access use. Not only is it good for tracking data, but you can run reports right from the application.

This does not fix the problem at hand though. I'm not sure I can come up with a resolution for you. The original .doc files are probably all .docx now and are not able to be reset to their original states, and you probably wouldn't want that as they would lose the work they currently have done.

To be honest, it sounds like someone is going to have to bite the bullet and type it in without copy/pasting it in. This is tedious and annoying, but it is NOT your fault the applications were not designed for the use that the users are using them for. That is their user training fault.

wd40

KGhaleon wrote: »

I had sent an email to one of the managers to see if they have created any newer files in 2007 format, since all the files we are working with were converted from 2003. He hasn't responded.

Any thoughts, suggestions?

This is the first thing I thought about when I read the second paragraph of your post

TheShadow

When you say converted does that also mean that you saved all the 2003 files in 2007 format? There were some major changes in Excel macro security in 2007 that may cause problems moving charts around. There are also several incompatable themes. Been a while but I did see the problem before, sharing files in mixed file formats.

Do I remember what the fix was? Of course not, that would be too easy. I do know that the problem stopped after a mixed format purge.

Lamini

I did the same for my org last year... fortunately I have not had any issues...

- Creating these files in O2k7 natively have same findings? This might not fix your problem, but will give you an immediate solution rather than waiting for a manufacturer patch.

- Memory/resource issues ("large files")? sounds like you found a bug/glitch. Tried it on "small" files? How much memory is your system eating up and how much memory do you have left with these apps running, CPU taking a noticeable dent? etc.

- Have you used more than one source of installation files? kinda point since you already used your own home machine.

- Obtained all service packs/updates?, at least XPsp3 O2k7sp2, etc.

- Default security settings? (bare xp/7 machine + o2k7 install to verify operations).

- Was this an "upgrade" to O2k7 or fresh install? (highly recommend fresh if that was not already done).

my 2c

KGhaleon

Our office 2007 installs come from a server package, so there is not configuration on my part. In fact many settings might be controlled by GPO/system admin. We are only up to Service pack 2 for office.

I just know that I get the same/similar issues on my home computers with these files. My home computer has a copy of Office07Pro that I installed from a retail CD(not company-related).

I sent Microsoft several files along with instructions, they are still analyzing right now. They came back and request more files so I sent some more along.

The User's don't believe it's their files(of course).

KGhaleon

I've been working on and off with microsoft, so far it does appear to be their files. The problem doesn't happen with all the other files the users have, and Microsoft has been able to replicate the problem on their end.

However the users still don't believe their files are at fault, and went so far as to request management remove me from this incident. I saw some of the bad emails they sent out this morning about me, meh.

Regardless, I'll continue working to find a solution. Microsoft has elevated it to one of their excel/powerpoint engineers. There must be something in the file that is causing them to crash. There are quite a lot of charts.

rsutton

Have you tried looking at procmon by sysinternals? You might see what is failing looking at the logs at and before the crash.

phoeneous

TheShadow wrote: »

When you say converted does that also mean that you saved all the 2003 files in 2007 format? There were some major changes in Excel macro security in 2007 that may cause problems moving charts around. There are also several incompatable themes. Been a while but I did see the problem before, sharing files in mixed file formats.

Do I remember what the fix was? Of course not, that would be too easy. I do know that the problem stopped after a mixed format purge.

This would be my suggestion. Try to save them in the .xlsx and .pptx formats and see if the problem persists. Excel 03 and 07 have huge differences.

KGhaleon

phoeneous wrote: »

This would be my suggestion. Try to save them in the .xlsx and .pptx formats and see if the problem persists. Excel 03 and 07 have huge differences.

I'll try it, though they are already 2007 formatted. Just save them again as new files?

Also I did do a procmon and filemon, those logs were sent to microsoft but the tech didn't find anything useful from them(it captured all the issues).