Excel VBA App stops spontaneously with message “Code execution has been halted”

Question

From what I can see on the web, this is a fairly common complaint, but answers seem to be rarer. The problem is this:

We have a number of Excel VBA apps which work perfectly on a number of users' machines. However on one machine they stop on certain lines of code. It is always the same lines, but those lines seem to have nothing in common with one another.

If you press F5 (run) after the halt, the app continues, so it's almost like a break point has been added. We've tried selecting 'remove all breaks' from the menu and even adding a break and removing it again.

We've had this issue with single apps before and we've 'bodged' it by cutting code out of modules, compiling and then pasting it back in etc.

The problem now seems to relate to Excel itself rather than a single .xls, so we're a little unsure how to manage this.

Any help would be gratefully received :)

Thanks,

Philip Whittington

Answer 1

I have found a 2nd solution.

1. Press "Debug" button in the popup.
2. Press Ctrl+Pause|Break twice.
3. Hit the play button to continue.
4. Save the file after completion.

Hope this helps someone.

Answer 2

This problem comes from a strange quirk within Office/Windows.

After developing the same piece of VBA code and running it hundreds of times (literally) over the last couple days I ran into this problem just now. The only thing that has been different is that just prior to experiencing this perplexing problem I accidentally ended the execution of the VBA code with an unorthodox method.

I cleaned out all temp files, rebooted, etc... When I ran the code again after all of this I still got the issue - before I entered the first loop. It makes sense that "press "Debug" button in the popup, then press twice [Ctrl+Break] and after this can continue without stops" because something in the combination of Office/Windows has not released the execution. It is stuck.

The redundant Ctrl+Break action probably resolves the lingering execution.

Answer 3

One solution is here:

The solution for this problem is to add the line of code “Application.EnableCancelKey = xlDisabled” in the first line of your macro.. This will fix the problem and you will be able to execute the macro successfully without getting the error message “Code execution has been interrupted”.

But, after I inserted this line of code, I was not able to use Ctrl+Break any more. So it works but not greatly.

Answer 4

I found hitting ctrl+break while the macro wasn't running fixed the problem.

Answer 5

I would try the usual remedial things: - Run Rob Bovey's VBA Code Cleaner on your VBA Code - remove all addins on the users PC, particularly COM and .NET addins - Delete all the users .EXD files (MSoft Update incompatibilities) - Run Excel Detect & Repair on the users system - check the size of the user's .xlb file (should be 20-30K) - Reboot then delete all the users Temp files

Answer 6

Thanks to everyone for their input. This problem got solved by choosing REPAIR in Control Panel. I guess this explicitly re-registers some of Office's native COM components and does stuff that REINSTALL doesn't. I expect the latter just goes through a checklist and sometimes accepts what's there if it's already installed, maybe. I then had a separate issue with registering my own .NET dll for COM interop on the user's machine (despite this also working on other machines) though I think this was my error rather than Microsoft. Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

Answer 7

I have came across this issue few times during the development of one complex Excel VBA app. Sometimes Excel started to break VBA object quite randomly. And the only remedy was to reboot machine. After reboot, Excel usually started to act normally.

Soon I have found out that possible solution to this issue is to hit CTRL+Break once when macro is NOT running. Maybe this can help to you too.

Answer 8

I have had this problem also using excel 2007 with a foobar.xlsm (macro enabled ) workbook which would get the "Code execution has been interrupted" by simply trying to close the workbook on the red X in the right corner with no macros running at all, or any "initialize" form, workbook, or workheet macros either. The options I got were "End" or "Continue", Debug was always greyed out. I did as a previous poster suggested Control Panel->Programs and Features-> right click "Microsoft Office Proffesional 2007" (in my case) ->change->repair.

This resolved the problem for me. I might add this happened soon after a MS update and I also found an addin in Excel called "Team Foundation" from Microsoft which I certainly didnt install voluntarily

Answer 9

I would like to add more details to Stan's answer #2 for below reasons:

• I faced this issue myself more than dozen times and depending on project conditions, I chose between stan's voodoo magic answer #1 or #2. When I kept on facing it again, I become more inquistive that why it happens in first place.

• I'd like to add answer for Mac users too.

• There are limitations with both these possible answers:

  • if the code is protected (and you don't know password) then answer #1 won't help.
  • if the code is unprotected then answer #2 won't let you debug the code.

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1. It may happen due to any of the below reasons:

   • Operating system not allocating system resources to the Excel process. (Solution: One needs to just start the operating system - success rate is very low but has known to work many times)

   • P-code is the intermediate code that was used in Visual Basic (before .NET) and hence it is still used in the VBA. It enabled a more compact executable at the expense of slower execution. Why I am talking about p-code? Because it gets corrupted sometimes between multiple executions and large files or just due to installation of the software (Excel) went corrupt somewhere. When p-code corrupts. the code execution keeps getting interrupted. Solution: In these cases, it is assumed that your code has started to corrupt and chances in future are that your Excel workbook also get corrupt giving you messages like "excel file corrupted and cannot be opened". Hence, as a quick solution, you can rely on answer #1 or answer #2 as per your requirements. However, never ignore the signs of corruption. It's better to copy your code modules in notepad, delete the modules, save & close the workbook, close the excel. Now, re-open the workbook and start creating new modules with the code copied earlier to notepad.

2. Mac users, try any of the below option and of them will definitely work depending on your system architecture i.e. OS and Office version

   • Ctrl + Pause
   • Ctrl + ScrLk
   • Esc + Esc (Press twice consecutively)

You will be put into break mode using the above key combinations as the macro suspends execution immediately finishing the current task. This is replacement of Step 2.

3. Solution: To overcome the limitation of using answer #1 and answer #2, I use xlErrorHandler along with Resume statement in the Error Handler if the error code is 18. Then, the interrupt is sent to the running procedure as an error, trappable by an error handler set up with an On Error GoTo statement. The trappable error code is 18. The current procedure is interrupted, and the user can debug or end the procedure. Microsoft gives caution that do not use this if your error handler has resume statement else your error handler always returns to the same statement. That's exactly we want in unwanted meaningless interruptions of code execution.

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Answer 10

My current reputation does not yet allow to post this as a comment. Stans solution to enter the debug mode, press twice Ctrl+Break, play on, save did solve my problem, but I have two unexpected twists:

1. My project struture is password protected, so in order to get into the Debug Mode I had to first enter Developer mode, click on the project structure and enter the password.

2. My project is a template file (.xmtl). I opened the file via double click which opens it as .xml with a "1" at the end of the previous file name. I fixed the bug as by Stans instruction and saved it as that ...1.xml file. When I then opened the template again, this time as template, and wanted to apply the same bug fix to that file, the bug was gone! I did not change this file and still no bug at executing the Macro. This means to me that the bug is not actually in the file, but in a (hidden) setting in Excel.

Answer 11

If it's a phantom breakpoint:

1 Delete the offending line of code

2 Run the code again

3 Repaste the line

I found this laughably simple solution after spending a couple days wading through all the answers here and elsewhere. I figured, if I link it to my original question it might help some other poor chap, since the question it's on is VBA break execution when there's no break key on keyboard and this is more applicable.

Link to original answer