Adding Controls to a collection causes them to be removed from their Control Array

Question

So I have a form with a variety of controls, all added at design time. Some of the controls in this page I want to disable (as a group) when the form is busy performing a task so the user cannot interefere.

To this end, I created a collection object that the relevant controls are added to. They controls are added to this collection in form_load. (If there were any dynamic controls, I'd add them to this collection as they were created too).

However I started getting intermittent runtime errors, with the objects not being found in their own control array (they are still loaded, as you can see and interact with them on the form). Form_load is visible below

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Dim Item As Variant
    SelectScanCombo.Enabled = False

    LowResolutionTextBox(0).Text = Target_LO_Res
    HighResolutionTextBox(0).Text = Hi_Res_Resolution

    Set InterfaceObjects = New Collection
    InterfaceObjects.Add GoButton
    InterfaceObjects.Add FilePathBox
    InterfaceObjects.Add HighResEnabled

    For Each Item In LowResolutionTextBox
        InterfaceObjects.Add Item
    Next Item
    For Each Item In HighResolutionTextBox
        InterfaceObjects.Add Item
    Next Item
    For Each Item In ResolutionModeSelect
        InterfaceObjects.Add Item
    Next Item

    RunInProgress = False

End Sub

InterfaceObjects is a private member of the form. Adding a watch to break on change of LowResolutionTextBox(0) breaks (on some form loads, not all) at the line `InterfaceObjects.Add GoButton

Is there something odd happening when I create a new collection instance for interfaceobjects? Why? What is causing (or even could cause) controls to go missing from their original control array without being erased?

(This all happens when running in the IDE. Not tested with the compliled version)

Mohamed Gharib Mohamed Gharib · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-11T00:41:23

Did you set the collection to Nothing at the Form_Unload ?

It happened with me before when i referenced a control array element to a variable and i didn't set the variable to nothing when unloading.

Adding Controls to a collection causes them to be removed from their Control Array

1 Answers