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Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

Thread Starter: ChrisH Started: 12-07-2009 11:24 AM Replies: 8

Palisade Corporation Forums » Products » @RISK for Excel » Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

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07 Dec 2009, 11:24 AM

ChrisH is not online. Last active: 3/24/2010 12:05:31 PM

ChrisH

Top 10 Posts

Joined on 07-22-2009
Posts 27

@Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

Hi folks

since installing @Risk 5.5 some 3 weeks ago, my Excel 2003 crashes or locks up at least twice per day. It also notifies me of "recovery files" which seem to be time-stamped some 20-30 minutes apart...all contain the text "Dummy file" in cell A1.

I don't think these problems and the use of @Risk 5.5 is coincidencental.

The settings in Excel have not been changed from those that ran @Risk 4.5 for the past few years.

Any help much appreciated,

Chris Humphries

07 Dec 2009, 3:12 PM

Stan

Joined on 06-29-2009
Posts 53

Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

Chris,

It sounds like you have Pro of Standard (as opposed to Industrial), and with 5.5 you got multi-CPU support for the first time. Might I suggest sending your model and a problem description to Palisade tech support?

Cheers,
Stan

08 Dec 2009, 8:30 AM

ahowe42

Joined on 01-26-2009
Istanbul, Turkey
Posts 103

Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

The "dummy" files do seem to point to the new multi-CPU support as a protagonist. I have Excel 2007 & DTS 5.5, and my Excel crashes just as often, though I've not been able to identify much causal information. The exception is that it does NOT happen when I'm running a model. In fact, it typically crashes when I'm quitting. Is Excel crashing for you while running a model?

If you don't mind, can you report back to us after talking to tech support?

Andrew

J. Andrew Howe, PhD
A statistician is a device that probably turns coffee into confidence intervals. — me

16 Dec 2009, 4:41 PM

Stan

Joined on 06-29-2009
Posts 53

Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

Andrew,

You might want to try a repair install of Excel. With Excel 2007, even after installing Service Pack 2, there seem to be some stability issues. It's not logical that a repair install should fix them, but it seems like often enough that's the solution.

A repair install is not an uninstall/reinstall, but a special sequence. Palisade has instructions here:
http://helpdesk.palisade.com/kb/article.asp?ID=728

Cheers,
Stan

04 Feb 2010, 3:19 AM

ChrisH

Top 10 Posts

Joined on 07-22-2009
Posts 27

Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

Chaps

have just had 5.5 Prof (running on Excel 2003) available on my machine for the first time in a fortnight, following an application settings reset. I'll report on any further crashes. It seems stable at the moment.

FYI, yesterday I found a new way of reliably crashing Excel with 5.5 Prof:

simulate; load an iteration data set; edit a cell that @Risk reports as "Error" *. Excel encounters a problem, you lose your cursor, and Excel must be terminated from the Task Manager.

* but I note that I'd erroneously tried to set the mean of a distribution as a risk output. After correcting this I haven't had the problem.

=valedictory_salutation("regards, "ChrisH")

10 Feb 2010, 9:35 AM

ChrisH

Top 10 Posts

Joined on 07-22-2009
Posts 27

Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

Hi folks

Have just had Excel / @Risk 5.5 crash for the 4th time today, with the same issue. [sorry can't send file...too big (10MB) and confidential]

Problem detailed in earlier post also occurs when:

- load up an iteration that has an error in one of the formulae
- hit fx button on toolbar, to look at the formula (in this case, vlookup and RiskBinomial)
- get 'Excel encountered a problem' msg
- have to close in Task Manager

This is driving me to distraction as I need to understand why ~2% of my iterations cause errors...any thoughts welcome

regards
Chris

10 Feb 2010, 10:26 AM

ahowe42

Joined on 01-26-2009
Istanbul, Turkey
Posts 103

Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

Attachment: atrisk_crash_test.xlsx

I tried to test this by creating a spreadsheet with a table of odd month numbers (1,3,...,11) and names (jan,mar,...,nov). Then I used =VLOOKUP(RiskBinomial(12,0.5),months,2,FALSE), and refreshed so it would return a nonnegative, thus the vlookup fails. When I click on the f_x button, Excel appears to freeze for about 5 seconds. It doesn't, however, crash. I've attached the spreadsheet.

That said, there is clearly an issue with @risk. If I replace the riskbinomial with just a number it can't find in the table (say 4), I don't see the same behavior. I don't have much else to suggest, other than contact support.

Dr. Drew

J. Andrew Howe, PhD
A statistician is a device that probably turns coffee into confidence intervals. — me

10 Feb 2010, 12:47 PM

Stan

Joined on 06-29-2009
Posts 53

Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

Hi, Chris.

In Application Settings, try disabling the “Insert Function Graph Window” application setting. There can be delays when @RISK processes the formula bar info for graphing on certain system configurations.

Let us know....

Cheers,
Stan

11 Feb 2010, 3:07 AM

ChrisH

Top 10 Posts

Joined on 07-22-2009
Posts 27

Re: @Risk 5.5 and Excel 2003

Thanks for the thoughts folks. Have disabled the Insert Function Graph Window option. Didn't help, sadly.

What it's also doing now is, when I set 'pause on error' in the settings box, it comes up with the weird msg "the cell in xxx cannot be updated because it is protected". The cell referred to is not an output cell and my worksheet is not protected.

This problem means that Excel no longer responds to any mouse commands at all, though the cursor remains visible, and one has to reboot

Chris

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