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

User · Answer

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.

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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    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  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

User · Answer

I have found a 2nd solution    Press  Debug  button in the popup  Press Ctrl Pause Break twice  Hit the play button to continue  Save the file after completion    Hope this helps someone

User · Answer

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  amp  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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

I found hitting ctrl break while the macro wasn t running fixed the problem

User · Answer

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        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  amp  close the workbook  close the excel  Now  re-open the workbook and start creating new modules with the code copied earlier to notepad   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    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

[excel] Excel VBA App stops spontaneously with message "Code execution has been halted"

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