file will not open

QP8, windows XPpro

We have a file named oil hours which we have used for the past 10 years
at leastonce a week or more without any problems.  It is started afresh
each year from a shell file.

Within the past 10 days the file will not open & causes QP8 to crash.
Once that happens we cannot open the file again nor either of the 2
backup files created before the file crashed and stored on a different
hard drive with a different name.  The shell file which hadn't been
touch since Dec 2006 was used to recreate the file it also crashed after
use.

We can extract the data from the file using cell links and have
re-created the file sevral times.  The new files work a couple of times
then they crash.

We have tried restoring windiows to an update status  prior to the
problem started, and have uninstalled QP8 & re-installed it - to no
avail.

We are not having any problems with any of the other spreadsheets we
use, many of which are a great deal larger & contain multiple links.

Has anyone any suggestions.

Vern Miller wrote:
> QP8, windows XPpro
> 
> We have a file named oil hours which we have used for the past 10 years
> at leastonce a week or more without any problems.  It is started afresh
> each year from a shell file.
> 
> Within the past 10 days the file will not open & causes QP8 to crash.
> Once that happens we cannot open the file again nor either of the 2
> backup files created before the file crashed and stored on a different
> hard drive with a different name.  The shell file which hadn't been
> touch since Dec 2006 was used to recreate the file it also crashed after
> use.
> 
> We can extract the data from the file using cell links and have
> re-created the file sevral times.  The new files work a couple of times
> then they crash.
> 
> We have tried restoring windiows to an update status  prior to the
> problem started, and have uninstalled QP8 & re-installed it - to no
> avail.
> 
> We are not having any problems with any of the other spreadsheets we
> use, many of which are a great deal larger & contain multiple links.
> 
> Has anyone any suggestions.

Some of the possible culprits might include 1) corrupted external links, 2) 
formatting discrepancies, and 3) corrupted objects.

If the file has external file links, you could temporarily disable them (e.g., 
by prefacing each link formula with an apostrophe), then save and run the file a

few times to see if the problem persists.

To diagnose for problem #2, remove any formatting from all cells 
(Edit-Clear-Formats) to see if that makes a difference.  Be sure to use 
, rather than alternate means, to locate the TRUE last cell on each 
sheet.

For problem #3, remove any special objects (charts, buttons, dialogs, etc.) and

check if the problem disappears.

If any of these tests turns up anything positive, you could reintroduce these 
features incrementally to isolate the actual culprit and then come up with a 
workaround.

Cheers,
Uli