A Office 2.1 SP2 - exiting Excel 2010 ends in error

[former_member198454]

Hello. We have approximately four users that have installed the new SP2 for version 2.1. We use Excel 2010. All are Windows 7 PC's. Two have 64 bit Office 2010 and two have 32 bit Office 2010. All experience the same behavior.

After opening Analysis for Office and either choosing File --> Exit or using the X in the upper right hand corner Excel crashes. It then brings up the following message after recovering: "Excel experienced a serious problem with the 'analysis' add-in. If you have seen this message multiple times, you should disable this add-in and check to see if an update is available. Do you want to disable this add in?". We choose no.

I have opened a support ticket with SAP but per Venkata's recommendation I have opened a thread here as well. If anyone has experienced this as well and have discovered a solution or workaround it would be sincerely appreciated.

Many thanks,

Lynn Peter

[stephen_hobbs2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Lynn,

We are experiencing a similar issue when closing Excel. We are unable to close Excel down using the X in the right-hand corner.

Nearly EVERYTHING is greyed out, we can't even close it down from the File menu. In fact the only way we can close Excel is via the task manager. When we open Excel up again we get the "Excel experienced a serious problem with the 'analysis' add-in..." error message.

We are on Analysis 2.1.2, Office 2010 32bit, Windows 7 64bit

This is only a recent issue which makes me wonder if there has been an Microsoft update or something rather than an actual issue with Analysis...

Stephen

[stephen_hobbs2 · Accepted solution]

This only seems to affect 2.1.2 (not 2.1 or 2.1.1)

Perhaps someone else can check:

1. Open Excel
2. Insert query
3. Close Workbook (not Excel)
4. Close Excel

Excel shouldn't close and you will need to use Task Manager to end it. When you open Excel next you should receive "Excel experienced a serious problem with the 'analysis' add-in..." error message - remember to click NO.

In will raise a call with SAP...

[former_member198454 · Accepted solution]

Thank you so much for your feedback, Stephen. I did have 2.1 SP1 installed for a period of time and didn't experience this issue. So, I believe it is tied to the SP2.

I have a support ticket open with SAP with Diego Ferrary on this. He stated he has seen this with another customer so I am assuming SAP is working on a fix.

If it is fixed I will certainly let you know!

Thanks again,

Lynn

[stephen_hobbs2 · Accepted solution]

From SAP...

"Dear Stephen,

Regardng reported issue a correction is prepared by development

department and will be documented in SAP Note 2223268.

(It will be available soon.)

Also, the correction will be part of AO 2.1 SP 3 which is currently

planned for calendar week 48.

Kind regards,

Olga Almazova

SAP Support"

[former_member198454 · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the reply, Steven. I received a response yesterday from SAP. It wasn't the note you referenced though. It was the following (which unfortunately did not work for us). I would be curious if it works for you.

I will watch for the release of the note you provided. Thank you very much!

Could you please check the following steps:

> go to excel options

> go to addins

> on manage field, change to disabled itens

> click ok

> check if analysis for office is disabled and enable it.

Also check this test: go to the regedit file and check the below path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\SapExcelAddIn

You may have a registry called LoadBehavior. Please check with 3 and

restart your excel file. Check if the behavior continues.

[torsten_wirth · Accepted solution]

Thank you Steven

@SAP Unbelievable. The tool is not working and we should wait 6 weeks for a fix. Good to have a premium tool.

[mhf]

Hi all,

as this thread helped me a lot during testing of 2.1 SP2 to find out that this is a version which is not usable from customer side. I received also a preliminary version of SP3 through an SAP Incident, because SAP BO Analysis 1.4, 2.0 and 2.1. ignores the processing priority when using BW-IP:

http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/2239449

Another functionality which was not supported by the "premium alternative for the BEX Analyzer"..

I keep my fingers crossed for 2.1 SP3

BR,

Michael

[torsten_wirth]

This is solved with SP3 - I have tested it today.

[former_member197845]

Hi Tortsten,

thank you. Did you encounter any other "features" , which should not be part of Analysis for office 2.1 SP 3 ?

Regards Christian

[torsten_wirth]

Hi Christian,

up to now everything works like it should work. Which means I have tested all things where we had problems with SP1 / SP2 especially in planning and performance. But that was a only a 2 hour test. I hope that we don't see problems coming up later.

Regards,

Torsten

[torsten_wirth]

I have got a preliminary for SP3 yesterday because of several other bugs in SP2 and this problem (and several others) are fixed. But I still have the problem that the com addin could not be reactivated within Excel if the user has choosen to disable the addin after such a crash. Which means you you start AO via the AO menu entry but starting via Excel autostart does not work anymore. Furthermore it is not possible to activate the addin from Excel. It is possible to activate the checkbox but nothing will happen afterwards and if you leve the menu and go back to the addins it is unchecked again.

[torsten_wirth]

Ok, that was easier as expected:

In past it was enogh to simply check the entry in com addins. With additional aktivation of deactivated items it works.

[former_member197845]

Hi Torsten, this solution did'nt work in the case of my coleagues. We've found the add in but excel did'nt and used the same description. But the add-in stays deactivated. So please be aware that this solution could either be a result of your preliminary version of SP3 or  luck  .

cheers christian

[torsten_wirth]

Hi Christian,

I only made the test on one machine. But we have several users with this problem. Some of them are on holiday at the moment. I will give it a try on their machines as fast as possible.

One fact in our tests up to now was the with another user logged on to the same machine this problems are not arising. Very strange and difficult to reproduce sometimes.

Bye

Torsten

[former_member197845]

Hi Torsten,

yepp it's one of the strangest errors which I've seen. It is exactly the same situation which we have observed on our computers. And it there is no difference between users with or without local admin rights.

[former_member198454]

Thanks Torsten. I was supplied a preliminary version of SP3 as well and it thus far it appears to be working. What other bugs did you notice it fixed?

We have been lucky - we are in the pilot phase and have told everyone NOT to disable the add in so haven't had to deal with activation issues.

Thanks again for the follow up,

Lynn

[torsten_wirth]

Hi Lynn,

We had several problem in combination with planning with 2.1 SP1 and 2

SP1:

- Some planning queries did not open (direct crash of AO Addin)

SP2:

- very slow when entering new planning figures (single cell)

- extremely slow when entering multiple values via c&p

- sometimes one or two minutes waiting time after single button clicks in characteristic area

- no screen for choosing system connection if SSO is enabled (now there is an new option in the settings)

- problems if excel file last time was opened and saved with a differend BW connection than now (this is related to the SSO topic in my opinion)

All this bugs are fixed according to my tests yesterday.

Thank you for your initial post

Torsten

[joost_peeters2]

Hi Torsten, Lynn,

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but we are facing very similar issues ourselves (we're on AO2.1 SP2).

Just wanted to verify Torsten's statement in your last post: do you mean that all those bugs you listed are fixed in SP3? That would be great news!

Thanks,

Joost

[torsten_wirth]

Hello Joost,

in my preview version of the SP3 - yes, all this bugs are fixed.

Regards,

Torsten

[stephen_hobbs2]

How did you get hold of a preview version of SP3? To my mind, SP2 has too many bugs to be used and we have had to roll back several users because of it. Very disappointing!!

[torsten_wirth]

As far as I know there is no "normal" way to get it. I had a ticket concerning two of this problems and I asked if it is possible to get this version to be sure that the bug is fixed. Otherwise it would be possible that it is not fixed and we would have to wait another two months for the next try to fix it.

I think that is a general disadvantage in BO compared to NW environment. In NW you can fix most problems via downloading and executing in note in your system. This can be done as soon as the fix is available. In BO environment you have to wait up two e.g. 8 weeks until you will get e fix in a official version.

[former_member198454]

Hello Joost. Yes, SP3 appears to resolve the Excel crashing for us. We aren't using the planning functionality at this time.

SP3 is supposed to be released third week of November I believe.

Best of luck,

Lynn

[former_member198454]

Hi Stephen. Same as Torsten. I opened a support ticket regarding the Excel crashing is how I received it. We only placed it on two user PC's for testing. SAP stressed it is for testing purposes only.

[former_member198454]

Thank you for the details on the planning. We aren't currently using it but I'm sure others will find benefit in your testing results.

We are currently in a Pilot phase awaiting the release of SP3 so we may build our deployment package. We had hoped to do this mid-October but now waiting until this is available. Definitely pushing back our dates for go live.

[former_member197845]

Hi, thank you for the note Steven . I am wondering if all of you are using the BIP deployment. According to our company size we are still using the Netweaver deployment, which will probably change within the next 2 or 3 years.

Have a nice day

Christian

[stephen_hobbs2]

We are also using NetWeaver connection but we do have a few cases where we use BIP but mostly for scheduling reports...

[former_member197845]

Hi Lyn & Peter,

I have as comparable Problem in Excel 2010 and 2013. In addition to the crash Excel want's to deactivate the addin. Don't ever do this. If you  agree you'll be unable to reactivate the add-in. The Error handling in the Admin guide doesn't Work. Excel does not accept the sapexceladdin file as addin.

It would be great if you could share the solution for this problem.

Cheers

Christian

[former_member198454]

Thank you for your response Christian. I have a support ticket open with SAP with Diego Ferrary on this. He stated he has seen this with another customer so I am assuming SAP is working on a fix. Once I get a solution I will certainly pass it along.

[former_member151004]

Hi Lynn,

I move our incident to development team for a deeper analysis on the case.

As more than one user is having this situation I believe that our development team will give a special attention to that.

Another thing that you can check on your environment is the authorization to the LOG file folder that can impact on this situation.

I could find on your log file an error message as below right before close the excel:

"Value cannot be null. Parameter name:"

We had a similar situation before and the user fixed by making sure to set the environment variable %temp% to a directory where you have proper rights for writing a log file, e.g. %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp.

Could you please check?

Kind regards,

Diego Ferrary

[torsten_wirth]

That is exactly the same problem I have now on some user machines. I also have tried to remove and add it again. This is also not working.

[torsten_wirth]

@Diego This is not the problem. I'm working in the directory which you have mentioned and I have admin rights on my machine.

[torsten_wirth]

I have sometimes the same problems. Especially with planning workbooks (around 1000 lines). But I have not found a reason for it.

There are also other problems with 2.1 SP2 like hanging after some clicks in characteristic area and several seconds of reaction time after entering a value (both with planning). At this stage it is not usable.

Furthermore there is a big bug with several BO platforms which does not work anymore because there is no login screen anymore.

I have made tickets for both. That is a very poor quality at the moment.

[former_member110741]

Hi Lynn Peter,

i checked with Version : 2.1.2.49735(guess yours also same) in excel 2010 both 32 bit and 64 bit

i did not experienced this problem

Suggestion : Reinstall freshly and check and  kill the previous excel process in task manger if any exists

PS : i checked with my internal build i will check with SMP build and update you tomorrow if i have any updates

Regards,

Subhash

[former_member198454]

Thank you for your response Venkata. Unfortunately this did not work. I have a ticket open with SAP - hopefully they address soon.

Many thanks,

Lynn