Question

How to make error #name? on UDF go away WITHOUT a dummy update?

Asked by: rberke


I ran across some worksheets whose cells contained #name?  It was a minor problem which was easily fixed. But, I wonder if anyone has insight as to how to avoid the problem in the future.

I am reorganizing my vba projects, and moved a module from one project to another.  I recompiled and saved both projects on the server.  The projects are shared by all of my users and are automatically opened everytime a user opens Excel.

Workbooks that referenced the module's function suddenly showed #name?  for intance formulas like
=FirstNumberOrZero(a1).

Strangely enough using Control Alt F9  to recalculate did NOT fix the problem even after closing Excel and reopening it.

But, I forced a "dummy update" by using edit replace to  change all occurances of = to =.  This forced a recalculation that was more thorough than ctrl alt f9, so all of the errors went away.

So, there are several possibilites:
  #1  Excel "compiles the cell" when the cell's formula is first entered, and the compiled version points to the original addin location. Sometimes, this compile causes excel to automatically change =firstnumberorzero(a1) into  ='customfunction.xla'!firstnumberorzero(a1).
When that happens, it is easy to understand why I see the behaviour.  But, in today's example, the function did NOT have the explicit module reference.  I am not sure why, but it appears the explicit reference still existed, it just did not show in the formula.

  #2  Perhaps Excel  does not "recompile the cell" until the cell's formula is again changed.  So, the old spreadsheet was still pointing to the original addin's location?
  if #1 and #2 are correct, it would explain everything.

Of course, a dummy change is not ideal because there are about 20 workbooks that refer to the formula. It will not be hard to change and save them all, but I would prefer to avoid this.  

Does anybody have any ideas?

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Asked On
2009-10-06 at 13:30:36ID24790390
Tags

UDF Excel user defined function error #name?

Topic

Microsoft Visual Basic.Net

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Answers

 

by: rberkePosted on 2009-10-06 at 16:38:15ID: 25511003

Put this on hold for a day, I think I will be able to solve it myself.

 

by: rberkePosted on 2009-10-06 at 21:22:00ID: 25512187

Let me redescribe the problem by showing how to repeat it.  I have attached 3 files,

 test1.txt should be renamed to test1.xla. it has function fncTest1
 test2.txt  should be renamed to test2.xla. it s empty
test3.xls has a worksheet that references fncTest1()

Copy test1.xla and test2.xla into %appdata%\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART.

When you open test3 insert =fngTest1(a1) in cell a2.  fncTest1 should work fine
Close excel>reopen test3>Edit>links, you will notice that there is a link to test1.xla in %appdata%..xlstart.

close test3.xls>Alt f11 to ide>move fnctest1 from test1.xla to test2.xla>save test1.xla and test2.xla>close excel

reopen test3>you should notice that cell a2 now contains #name?  This is because its link still references test1.
edit cell a2 and change =  to =.   The link is now correctly pointing to test2.

Now that I understand this better, I believe that the ONLY solution is to do a global change of all formulas replacing all   =    with   =, then saving the changed workbook.



  • test1.txt
    • 23 KB

    rename to test.xla and copy to xlstart

 

by: rberkePosted on 2009-10-06 at 21:24:01ID: 25512200

and here are the other two files

  • test2.txt
    • 15 KB

    rename to test2.xla and copy to xlstart

  • test3.xls
    • 20 KB

    save this anywhere and open it to show the problem

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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