Form Control Buttons 'Disappear'--Or Get Sucked into Cells with Data Validation Lists

Hi rspahitz,
I've never thought about the possibility of too little RAM. I'll see if I can recreate the problem when no other applications are running.
-That, however, doesn't seem to explain why form control buttons are falling into cells containing data validation lists.

I'll certainly look into creating forms to absorb many of the buttons. Alas, forms would be impractical for many of the buttons in the workbook, particularly many for the buttons that disappear most often.

Any other thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Michael

Memory problems seem to cause many bizarre things to happen.

Other than that, the only thought is to move all the parts to a new sheet and/or workbook to see if it persists.
I'm sure that it's nothing you're doing, or any special Excel settings, so taht would leave it as a bug (but then it would probably happen on smaller files) or an anomoly (like confusion transferring things in and out of memory.)

What confuses me is that you mention 2003, 2004 and 2007.  I know that 2007 has better memory management and seems to have had many parts re-written so it seems odd that the same problem would occur in 2007 if it's a memory problem.

If the problem persists, you may want to think about splitting up the file and having Excel work across workbooks, or migrating the application to something else, like VB.Net, which would probably be a rather large project.

Thanks again rspahitz,
I'll definitely be splitting up the workbook some time down the road (but I hope I can solve this problem before then).
It seems that you're saying deleting and reinserting buttons would have no affect on the problem. Is that right? (~deleting buttons inserted via Excel 2004 and reinserting via Excel 2007)
I'm wary of copying the spreadsheet to a different one right now--but I'll resort to that if I can't kick this problem another way.

Yet more ideas would be greatly appreciated.
I'll make a post when something seems to work.

-Michael

Do you actually want the buttons to move and size with cells? I would try turning both off and see if the behaviour improves. Other than that, you have my sympathy if you have to implement a solution across those three platforms!
I too would be surprised at a memory issue since 6MB is not very big for a workbook.

Yesterday, I transferred the content of the sheet to a new sheet after stripping away Form Control macro buttons (as suggested by rspahitz). I then reinserted and reassigned new macro buttons. So far, I haven't had any trouble.
When I scroll too quickly, the buttons momentarily disappear--I think this is the memory issue...although I have a feeling that with permanent button disappearance, the Mac-side development of the workbook is the problem.
Thanks for the help! Let's consider this problem solved for now.