I recently “upgraded” to Excel 2007 and was greeted with a battle of the Micros, Microcharts v. Microsoft. I kept getting the error, “Compile error in hidden module: modInit” as soon as I opened Excel, and Microcharts wouldn’t run.

After sinking about 5 hours into trying to fix the problem, I came across Bob Flanagan’s post above, used his temp deleting program, repaired Office 2007, and voila, I’m back in business. Thank you Mr. Flanagan for documenting the fix and sharing it with everyone. And thanks to you Dr. Peltier for hosting this terrific site!

John C. Munoz
http://www.bzintelguru.com

Now I’m back at work and trying it. So far it seems to work. I can’t imagine why – though it does suggest that whatever is the source of the painfully frustrating error it isn’t actually RefEdit…

Thanks for your remediation protocol. It’s not too different from what I’ve done, but it’s more systematic, and I believe your success rate is good. I go through and wipe out the EXD files from time to time, just for target practice, but it seems to reduce funny business that occurs from time to time. It’s nice that you have a utility to clean up the temp and EXD files, I’ll have to give it a try.

My first line of defense is to uncheck the reference to the refedit control in Tools, References before I release an add-in or macro. This fixes it about 95% of the time. However, I get a few users who still have the problem with vba macros not running. I’ve been 99.99% successful in solving for them by:

1) First, having them run the free Temp File Deleter found at http://www.add-ins.com/temp_file_deleter.htm. I have them delete all temp files and all the EXD files. Both are critical steps. Especially the deletion of the EXD files.

2) Reboot and then install all service packes starting with sp1 to spX for the user’s version of Excel. Technically one should only need to run the latest. But for some users, running all three is the only cure.

3) Re-run the Temp File Deleter after installing the service packs – very important as it removes the EXD files so the next step is done cleanly.

4) And the last step: Run a dectect and repair (or Excel 2007 diagnose) after installing the service packs.

I’ve outline all the steps at http://www.add-ins.com/how_to_repair_office.htm by excel version.

Again, success rate is 99.99%.

Bob Flanagan

Short of voodoo or alchemy, I doubt there’s a magical fix. The Detect and Repair and Office Diagnostics may be as close as we get, since they’ve been relatively effective.

Also, twice in the past, I have had the RefEdits in an add-in just suddenly disappear. No reason for it that I could see.

Bill

I’ve sent the add-in to the helpdesk with a request to try it on a couple of real or virtual computers, and it’s been referred to a guy I know who looks after the Citrix setup. Next thing is to wait and see if he discovers anything.

Thanks for the help. I’ll post back here if there’s anything worth saying…

john

No: Help menu > Detect and Repair. I don’t know how this will work on a Citrix thing. If you can’t run it, you need to cajole the IT powers that be to do it for you.

>What if you do this on a machine on which the add-in is behaving? What if you
>clear the reference to RefEdit on one of these machines?

Everything works as normal: I’ve just opened, unlocked, cleared IsAddIn and removed and restored the reference to RefEdit.dll, and then done a Save As.

Am about to try the unlocked non-Addin on Citrix…

…it opens but brings up the VBE with the message “Compile error: Object library invalid or contains references to object definitions that could not be found”. The VBE has opened the “This Workbook” module and highlighted the first occurrence of
vbCrLF
in the module-level constant declarations – i.e. the first token that (I think) refers to a library and not to the dark VB heart like Option Explicit and Private Const.

In Tools|References, Ref Edit is MISSING as before. I’ve unticked that reference, used REGSVR32.exe to re-register RefEdit.dll, and set the VBE reference again. Still won’t compile.

>What happens if you perform a Detect and Repair?

Does this mean selecting “Open and Repair” in the Excel File Open dialog? If so, when I do it to the addin in a Citrix session I just get “compile error in hidden module”.

Same thing if I try “Open and Repair” with the unlocked non-addin version.

>Do you have access to an earlier version of Excel (e.g., 2000)?

Not easily. I’d have to look for an old MSDN CD and then set up a VM. No time for that until next week.

Uggh.