Unable to activate Excel component

[gpommeranz]

Hi all,

I'm getting an error for an Excel component table. When I click on it to open Excel and edit the values I get the following error: "Excel is busy; can't activate Excel. Make sure that cells are not being edited in Excel and try again in a few seconds." I don't have anything opened in Excel and I've closed out both programs and restarted my computer. Is this a corrupt Excel component?

[VladimirN]

Please specify what version of Mathcad and Excel are you using.

[gpommeranz]

I'm using Mathcad Prime 3.0 and Excel 2010.

[VladimirN]

If you use MS Office Starter then you need to upgrade from "Starter" version to higher. Mathcad/Mathcad Prime does not work with MS Office Starter.

[gpommeranz]

I'm using a business license of MS Office. The tables I built were working until one time when I opened Mathcad and attempted to edit the table. That's when I received the error even though Excel wasn't open and I had restarted all programs and my computer. I ended up deleting the existing Excel component and rebuilding them.

[sthomet]

Ok, I've had this problem twice this week (in mathcad prime 3.1). It is really annoying as there doesn't seem to be a solution: restarting the computer doesn't help nor does anything other than rebuilding the file.

The excel component is using a formula and I was working with excel vba shortly before the problem occured (but not within the component).

I attached the corrupted .mcdx. Could anyone please check if he gets the same problem or if it is my system at fault?

[inagi]

I am also facing same problem in Mathcad Prime 3.1. Mine is a simple excel database & I am using some inputs in the Mathcad file to extract the data from excel component. But excel component is not responding with the same error message that excel component is busy.....

No solution except deleting the excel components & again creating the excel database from scratch.

PTC must do something about this issue as it causes a lot of rework.

[acarpenter-2]

Hi All I am also having this problem, I have a simple excel file that calculates a preferred value resistor ratio that uses a VBA macro. I have other excel components in this file without macros and they work fine, I'm wondering if this is specific to macro enabled excel files. I am running Prime 3.1.

[inagi]

My file however is not macro enabled but it do have certain vlookups & hlookups in it. So I am not sure what all kind of files are associated with this problem

[oguest]

I am having this problem too. Prime 3.1. MS office 2016, build 16.0.7127.1021. Nothing fancy in the Excel sheet. Just numbers.

[inagi]

I have not been able to find any solution to this problem except rework. The only thing that I do now is to take a backup of the file whenever I work on Mathcad with embedded excel components. Just in case !!!

[oguest]

I contacted support. In my case, the error is due to the fact that only office 2003 and 2010 are supported by Mathcad. I asked when 2016 will be supported. Waiting for a reply...

[inagi]

I do not believe that explanation because I was getting error message with embedded excel 2010 used with prime 3.1

[oguest]

Yes, it sounds like you are suffering from a different problem with the same error message. It is such a shame that PTC don't jump on this and fix it immediately. It is such a crucial and powerful feature.

[oguest]

I finally got MathCAD working with Excel 2016:

• Uninstalled office 2016.
• Uninstalled the remains of older office packages.
• Ran the Microsoft office uninstall and clean-up tool.
• Went through the user account files (AppData) and deleted everything that remained that had anything to do with Office.
• Installed Office 2016.
• Now MathCAD and Excel are working OK together.

So despite the fact that 2016 is not supported, it seems it is possible to make MathCAD work with Office 2016. It seems the issue I was having was due to another problem. Possibly related to old remains of office on the machine.