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WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeout: 1701

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WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeout: 1701 - 31.Mar.2005 1:52:00 PM   
JRHj

 

Posts: 8
Joined: 20.Mar.2005
Status: offline 		If you have Excel 2003 installed on your fax server and you persistently receive Attachment Conversion Timeout (1701) errors, even after following all GFI's instructions in their Knowledgebase article about this error, read this post. It is the result of about 24 hours of searching this forum for answers and playing around on my own.

SITUATION

You have Excel 2003 installed on your fax server and an earlier version of Excel installed on client computers. You are trying to send a fax with an Excel attachment from the GFI client form or the Outlook form.

SYMPTOMS

After a clean reboot of your fax server, you are able to fax an Excel 2002 or earlier attachment successfully one time.

After the first successful fax, you receive error 1701 (timeout converting attachment) when faxing an Excel attachment.

The Excel process on your fax server appears to hang after the first successful fax of an Excel 2002 or earlier attachment.

PROBLEM

Excel 2003 automatically recalculates any formulas in Workbooks opened from earlier versions of Excel, which sets the "Workbook.Saved" flag to False. This results in an Excel prompt to save the Workbook, which goes unanswered on the fax server and leaves the Excel process running.

WORKAROUND

There is no option in Excel 2003 to turn off the save prompt, but an Office Macro can be designed to run in a hidden Workbook when Excel 2003 is launched. Said Macro iterates through all open Workbooks and sets the "Workbook.Saved" flag to "True," thus avoiding the save prompt upon application exit.

HOWTO

1. Log in to your Fax server as the user the fax service runs as and launch Excel 2003.

2. Select TOOLS>MACROS>SECURITY and set Macro security to "Medium." Click OK.

3. Close any open or new Workbooks.

4. Select TOOLS>MACROS>MACROS...

5. Type "Auto_Exit" in the "Macro name" field and click CREATE

6. Copy/Paste the following code into the Visual Basic Module editor when it opens (paste over any automatic code the module creator may have inserted into the editor for you):

' Begin Code to close Excel without save dialog
Sub Auto_Exit()
For Each wb In Workbooks
wb.Saved = True
Next
End Sub

Sub Auto_Close()
For Each wb In Workbooks
wb.Saved = True
Next
End Sub
' End Code to close Excel without save dialog

NOTE: Both of these subroutines *may not* be necessary, but testing on my server seemed to indicate that the Excel process would prompt for the save dialog if only one of the subs were present. YMMV.

7. Click the "Save" button and save the new Workbook as "C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLStart\Personal.xls"

8. Quit Excel.

From that point forward, any time GFI launches Excel to convert an attachment, "Personal.xls" will launch and set the "Workbook.Saved" flag on all opened Workbooks to True, allowing Excel to quit without a save dialog box.

This workaround has been tested with clients running Windows XP and Office XP, and Mac OS X running Office:mac 2004.
Post #: 1
RE: WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeou... - 31.Mar.2005 6:03:00 PM   
JRHj

 

Posts: 8
Joined: 20.Mar.2005
Status: offline 		One other thing I failed to mention in the HOWTO. The first instruction should actually be broken in two:

1a. If an Excel process is still running/hung on the Fax server, end it before attempting the rest of the instructions.

1b. Log into the fax server as the user the fax service is running as and launch Excel 2003.

[ April 01, 2005, 12:05 AM: Message edited by: JRHj ]

(in reply to JRHj)
Post #: 2
RE: WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeou... - 1.Apr.2005 11:32:00 PM   
mmarlor

 

Posts: 66
Joined: 2.Mar.2005
Status: offline 		Thanks JRHj - nice one! [Smile]

(in reply to JRHj)
Post #: 3
RE: WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeou... - 29.Apr.2005 3:42:00 AM   
mmarlor

 

Posts: 66
Joined: 2.Mar.2005
Status: offline 		With regard to this issue, I didn't immediately implement it - but have now following a rather serious occurence of the problem.

It seems that with build 20050322 of FAXmaker server, it is possible for the GFI FAXmaker FAX Server to hang when an attachment created in Excel 2000 is being processed. In previous revisions, this would be a 1701 error which resulted in fax failure (which would be fine).

I was able to establish that it was an Excel document which caused the failure simply because FAXmaker hung showing a last status of "Converting", and an Excel document was sitting in the Pending folder. After a reboot, this set of files and another fax which had been in the process of sending (and had to be deleted) were ignored by FAXmaker and I ultimately deleted them.

The fix to the Excel issue works perfectly to avoid 1701 or a hang, and I really think GFI should make it into a Knowledge Base article crediting JRHj who's done all the effort.

However I'd also like to request a review into the attachment conversion code, as an error 1701 is very different to the service hanging because of a conversion problem!

(in reply to JRHj)
Post #: 4
RE: WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeou... - 29.Apr.2005 5:34:00 AM   
Nicks

 

Posts: 2741
Joined: 17.Mar.2003
Status: offline 		Hi MattM,

Did you get the problem with all the Excel 200 documents that you have tried to fax, or only with one?

If it is only one, can you send us a copy of the document? Please address your correspondance to support@gfi.com.

As you said, normally when the application does not return the coverted file within specific period of time, FAXmaker will return a 1701 error (timeout error)

Thank you.

(in reply to JRHj)
Post #: 5
RE: WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeou... - 30.Apr.2005 12:39:00 PM   
mmarlor

 

Posts: 66
Joined: 2.Mar.2005
Status: offline 		Hi Nick,

I've only seen it occur with this one document, and it was while attempting to convert at the same time that another fax was already being sent. It's likely to be tricky to reproduce as I assume under most circumstances it will still return the 1701 (which I tend to try to avoid anyhow).

I will forward a copy of the Excel document to you.

Cheers,

Matt

(in reply to JRHj)
Post #: 6
RE: WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeou... - 30.Apr.2005 6:16:00 PM   
JRHj

 

Posts: 8
Joined: 20.Mar.2005
Status: offline
quote:
Originally posted by MattM:
The fix to the Excel issue works perfectly to avoid 1701 or a hang, and I really think GFI should make it into a Knowledge Base article crediting JRHj who's done all the effort.
MattM:

Glad my solution worked for you! Thanks for requesting that it be added to the KB. I think others with the Excel 2003 problem would benefit from it, especially since moving all Windows users to Excel 2003 still wouldn't solve the problem if you have Mac users faxing from Excel for Mac 2004.

(in reply to JRHj)
Post #: 7
RE: WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeou... - 7.Jul.2005 5:11:00 AM   
Spike

 

Posts: 6
Joined: 5.Jul.2005
From: Dallas
Status: offline 		My problem is closely related to this but we are running Excel 2000 on both the server and the PCs. When I try to fax a spreadsheet that has no macros then I can fax them all day. But if it has macros then it fails (error 1701) and leaves EXCEL.EXE running in the background on the server so that any future faxes with spreadsheets will then fail. If I remove EXCEL.EXE from memory then I'm fine until another spreadsheet with macros tries to come thru.
Will this macro fix my problem as well

[ July 07, 2005, 11:12 AM: Message edited by: Spike ]

(in reply to JRHj)
Post #: 8
RE: WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeou... - 7.Jul.2005 9:07:00 AM   
JRHj

 

Posts: 8
Joined: 20.Mar.2005
Status: offline 		Spike:

Your issue actually sounds more like it's being caused by Excel's "Enable/Disable Macros" dialog box.

If the copy of Excel 2000 on the FaxMaker server has macro security set to "Medium," Excel tries to prompt the user to enable or disable any macros the workbook contains.

In Excel 2000, if you go to TOOLS>OPTIONS, click the Security tab, then the Macro Security... button, you can change your Macro security settings.

I'm pretty sure "Low" doesn't produce a dialog box. I don't know about the "High" (which is safest for your system) setting.

(in reply to JRHj)
Post #: 9
RE: WORKAROUND: Excel 2003 Attachment Conversion Timeou... - 16.Aug.2007 3:53:47 PM   
smholden

 

Posts: 4
Joined: 16.Jun.2007
Status: offline 		Is there an equivilent workaround for Excel 2007??  I implemented the macros posted above, but to no avail.  Spreadsheets created from earlier versions of Excel still prompt to be saved when Excel attempts to close.

Thanks in advance!


(in reply to JRHj)
Post #: 10
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