曾经可以使用的Excel VBA公式现在失败

Question

I have several small - and a couple larger - macros that I've written to make life easier for myself. They've suddenly stopped working. I get the error message: "Compile error: Can't find project or library". The highlight in debugger points to a simple variable, such as the counter variable in a simple For loop (For i = 1 to 16000) - the i gets highlighted and the error message pops up.

If I declare the variable with "Dim i As Integer", it works just fine. But this is new - I've been using this little macro for months without issue. Now this is happening in ALL my macros. Was there an update to Excel that I missed? Do I now have to specifically declare all my variables (I know this is a best practice, but my macros are personal tools just for me, so I'd like to avoid have to go through a couple dozen macros explicitly declaring variables if at all possible.)

My company uses Office 365, and there was an update not long ago, wondering if that is causing the impact. Is there a reference I need to add?

Answer 1

Often when you get the error message "Compile error: Can't find project or library", the issue is that there is a missing reference. The website http://www.cpearson.com/excel/missingreferences.aspx has some good information on identifying and troubleshooting this type of situation.

Answer 2

Sharing my recent experience here: this error popped up when opening a complex .xlsb workbook with Power Queries, VBA, and other advanced features. I was getting really frustrated with lack of solutions I found online. For example, the MS help file (accessible from help button on error dialog box) pointed to an instruction list for accessing the 'References' dialog in the VB editor and search for 'MISSING' prefix items in the library list. For some reason, the References dialog, while not grayed out in the menu, when clicked would pop up a window with gray border and completely transparent box (ie glitched out). I believe it was due to a faulty Office 365 update. When I had a coworker who is on a different O365 update cycle try to open the file, it worked just fine for her. In addition, she was able to save an exact copy without making any changes. Only then I could then open/edit the file without any error messages or disabled functionality. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

Honestly, I used to be excited about rapid release update cycles when Office 365 first came out, but in hindsight they aren't tested very well and often break critical VBA functionality. It's a recurring source of frustration for me and my team that are heavy Excel report users and developers. And I don't have a great preventive solution; just got lucky this time that someone else's install didn't have the same problem.