Creating a duplicate control name causes Excel to freeze

[tfurnivall]

On occasion, when I am (inadvertently) creating a duplicate control name, Excel VBA freezes, and leaves me with a stern "Could not set the Name property. Ambiguous name." It then freezes - no way of cancelling the error message, no way of saving the Excel app, and no way of getting out of this situation, except by killing Excel (from Task Manager). Yes - I normally save every few minutes or so, but I'm creating a 5 * 5 array of labels to show some statistics, and got my "x" and "y" names mixed up. That's 25 sets of naming labels possibly lost.

Has anyone else ever experienced this? I think it's pretty well provokable, but I don't have the time to set up a set up an environment where I can screw up without screwing up (as it were).

Thanks for any help,

Tony

 

[Michael M]

The ambiguous name issue is Excels self protect mechanism.
I'd suggest making a list of your control names then checking them off as you create each one.

 

[tfurnivall]

Michael,

Your point is well taken. However, if that is the case, why implement the 'self-protection' in such a drastic manner. Every control has a default name, and attempting to change it to a nname already in use should, perhaps, do no more than revert to the default name, with a gentle(where gentility include sarcastic messages) reminder that this name is in use.

Why is it necessary to freeze the entire application to the point that you need to use a system utility to abort the entire Excel process tree?

Tony

 

[Michael M]

Maybe so. but the "gentle" approach with VBA errors may cause more issues than it solves.!
Reverting back to a default name could also cause issues when the user tries to run a code from said control with a default name, it could run the wrong code.....and you know what could happen then.
AND
Microsoft aren't renowned for gentility, but definitely sarcasm !!!

 

[tfurnivall]

Touche!

I'm going to leave this open in case anyone else has actually experienced this! I'll close it in a few days.

Tony

 

[Michael M]

 in case anyone else has actually experienced this!

We all have, at some point. and it doesn't get closed......it remains on the forum !
All part of the learning curve, I'm afraid......