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I'm a new user to this site. I'm trying to run a VBA macro in Excel once a day at midnight using the windows task scheduler. It imports data from a .txt file that gets dropped into a folder at night, and appends that data to an existing spreadsheet. I know the macro works because I've tested it numerous times. However, each morning for the past few days, when I check to see if the macro worked, I get an error message saying:

Excel experienced serious problem with "......\personal.xlsb" add-in. If you have seen this message multiple times, you should disable this add-in and check to see if an update is available. Do you want to disable this add-in ? Yes / No". I also see that both the worksheet and the personal macro workbook attempted to open each night and encountered an error.

Checking "No" means that the same problem/popup happens the next day. Checking "Yes" obviously disables the personal macro workbook, at which point I have to re-enable it in order to access my macros. I've already tried finding the personal macro workbook in the XLStart folder, deleting it, and then saving a new workbook with the same name (to no effect).

I've looked around already and can't seem to find an answer to this question, but I'm not sure how to troubleshoot the issue with the personal macro workbook. Any thoughts or advice is appreciated. Thanks!

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  • How are you triggering the macro with the task scheduler? Opening the wb and have the macro execute on open? – Raystafarian Dec 1 '15 at 16:01
  • Hi Raystafarian, that's correct. It's an auto_open macro that triggers upon opening the workbook. The task scheduler opens that workbook once at 12am and then another task executes the task kill command an hour later. – happygostacie Dec 1 '15 at 17:09
  • What if you trigger the opening of a regular workbook that has an open event of calling the macro from the personal? – Raystafarian Dec 1 '15 at 17:36
  • I did not think of that. I'll give it a try and let you know what happens with it. Thanks! – happygostacie Dec 1 '15 at 17:38
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Is it possible the task is running under a different (system?) user? That might explain why it is not available and Excel tries to disable it. The symptoms certainly point to a permissions-type problem.

Is there a good reason you need to use personal.xlsb, because you could surely just get the same functionality by having the code in the workbook that is opened, no?

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I tried housing the macro in the workbook being opened and it looks like it works. Because I'm having troubles still with my personal workbook being corrupted and because it opens each time an instance of Excel is triggered, I'm wondering if it's easier to just have my personal macro work be disabled, and then re-enable it when I need to access one of my saved macros. Not a perfect solution, but at least it shouldn't prevent this macro from running.

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  • Hi all, just wanted to follow up. I think I figured out part of why it wasn't working for me. Excel 2007-2016 requires the Personal Macro Workbook to be in .xlsb format, and mine was saved back in the beginning in an .xls format in the XLStart folder (somehow). What I did is: 1) save off existing macros, 2) navigate to the XLSTART folder (C:\Users[myusername]\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART), 3) delete the .xls version, and create/save off an .xlsb version. It seems to work fine now. – happygostacie Dec 16 '15 at 16:46

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