So, I've been banging my head against this one for a few days now, and figured it couldn't hurt to see if someone else has a solution.
I'm programming a macro in VBA for PowerPoint. Amongst other things, it needs to copy and paste multiple shapes (approximately 40 every time it's run). However, it randomly stops with an error:
This happens at random points during execution, not at the same point every time; sometimes it will instead paste the previous shape, causing other issues; and sometimes it will fully execute with no problems. I have tried numerous suggested fixes that I've found here and on other sites, and nothing seems to be working.
Right now, this is the relevant bit of code:
ClearClipboard
newPriorityShape.Copy
DoEvents
Set pastedShp = curSlide.Shapes.PasteSpecial(ppPasteDefault)
ClearClipboard
And for ClearClipboard I have:
Private Declare PtrSafe Function OpenClipboard Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare PtrSafe Function EmptyClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Private Declare PtrSafe Function CloseClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Public Function ClearClipboard()
OpenClipboard (0&)
EmptyClipboard
CloseClipboard
End Function
If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd be most grateful.
A little bit too late but I ran into the same issue recently. The implementation of the clipboard history on Windows conflicts with this, so in order to avoid those random errors you need to disable it.
I have some complex code which takes some user inputs (names of shapes to copy) then copies said shapes from one sheet to another multiple times. The items are grouped shapes drawn in Excel and all named correctly and uniquely.
I receive copy and paste errors intermittently "Method 'Paste' of object _Worksheet' failed" and "Method 'copy' Of Object '_worksheet' Failed. Through researching the problem we understand that it is fairly common and has something to do with programmes which conflict with Excel when they are accessing the clipboard.
So far, my colleague and I have deduced that 2 programmes in particular interfere the most with the copy/paste operations - Adobe Reader and Autodesk Powershape. (Autodesk and Adobe both have Reference Libraries available within VBA, not sure if this is a coincidence?)
The problem used to occur very frequently whilst we had the programmes open, so we wrote the following macros/functions to try and stablise the code:-
Public Sub CopyShape(ItemName, CopyDestination)
Call ClearClipboard Sheets(CopyDestination).Shapes(ItemName).Copy
Do Until IsClipboardEmpty = False DoEvents Loop
End Sub
Where "ClearClipboard" is:-
Public Function ClearClipboard()
OpenClipboard (0&)
EmptyClipboard
CloseClipboard
End Function
and the function IsClipboardEmpty is:-
Function IsClipboardEmpty() As Boolean
IsClipboardEmpty = (CountClipboardFormats() = 0)
End Function
with the following public declarations:-
Declare Function OpenClipboard Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Declare Function EmptyClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Declare Function CloseClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Public Declare Function CountClipboardFormats Lib "user32" () As Long
This code works quite a lot of the time (far better than trying to use "DoEvents" after the copy operation which just failed miserably) as it forces the code to check if the copied item is in the clipboard before trying to paste it, but it doesn't always work - something in the background still messes up the code.
Is there any way of either:-
locking and unlocking the clipboard using VBA or APIs?
using a completely different method of copying and pasting the shapes?
Any and all solutions welcome and of course happy to answers any questions.
Thanks
I need a VBA millisecond (~100) delay timer and tried using the API:
Public Declare PtrSafe Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As LongPtr)
Then use Sleep(100) in a sub.
But, when I try using it I get a compiler error:
"Constants, fixed-length strings, arrays, user-defined types and
declare statements not allowed as Public members of object modules"
I get the same error if I change it to 'Private'.
Any clues as to how I can get this to work?
Thanks for any help provided.
The relevant part of the error is this (emphasis mine):
"Constants, fixed-length strings, arrays, user-defined types and
declare statements not allowed as Public members of object modules"
In other words, you apparently can't have a Public Declare statement in a class module.
Add a new standard/procedural (.bas) module, and move the Declare statement(s) there. Or, make it Private if that's the only module it's used in.
Should "just work" ;-)
I'm currently updating a document for our company that no longer runs when used on a 64bit Microsoft Office suite (32bit remains fine).
I understand that functions and declarations require the 'Ptrsafe' word to be added - but when I add it to this function it tells me the syntax is wrong
Private PtrSafe Function executeSingle(Optional rurl As String = vbNullString, _
Optional qry As String = vbNullString, _
Optional complain As Boolean = True, _
Optional sFix As String = vbNullString _
) As cJobject
I have no idea why though...it works fine if you remove PtrSafe. Any ideas?
You should only need to use the "Declare" statement when you declare a reference to an external procedure in a dynamic-link library (DLL). It is always recommended that you use the PtrSafe keyword when doing this. Like A.S.H. said, you don't need to do this for your own functions. See this link for more info.
Here is an example from MSDN of the correct syntax for using PtrSafe. It includes conditional compilation syntax, which might be useful in your situation:
Declare PtrSafe Function GetActiveWindow Lib "User32" () As LongPtr
#If Vba7 Then
' Code is running in 32-bit or 64-bit VBA7.
#If Win64 Then
' Code is running in 64-bit VBA7.
#Else
' Code is not running in 64-bit VBA7.
#End If
#Else
' Code is NOT running in 32-bit or 64-bit VBA7.
#End If
Is there an equivalent to Thread.Sleep() in Access VBA?
Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" Alias "Sleep" _
(ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
Use the following syntax to call the Sleep function:
Sub Sleep()
Sleep 1000 'Implements a 1 second delay
End Sub
Another way without using kernel32:
Dim started As Single: started = Timer
Do: DoEvents: Loop Until Timer - started >= 1
All of the rest of the methods to make Excel wait result in Excel becoming completely unresponsive. The solution to make Excel wait while ensuring a responsive UI is to call this wait Sub with the number of seconds to wait.
Sub Wait(seconds As Integer)
Dim now As Long
now = Timer()
Do
DoEvents
Loop While (Timer < now + seconds)
End Sub
A couple of amendments are required to get the code to work.
The code below is the corrected version.
Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" Alias "Sleep" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
Sub SleepVBA()
Sleep 1000 'Implements a 1 second delay
End Sub
I use this in Excel and it works great:
Application.Wait DateAdd("s", 1, Now())
DateAdd() is a function that set a time, relative to Now() (in this case - you can use other values as your argument), "s" is the time measure (seconds in this case), and the increment is 1. So here, the function call is telling the application to wait 1 second.
See also for more detail about the use of the DateAdd function.
If you use Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long), you may get this error in an object module.
If so, you can declare it as private:
Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
It is possible to use the Excel Wait() procedure from Access VBA.
The first step is to ensure that the Excel library is referenced from your project.
When that's done the following code will work to wait for ten seconds :
Call Excel.Application.Wait(Time:=DateAdd("s",10,Now()))
Cross-Platform Solution
The accepted answer will not work in 64-bit VBA. Also, it won't work on Mac.
Thanks #Cristian Buse for pointing out Mac compatibility in your comment!
Achieving full Mac compatibility requires importing the platform-dependent library function for suspending thread execution, that is usleep on Mac and Sleep on Windows. Because usleep takes it's argument in microseconds and Sleep uses milliseconds, it is necessary to declare a custom Sub that deals with the conversion.
Importing the library functions and declaring the Sub can be done as presented in the following.
This solution emerged from a collaboration of myself and Cristian Buse on an adaption of his original solution, to avoid integer overflow and to allow Sleep times of more than &HFFFFFFFF microseconds (~71 minutes) on Mac:
#If Mac Then
#If VBA7 Then
Private Declare PtrSafe Sub USleep Lib "/usr/lib/libc.dylib" Alias "usleep" (ByVal dwMicroseconds As Long)
#Else
Private Declare Sub USleep Lib "/usr/lib/libc.dylib" Alias "usleep" (ByVal dwMicroseconds As Long)
#End If
#Else 'Windows
#If VBA7 Then
Public Declare PtrSafe Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
#Else
Public Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
#End If
#End If
#If Mac Then
'Sub providing a Sleep API consistent with Windows on Mac (argument in ms)
'Authors: Cristian Buse, https://stackoverflow.com/a/71176040/12287457
' Guido Witt-Dörring, https://stackoverflow.com/a/74262120/12287457
Public Sub Sleep(ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
Do While dwMilliseconds And &H80000000
USleep &HFFFFFED8
If dwMilliseconds < (&H418937 Or &H80000000) Then
dwMilliseconds = &H7FBE76C9 + (dwMilliseconds - &H80000000)
Else
dwMilliseconds = dwMilliseconds - &H418937
End If
Loop
Do While dwMilliseconds > &H418937
USleep &HFFFFFED8: dwMilliseconds = dwMilliseconds - &H418937
Loop
If dwMilliseconds > &H20C49B Then
USleep (dwMilliseconds * 500& Or &H80000000) * 2&
Else
USleep dwMilliseconds * 1000&
End If
End Sub
#End If
Now Sleep will be available on both, Windows and Mac and in 32- as well as 64-bit environments.
It can be called like this:
Sub ExampleSleepCall()
Sleep 1000 'Suspends thread execution for 1 second
'Calling application will freeze completely for that amount of time!
'If this is undesired, look here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/74387976/12287457
End Sub
Note that:
While Sleep does take its argument in milliseconds, its resolution is not actually 1 millisecond.
If you want to use Sleep inside of a class module and you don't want to declare the sub in an additional standard module, you can use the above code but you have to replace all occurrences of Public with Private, because it's impossible to import API functions as Public inside a class module.
On Mac, the maximum usleep duration is limited by MAX_UINT = &HFFFFFFFF microseconds or about 4294.97 seconds (~71 minutes). This is why the custom Sleep sub for Mac will call usleep multiple times for input values dwMilliseconds > &H418937, to avoid integer overflow issues.
On Windows (and on Mac with the custom Sleep sub), the maximum Sleep duration is limited by MAX_UINT milliseconds, about 4294967.3 seconds. (~49.71 days)
On both Windows and Mac, calling Sleep with millisecond values greater than MAX_LONG = &H7FFFFFFF (= 2147483647) requires passing it negative VBA Long values, with the maximum Sleep duration achieved by calling it like this: Sleep -1 (=Sleep &HFFFFFFFF)
Note that this way of pausing the execution has severe drawbacks in VBA!
Most importantly, all Microsoft Office applications run VBA code in the same thread as the main user interface. This means, calling Sleep essentially freezes the entire application (It will show as "not responding" in Task-Manager!). There is no way of recovering from this state without waiting for the time to pass or force quitting the Application and restarting it. Excels Application.Wait suffers from the same issue. While the app will not show as not responding in Task Manager in this case, it will be just as unresponsive to the user.
A way to circumvent this problem is calling DoEvents in a loop, as other people have already pointed out. However, this comes with another issue. Because the application will try to execute VBA code as fast as possible, DoEvents is called at the maximum achievable rate essentially saturating the CPU completely on that single thread, leading to high, unnecessary CPU and power usage and potentially slowing down other more important tasks in the UI.
To learn about the best way to pause VBA execution, look at this answer.
Adding
Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" Alias "Sleep" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
somehow created additional problems somewhere else in my code.
I ended up using this function that I found on an other forum and tweeked a bit:
Function WaitTime(n As Double)
'Function that wait an amount of time n in seconds
TWait = Time
TWait = DateAdd("s", n, TWait)
Do Until TNow >= TWait
TNow = Time
Loop
End Function
hope this helps :)
If the code is executing in a Form, you can use the built-in Timer of the Form.
Start the timer of the Form with
TimerInterval = 1000 ' Delay in ms
Declare an event handler:
Private Sub Form_Timer()
TimerInterval = 0 ' Stop the timer if don't want to repeat the event each second
' Execute your code here
End Sub