Resolved: Very Large XLS File Problems in Excel 2013 - Excel Cannot Successfully Sort Files With Large Numbers of Rows

Anonymous
2014-04-17T17:48:00+00:00

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**EDIT: The sorting problem described below isnow resolved with the latest Office update from Microsoft.  See here for instructions on how to update Office to Service Pack 1:**http://www.thewindowsclub.com/update-office-2013-manually

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All these problems are occurring on Excel 2013 on a Lenovo ThinkPad W540 with 16GB of RAM running Windows 8.1 Pro(Intel i7-4800Q CPU). Note:  I do not have these issues working with the exact same large file on a Lenovo ThinkPad T400 running Windows 7 and Excel 2010, although it is (obviously) much slower. The problems seem to be related to either Windows 8.1 Pro or Excel 2013 (UPDATE: It seems like Excel 2013 is, in fact, the culprit).  Seems to me that having a more powerful box + updated OS and Office should make it easier to work with large files, as opposed to the other way around.

Does anyone have a fix for the following issues?

Problem #1:  Large XLS FIles Open As Blank When Other XLS Files Are Also Open in Excel 2013 on Windows 8.1

I'm experiencing an issue where very large XLS files open as blank if you try and open them after opening a smaller file.  Large files open just fine after opening another smaller one.

To reproduce:

  1. Open a small file (I'm opening one that is 70KB), then;
  2. Open 300MB+ xls file (the one I am opening is 316MB), then;
  3. See the following blank screen.  All menus do not display and the content also does not display.

Note that once I close both files and then try again to open the large file alone, it opens just fine and displays fine (although then experiences problem #2 below).  The issue seems to be with having a smaller file open at the same time as the large one.

Problem #2: Deleted Columns Continue to Display After Deletion in Large XLS Files in Excel 2013 on Windows 8.1

To reproduce:

  1. Delete one column in a xls file with approximately 700,000 rows (again this is a large 300MB+ file),
  2. Excel still displays the deleted column after deletion.  (although you cannot interact with it -- it's not actually there...it just displays as there)
  3. However, if you then save the file, close it, and then open the file back up again, you see that the deleted column is, in fact gone.

Is this a display bug?

Problem #3: Sorting Large Numbers of Rows Does Not Workin Large XLS Files in Excel 2013 on Windows 8.1.  Excel cannot sort large numbers of rows.

To reproduce:

  1. Open a file containing 700,000 rows with three columns of data
  2. Sort by Column A on Values in A to Z order (or any order/values/column combination)
  3. Click OK
  4. See that the sorting never occurred, and there was no error message

Note: If you then select a subset of the 700,000 rows (experimentation has shown me that you must select fewer than 5,000 rows), then sorting will happen successfully.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2014-07-26T01:31:07+00:00

Raju,

BINGO! I found the solution went to File- Account - Office Updates & appended.

There must have been a patch undocumented but I can sort a million rows.

Mukund.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-05-25T21:05:12+00:00

    Raju - has this problem been abandoned??

    People have tried your solutions to no avail.  More people have offered supporting evidence of a seemingly wide-spread problem, they'd love an update from Microsoft.  Even if it only a "we are working on it" response.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-05-25T19:22:54+00:00

    I have the same problem in office 365 excel.  Happened when the sp1 (I think it was 1506) that came down.  Couldn't sort a text file with 600,000 lines.  Tried everything.  Different user accounts, etc.  Rajus S Das's post, etc.  Uninstall, reinstall.  You name it.  Funny, but I have the same version of office with excel on a surface pro 2, and it sorts the same file with no problem.  Also have office 2013 on another laptop and it sorts the file just fine.  Never had a problem until the update for the service pack 1.  Microsoft tech support worked on the computer for hours over a couple of days.  They couldn't fix it either.  Gave up...Just glad to know I'm not crazy. Hello, Microsoft, we could use some help here, it's very annoying.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-05-12T23:08:31+00:00

    I have a similar 'non-sort' problem with the 64bit version of Excel 2013 operating in Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1. 

    Hardware is a Dell T3610, with 40GB of RAM.

    I've tried the options as described above, with no success.

    Spreadsheet being used had 800K of data rows, in 9 columns.  No formulas existed within the data table.  It wasn't until the lines of data fell below 500K that the sort function worked.

    Need to have some answers towards this problem - can you point me in the right direction?

    Thank you,

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-05-12T22:35:45+00:00

    I have similar W540 and an Excel file with 6 million formulas.  There is no problem on a T500 with Window 7 Ultimate except the 9-10 minutes to open the file.  On the W540 (Win 8.1 Pro) Excel 2010 is OK but Excel 2013 crashes every time.  This definitely seams to be a Win8/Excel2013 problem.

    The problem is more likely to be in Win8 since MS has a history of every other operating system being troublesome (vista, ME, etc)

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