Excel hangup

[eurosurf]

I use spreedsheets in Excel 2002 (SP-2) , as part of the Windows Office XP Professional suite, that have DDE cells linked to data from eSignal 7.1 (Build 241). At first, Excel would sometimes hangup during the day. That problem was solved by adjusting the Macro security level in Excel to medium and unchecking the synchronize computer clock in eSignal Data Manager (at Data>Time).

My problem now is that every morning when I open spreadsheets in Excel that are linked to eSignal and I click on Update, Excel freezes and I have to restart my computer - after which, everything works fine during that day.

I have run through all possibilities with Microsoft, and they have assured me that Excel is functioning properly. I have to think this problem is caused by the manner in which eSignal makes its midnight run to count how many symbols are being used by a subscriber or through some other manner in which eSignal engages Excel Macros.

I would appreciate any suggestions. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Thanks for any help,
eurosurf

[eSignal_Todd]

Re: Excel hangup

This is interesting that Microsoft would point to any other program for problems with DDE. The way DDE works is that Excel sends a specific request for each cell of information to another program and expects a specific reply. There is no connection or communication made from the other program to Excel at any time other than to directly respond to a request from a cell.

With eSignal, the cell in Excel will ask for a single piece of data on a specific symbol and field. the TurboFeed Data Manager then sends a reply of the most recent information it has for that symbol. If that symbol is not in the current database, the Data Manager requests that information from our servers and then makes it available to Excel. A purge or any other way of removing symbols from the Data Manager such as shutting down the program would not have any negative effect in Excel because it would just need to add any missing symbols back into the database as soon as a request from Excel was made.

The only problems I could think of would be if the Data Manager was not running, or the connection to our servers was lost, or Excel had a problem locating the Data Manager.

If this happens Monday morning, you can contact our support group while Excel is locked up so they can confirm the connection to our servers and that data is available through the eSignal program, but they will probably not be able to diagnose anything with Excel. You can contact them online by clicking on the Customer Support menu in eSignal and then choosing LiveRep.

Thank you,