[bbales]

I was using Excel this afternoon to enter orders for a school group's Christmas greens sale. All was fine, closed the file, etc.

Now, I opened it again and the spreadsheet keeps going to the right -- endlessly to the right. I tried creating a new file and it's doing the same thing. Tried opening a much older file and it's doing the same thing. What could possibly be up with this program? (and obviously, I can't enter more orders at the moment, and I need to!)

Thanks.

[Uncle Skeleton]

You mean the sheet extends to the right? Or the window scrolls you there to see it, against your will?

[bbales]

It takes me there against my will. It would probably still be scrolling/moving there but I closed the files. Fortunately, I'd e-mailed myself the order form and Excel is behaving fine on my laptop. And all my other files are on the laptop, too. So my immediate problem is solved but obviously, long-term, I need to straighten out Excel on my desktop. It's Office 2004, by the way.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Sticky keyboard?

[midwinter]

Delete the prefs.

[bbales]

Thanks -- I repaired permissions but didn't think of that. (Keyboard's fine, too, by the way, but thank you for the suggestion.) However, since I posted the first time, I've discovered more wackiness. Any screen (such as a new finder window) that's sized small enough so that all items won't fit in one window skews to the right. Unlike an excel spreadsheet, which of course can go on forever, the finder window is a finite size. I have no idea what's going on and yesterday I didn't even have time to mess with anything (such as use Disk Warrior or even disk utility, beyond repairing permissions.) I backed up my computer using BounceBack and got errors, related to OmniOutliner Pro and Missing Sync, which hadn't happened a week ago. I'd tell you what the errors are, but I'm away from home and will be for the foreseeable future. A number of them were I/O errors, and I THINK one was a -43.

So I'm beginning to think that whatever the problem is, it's with something that affects the whole computer, and not just Excel. Has anyone seen this problem before? It's a new one for me.

[Uncle Skeleton]

You mean the keyboard doesn't feel sticky, or that you actually tried replacing it with another keyboard? Multiple apps scrolling to the right, I/O errors, sounds like one of your keys has a loose connection (or something else inside the keyboard is broken), and it doesn't sound at all like a broken preference. Just sayin, is all.

Once someone thought their OS was broken because they couldn't enter capital letters or something. Turned out one of their shift keys was broken and they never thought to try the other one.

[bbales]

Hmmm -- I misunderstood. No I did not replace the keyboard (to be honest with you, I doubt if I HAVE another keyboard), but that's definitely worth a look. I'll try that when I get home. Thanks.

[Uncle Skeleton]

I hope that gets it for you. If you don't have another keyboard, just unplug your keyboard and see if Excel still does that thing when you open it up. Leave it unplugged for a minute before opening Excel too. My apple bluetooth keyboard sticks (sends the same key repeated) often so I have to turn it off, and I have to wait about 20 seconds after turning it off before the keystroke signal stops.

[bbales]

Well, I'm glad I tried unplugging the keyboard before investing in a new one. It still is doing it -- this is after repairing permissions, trashing prefs, running disk utility.

Anyone have any ideas? This is maddening. Thanks in advance.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Create a new user and see if it has the same problem?

Also, post the errors you mentioned earlier.

[bbales]

I should probably re-post this in the OSX forum, as I suspect that's what this might be. I tried the different user and had the same problem. Here's part of the log file from when I did the backup. It was longer than this, but I just copied part of it. I am going to try a different keyboard though, just in case. This one is 6 years old, so I certainly can't say I didn't get my money's worth out of it.

Here's the file. I do appreciate all your thoughts, too.

File Copy Started
-43 error occurred copying file:
/.Spotlight-V100/ContentIndex.db
file not found.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/de.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/contents.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/de.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/metadata.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/contents.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/metadata.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/es.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/contents.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/es.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/metadata.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/fr.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/contents.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/fr.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/metadata.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/it.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/contents.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/it.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/metadata.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/ja.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/contents.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/ja.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/metadata.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/nl.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/contents.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying file:
/Applications/OmniOutliner Professional.app/Contents/Resources/nl.lproj/KeyboardCommands.oo3/metadata.xml
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred copying folder:
/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits/Photos Conduit/Contents
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred processing path:
/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits/Photos Conduit/Contents/Info.plist
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred processing path:
/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits/Photos Conduit/Contents/MacOSClassic
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred processing path:
/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits/Photos Conduit/Contents/MacOSClassic/Photos Conduit
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred processing path:
/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits/Photos Conduit/Contents/MacOSClassic
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred processing path:
/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits/Photos Conduit/Contents/PkgInfo
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred processing path:
/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits/Photos Conduit/Contents/Resources
I/O error.
-1407 error occurred processing path:
/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits/Photos Conduit/Contents/Resources/Brazil.lproj
I/O error.

[bbales]

I haven't had time to try this, but I thought I also might unplug all peripherals to see if something is causing a conflict all of a sudden (external DVD burner, perhaps, or an external hard drive.

Also -- I have a very old graphics card -- not the original that came with the computer, but close! And when I did single-user mode, after I rebooted, I did see a note coming across the screen about the Radeon drivers being too old.

On the other hand, I will say that everything was working fine Saturday afternoon. The trouble started very suddenly, when I went to re-use Excel Saturday night. So SOMETHING happened; I just don't know what.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Well I found your error, errFSNotAFolder, meaning either the app or the file system was expecting to find one of a folder or a file and got the other. There's not much explanation for this except (a) a bug in a program that was writing the files, or (b) hard drive corruption. At any rate, the I/O error doesn't seem to be related to device I/O, rather data. No clue what could cause the scrolling. It's not like any "feature" that would mistakenly get turned on. Does it happen in OS 9? Or do you have any bootable CDs you could start from to check if it happens there? Is it possibly a hacker or something? What do you have for network security?

[bbales]

OK, after some monkeying around I may hve found an answer. Bought a new keyboard, too -- which didn't help, as you noted above. I bought it before I read it.

Anyway, rebooted to my original internal drive, which was still at 10.3.7. The new keyboard didn't work, so had to put back in the old one -- plus the old mouse (an original apple one. While booted into that OS, and using original equipment. all was fine.

Rebooted using my current OS and hard drive (an internal Seagate, which I put in a few years ago), but still using the old mouse -- and Excel, etc. work just fine. Plugged in my Logitech mouse -- and the scrolling endlessly to the right starts right up.

SO -- apparently it's the mouse. It's a Logitech MX1000 laser cordless mouse. And I like it -- certainly I like it a lot more than that hockey pock.

Any ideas? Could it be a driver issue? And why would it go berserk all of a sudden?

Thanks again for all your help.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Well that's progress! What drivers are you using? Try using different ones (Apple's, Logitech's, USBOverdrive). Also try disabling the extra buttons (anything above 2); most drivers have application-specific options for this as well.

[bbales]

Hmmm -- I sent a response earlier today, which didn't go through.

Trial and error led me to unplug the wired mouse cradle from the fairly new (a month, maybe 2) USB hub, after my old one died, and plug the cradle into the monitor. For whatever reason, the weird scrolling has disappeared. I don't know why -- except I do believe the wired cradle is not supposed to be too close to the computer, and now the connection is probably 2 1/2 feet farther away.

Also -- I was using the Logitech command center (or something like that) to configure the mouse. I never really looked into anything else, as it's what came with the mouse, though I updated yesterday in the midst of all this trouble. I take it I can use USB overdrive, if I prefer?

Thanks again for all the help. Do you have any insights as to what was causing this weird glitch -- and why it happened so suddenly?

[milhouse]

I have a Logitech MX Laser mouse wireless and I have always used USB OD. I have heard lots of problems related to Logitech's SW, (though I thought it was "based on" USB OD).

P.S. when I read the title of this thread, I though perhaps Ann Coulter had gotten in to your spread sheet...

[bbales]

And you with the name "milhouse," too!

At this point, I should probaboy get this moved to peripherals -- here I thought it was a software problem and it turned out to be either a mouse or a hub.