Scheduled agents cannot create Excel/Access object - and yes MSOffice has been installed on the server.

HCL Notes/Domino 8.5 Forum (includes Notes Traveler)

Subject: Scheduled agents cannot create Excel/Access object - and yes MSOffice has been installed on the server.

Feedback Type: Problem

Product Area: Domino Server

Technical Area: Error Message

Platform: Windows - 64 bit

Release: 8.5

Reproducible: Always

Hello,

In November last year Microsoft patches where applied to our domino server (8.5FP1 64 bit on windows 64 bit).
Since then any scheduled agent that uses Excel (32 bit) get's a 208 error: cannot create automation object. Same problem for an agent that uses MS Access.

We restarted the server, the agent will run through scheduler with no issues for about a day, but then stops working again. This happens each time the server is restarted.

When it stops working, if you run the agent using "tell amgr run" command through server console it works, also if you run it through the designer on the server.

We have tried various things like un-installing MS Office and reinstalling, configuring DCOM to explicitly allowing the domino server to access the Excel application (we don't run Domino server as a service as it needs access to network drives, so we login the box under a user account with admin access, so they server runs under the admin user account).

As a work around we are running the agents on our failover server (clustered) that doesn't have this issue. It didn't have the security patches installed in November as it didn't have SP2 installed for MSOffice.

This is why we tried reinstalling MSOffice on the orginal server to try and match the exact state for both servers (security and patch updates), but did not have any luck. We also tried copying the excel.exe file from the failover server.

I have searched on the net in blogs and forums and can't find anyone having the same problems.

basic time line of events:
1. November - security patches installed on server, issues started very next day
2. restarted server, was fine for about a day
3. removed MSOffice patches and restarted server
4. installed MSOutlook 2007 in case of DDE issue
5. Copied EXCEL.EXE form working server to non-working server
6. reinstalled MSOffice with all patches minus ones from November, restarted server
7. removed MSOffice and installed same version as per working server
8. changed DCOM to explicity give access to user account the domino server runs under to the MSOffice applications
9. posted probelm to LN forum

Has anyone else had a similar issue, or can point me in the right direction to look?

Thanks,

Anthony

Feedback number WEBB82YATZ created by ~Ted Opniskietsi on 02/24/2010

Status: Open
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