Microsoft Excel cannot open or save any more documents because there is not enough available memory or disk space.

Question

Hello,

I am running Office Pro Plus 2013.

I try to open a 35KB xlsx and I get this message:

"Microsoft Excel cannot open or save any more documents because there is not enough available memory or disk space.

. To make more memory available, close workbooks or programs you no longer need.

. To free disk space, delete files you no longer need from the disk you are saving to."

I have 200GB free on drive C and 16GB RAM with only 18% in use according to task manager. My Users folder is actually on D: (it's a hard shorctut) and this has 800GB free.

Excel is opening all other things fine and all other office apps work fine (as does everything else) it's just this one small xlsx that is causing me problems.

Googling comes up with lots of results and all seem to either boil down to user error (insufficient disk space) or an incorrect path. A egistry hack, which I've tried, sets the Cache folder to point to c:\Windows\Temp. This makes no difference (but everything else still works)

The spreadsheet in question has been downloaded from Google docs. I've tried a few times to download and always get the same. I've also tried the ods format and I get the same results in Excel. Downloading as PDF, or CSV is fine.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community. As I understand, you are unable to open a particular Excel file which is downloaded from the Google docs.

Since the issue occurs with a particular file, it might be file specific issue.

Just a quick question:

What is the format of the File?

Save the file locally on the system and then try to open the file and check if it opens fine.

Right click on the saved file, click on Properties and uncheck the option Block and then try to open the file and check.

If you are still unable to open the file in Excel then open the file in CSV format, save the file as Excel file (.xlsx) and then try to open the file and check.

I hope the above suggestions helps to resolve your issue. If you need any further assistance reply and we will be glad to assist you.

Thank you.

Answer 2

Right click on the saved file, click on Properties and uncheck the option Block and then try to open the file and check.

The file format was xlsx.

This fixed the problem, thanks.

One would expect the error message to convey the error, though. Not something utterly generic and misleading like that.

Darren

Answer 3

It is such a weird thing, I've also experienced the same "Memory" thing,  when I unblock the file, then the problem gone. What is exactly happened due to this file block? 

In my understanding using Excel 2013, suppose it can load up to 1GB++, but this excel that triggers the "memory" error only opening few kilobytes of Excel file. Maybe this is a bug for Excel 2013.

I suggest it might be Microsoft could come up with some hotfix on this matter.

TQ.

Hi - thanks for reading/replying. I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with memory consumption. I have 19gb RAM free, hundreds of gigs free of disk space, and I can open the file once I move it to my local drive. It's definitely something to do with the way the program interacts with the network drive and perhaps AD permissions (although I'm global administrator... so it's something deeper than simple permissions). With no Microsoft comment on this thread, I gave up and uninstalled the 2013 office and rolled back to the fully activated 2010 Pro I was using before. One thing I wonder, but that has not been commented on, is that it may have been related to the unactivated nature of the Office 2013 -- it's one of the betas that's flying around. It's the only thing I can think of. Anyway, I don't really care for the UI changes in 2013 -- it's very austere looking and the blue on white color scheme is really pale and hard to read, so someone else can carry the flame on this one. I'm going to stick with 2010 for awhile and let them work out the bugs in this one before switching over permanently. It's a huge product -- to be expected there are going to be some bugs to work out. But 2010 rocks, so....

Answer 4

Mm D'Souza -  I am having the same problem with any file located on a network share. On the network share, one does not get the option of 'unblocking' the file, and it is impractical to copy all files I need to the local workstation for opening. 

Win 8 pro

Excel 2013

Server 2003

Administrator permissions on both workstation and server/share

Previously was able to open all the same files with Office 2010 files. This happens in both Word and Excel and PPT. Basically, any Office file on the network is unavailable to me.

Have tried modifying DCOM settings per some other Msft suggestions, but to no avail. Looking for any guidance you can offer as this is the exact same problem, just network based.

Thanks,

Evan

******@theportablecio.com

Answer 5

It is such a weird thing, I've also experienced the same "Memory" thing,  when I unblock the file, then the problem gone. What is exactly happened due to this file block? 

In my understanding using Excel 2013, suppose it can load up to 1GB++, but this excel that triggers the "memory" error only opening few kilobytes of Excel file. Maybe this is a bug for Excel 2013.

I suggest it might be Microsoft could come up with some hotfix on this matter.

TQ.