Why powershell does not open excel?

Question

$Excel = New-object -ComObject Excel.application
$Path = "Path"
$Excel.Workbooks.Open($Path)

It works most of the time, but sometimes, like today, is not working.
The error is:

You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression
At line: "x" Char: "s"
$Excel.Workbooks.Open($Path)

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Try wrapping that in a Try/Catch:

Try{
    $Excel = New-object -ComObject Excel.application -ErrorAction STOP
    $Path = "Path"
    $Excel.Workbooks.Open($Path)
}
Catch{
    $_      # just display the exception (or send it into the pipeline)
    Throw "your failure message here"    # or 'Throw $_'
}

Without knowing what the problem is I don't think anyone can offer advice that's meaningful.

Answer 2

Hello Rich,

This is what I have now. That is giving me the mentioned error. I apologize for not being detailed enough.

$Excel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.application
$FilePath = "Path"
$Workbook = $Excel.Workbooks.Open($FilePath)
$Excel.visible = $True
$app = $excel.Application
$app.Run("Macro")

Answer 3

I have the same problem. When I tried the Try-Catch code, here is my error:

your failure message here
At line:9 char:6

• Throw "your failure message here" # or 'Throw $_'
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• CategoryInfo : OperationStopped: (your failure message here:String) [], RuntimeException
• FullyQualifiedErrorId : your failure message here