I performed a Microsoft Excel update today and my Tiller Excel Workbook will no longer open…it crashes Excel. Is anyone else experiencing this?
Thank you!
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YES! I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I am doing the free trial and this made me cancel. If Tiller breaks each time there is an update, then I’m better off doing it myself.
Did you find a workaround?
Me too. Besides the Windows updates this week I also installed an updated .net runtime (version 8). Not sure if that had anything to do with it - I’ve since uninstalled it. But still the Tiller Foundation Template opens and then quickly closes. The Windows Event Viewer log gives the error as “Exception code: 0xc0000005”
I haven’t been able to open the Foundation Template since the updates.
Yes, I kept getting an immediate error and then a crash when opening my Tiller worksheet starting this last week. In reading general information online about the error, I read about turning off “Enable multi-threaded calculation” as a way to address the specific error. These posts were not at all about Tiller, just about the MS-Excel error message I was getting. To turn off this setting, go to File, Preferences, Calculation and you’ll see this dialog:
In turning off this multi-threaded calculation, I can get my Tiller worksheet to stay open. That’s where the good news ends, as my Tiller just does not work correctly anymore. It’s like the entire foundation template and add-in sheets are completely broken. There was no change on my part to any of these, it just all broke with this recent MS-Excel update. Charts are not updating as underlying values in tables are not updating.
I’ve been using Tiller now (paid subscription), since Nov 2023 and I’m experiencing one issue after another including not yet even having reliable bank feed data (e.g. incorrect balance updates, missing data) that have been duplicated/verified with Tiller; yet remain unresolved.
I really want Tiller to work as a worksheet based approach with reliable bank feed data is, by far, my first preference; but the fragility and unreliability with issues like this new one are shaking my confidence.
Can anyone from Tiller comment, please?
Could you share specifics of an example from a commonly used template, like the Monthly Budget? Might have to unhide the helper columns on the right-hand side of the sheet to see location of error messages and what the error message is exactly.
The specific example I can recall from when I looked at this late last week is for the Cash Flow Forecast and Retirement Planner (uses Cash Flow Forecast). These examples may not fit what you’re looking for, but these are what I was using after I was able to get the Tiller worksheet to stay open after disabling multi-threaded calculation. What I noticed was that regardless of the input variables or changes I’d make, nothing was actually updating in either of the two sheets (Cash Flow or Retirement sheets). I
I have the MS error log, but I don’t see a way with the Tiller forums to upload the text file. It is too much text to post directly.
I had some time this morning and took another look at my Tiller worksheet. It looks like some subset of formulas may require multithreaded calculation. There are many aspects of my Tiller worksheet that are working fine, but others that are completely broken with multithreaded calculation turned off. If I reenable multithreaded calculation, MS-Excel crashes immediately whenever I open my Tiller worksheet. This all started following the MS update last week.
Quick summary of what I’m seeing:
- Following a Microsoft update last week, opening my Tiller worksheet immediately crashes MS-Excel. All of my other MS-Excel worksheets work just fine.
- If I disable multithreaded calculation, I’m able to open my Tiller worksheet but there are then aspects of the Tiller worksheet that clearly do not calculate correctly.
- For example, the Cash Flow Forecast add-in sheet stops working for many inputs (e.g. Life Event expense and income inputs are ignored). From a very brief look, it appears to me that perhaps the Lambda formula use in some areas of Tiller are dependent on multithreaded calculation being enabled.
I’m not using Tiller as my primary tool, but just running it as a parallel approach for now. I can’t rely on Tiller currently as the bank feed and other issues like this one keep cropping up.
Is this MS-Excel update / multithreaded calculation crash a known issue with Tiller?
Also having a feed issue with MS Excel. The feed doesn’t even appear when you select for the DATA section. It’s blank! Has anyone else experienced this problem?
I confirmed with Tiller support today that this is a widely reported issue that they are assessing.
I wish Tiller was more transparent and timely in its communication about issues. Transparent communication at scale to the community would have saved me lots of time and hassle. I still wouldn’t have a resolution yet, but I would not have needlessly spent hours of my time trying to figure out what went wrong with my worksheet.
@timothylmayer my point above is not in reply to your message. You may want to check to make sure your MS-Excel is authenticated to the right account. For example, if you have both a personal and a work MS account, if you inadvertently use your work account with MS-Excel and your Tiller add-in is with your personal MS account, the add-in will not show up. There are some common issues that come up (like this one) with the add-in. The Tiller help chat bot (ugh, I find that thing unhelpful) might be able to help you resolve the issue. If nothing else, at the end of the time consuming chat help bot back and forth, you can eventually get connected with someone by chat/email that can either resolve the issue or log a support ticket for you.
Our team has learned that issue with your Excel spreadsheet crashing is caused by a recent update Microsoft has released and will be up to Microsoft to push a fix. Something with their update is not handling more complex spreadsheet infrastructures and sheet insertions.
There is a version update on Mac that you can get to fix the crashing, but you will have to click “Advanced” on the update screen and then choose the beta channel.
However, if you have the Debt Payoff Planner installed it will show an error/warning about running out of resources.
Any further inquiries regarding this bug would be better addressed by Microsoft since it’s a result of their update. There’s nothing from our team that we changed to cause this crash.
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@Morgan thank you for sharing the update.
FYI – for those interested, while the MS-Excel beta update stops Excel from completely crashing when opening the Tiller worksheet with multithreaded calculation enabled, there is still the same error:
And aspects of the Tiller worksheet do not work/calculate correctly.
At least in my case, there was no benefit to switching to the MS beta update option.
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@morgan Are you affiliated with Tiller? If so, your reply is unacceptable to your client base. I would think that this would fall on your organization to create a fix to deal with this Microsoft update, or why would I continue to subscribe to the Tiller service? I may as well find a product that functions with the current Microsoft structure. At least provide instructions for us to follow to deal with this situation. I’m sure others share my frustration when I say that I don’t have the time to deal with fixing issues like this. I need a product that works and saves me time.
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Thanks for your feedback here. We’re working with Microsoft to understand why this isn’t working well now after their recent updates. We understand your frustration with this issue and we’re doing our best to understand what changes may need to be made to address it if this turns out it’s not a Microsoft bug. Thanks for your patience.