# Excel Cell Updater crashes KNIME (for me) **URL:** \ **Category:** KNIME Analytics Platform\ **Created:** [February 2, 2022, 2:23pm UTC](https://forum.knime.com/t/excel-cell-updater-crashes-knime-for-me/39325 "2022-02-02T14:23:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kowisoft](https://forum-cdn.knime.com/user_avatar/forum.knime.com/kowisoft/32/3295_2.png) [@kowisoft](https://forum.knime.com/u/kowisoft)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2022, 2:23pm UTC](https://forum.knime.com/t/excel-cell-updater-crashes-knime-for-me/39325/1 "2022-02-02T14:23:23Z")
Dear KNIMErs, I am currently reading an Excel file with 2500 rows and 35 columns. I update a bunch of those cells (about 500) and try to write them back to Excel again. But for some reason, this does not work. The cell updater node jumps from 0 to 75% immediately and then stays there forever before (after 30 minutes or so) I try to cancel all running executions. I know that it’s quite a lot of different cells (500) in a big matrix (~90,000 cells) to change but is that a performance thing or do I maybe have somewhere a wrong setting. Maybe some KNIMErs can share their experience here. Thanks Phil ---
**Author:** ![laaaarsi](https://forum-cdn.knime.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@laaaarsi](https://forum.knime.com/u/laaaarsi)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://forum.knime.com/t/excel-cell-updater-crashes-knime-for-me/39325/2 "2022-02-02T14:54:58Z")
Hey kowisoft, does it crash KNIME or is the node just failing? In case of the latter could you please provide the error message or the log? I just tested it myself with a bigger excel files than yours in terms of number of columns and rows but only simple string as contents and updating ~3000 cells. I only had problems when I reduced my memory (in the knime.ini to 2GB) letting the node fail with a heap space error. Could you share a workflow to try to reproduce the issue? ---
**Author:** ![kowisoft](https://forum-cdn.knime.com/user_avatar/forum.knime.com/kowisoft/32/3295_2.png) [@kowisoft](https://forum.knime.com/u/kowisoft)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2022, 3:51pm UTC](https://forum.knime.com/t/excel-cell-updater-crashes-knime-for-me/39325/3 "2022-02-02T15:51:59Z")
Hi Laaaarsi, I try to provide a non confidential dummy file. In response to your question: no, the app itself doesn’t crash but it also does not proceed. It hangs forever on executing the Cell Updater Node. ---
**Author:** ![kowisoft](https://forum-cdn.knime.com/user_avatar/forum.knime.com/kowisoft/32/3295_2.png) [@kowisoft](https://forum.knime.com/u/kowisoft)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2022, 4:20pm UTC](https://forum.knime.com/t/excel-cell-updater-crashes-knime-for-me/39325/4 "2022-02-02T16:20:39Z")
I tried to reproduce the error but that’s not possible without sharing confidential data. A simple file with a few 1,000 cells works fine, formulas in Excel stay, conditional formats do too… But in the original file, it keeps on executing on the 75% level which I also can only stop by killing the KNIME process in Windows task manager. I also checked the knime.ini and it says xmax = 8GB (which I assume should be enough). Interesting is that I also cannot stop the execution. ---
**Author:** ![kowisoft](https://forum-cdn.knime.com/user_avatar/forum.knime.com/kowisoft/32/3295_2.png) [@kowisoft](https://forum.knime.com/u/kowisoft)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 4:47pm UTC](https://forum.knime.com/t/excel-cell-updater-crashes-knime-for-me/39325/5 "2022-02-07T16:47:41Z")
I finally found the problem after some in depth research. The XLSX file the workflow writes to contained a reporting sheet with lots of external links using direct links as well as GETPIVOTDATA formulas pointing to external pivot tables in other files. Not KNIME’s fault (of course not 😃 ) so I will close this post now… 🙂 Thanks for the help especially to @laaaarsi👍 ---
**Author:** ![laaaarsi](https://forum-cdn.knime.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@laaaarsi](https://forum.knime.com/u/laaaarsi)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.knime.com/t/excel-cell-updater-crashes-knime-for-me/39325/6 "2022-02-07T17:15:38Z")
Hey @kowisoft, sorry I somehow lost track about this topic, but glad you found the reason for your issue! Best regards Lars ---
**Author:** ![system](https://forum-cdn.knime.com/uploads/default/original/1X/ab3ccf34482a0329361734a18199390177204f15.png) [@system](https://forum.knime.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2022, 5:16pm UTC](https://forum.knime.com/t/excel-cell-updater-crashes-knime-for-me/39325/7 "2022-02-14T17:16:18Z")
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