Recover Add In Modules?

    I was working with Excel last week and as Microsoft programs tend to do, it stopped responding. I restarted it and got stuck in an insanely long loop of Excel trying to recover workbooks and crashing. I recovered my workbooks as far as I can tell, but I noticed an Add In I created no longer has any modules in it, and the file size is down to 7 KB. I can't find any functions or subs or modules I had in there (many many months of creating/collecting, etc.). Many of my workbooks depend on the modules in that Add In. Does anyone know of a way to get the data back? Where Excel may have backed it up, etc.? Anyone that could help will save me a lot of grief. Thanks.

    Re: Recover Add In Modules?


    I doubt if Excel has backed it up, you should have kept a copy.


    Have you got any system autobackups running?


    Have you emailed a recent copy of the addin, in which case it my be in Sent items.

    Re: Recover Add In Modules?


    Yeah an Excel backup would be too convenient. It boggles my mind because now most Microsoft programs save a bunch of temp files and stuff, but I can't find a shred of code from the add-in. As far as a personal backup, hindsight is 20/20. I've started to rebuild and I've scheduled a backup daily. Usually everything I do at work is on a network drive and is backed up anyway, but of course the Add-Ins have to be saved locally. I haven't sent the entire add-in, it's mostly things I use. I did find some snippets, but not close to what I had.

    Re: Recover Add In Modules?


    Quote

    ...of course the Add-Ins have to be saved locally


    You can load an Add-in from any drive/directory - and then tell Excel not to copy to the Add-in folder... It'll keep the reference to where you loaded it from.

    Re: Recover Add In Modules?


    backing up is not really hindsight, especially if you saw the number of people who post similar problems.


    Going forward, develop your add-ins as a workbook first and get hold of a free cubby account or similar. You can sync the files then so that important files aren't lost. I recently had a hard drive pack up, but fortunately I had a 100gb subscription and most of my important files were synced on my Cubby account & I could access them.

    Re: Recover Add In Modules?


    Good point, I never thought a crash would wipe out just the modules of an add-in. All the other add-ins are untouched.


    All cloud storage sites are blocked at work.

    Re: Recover Add In Modules?


    I think Excel possibly tried to recover the data. Did you get any messages about this such as some content may be lost. If you did I found that cancelling the recovery & opening again prevented code loss.

    Re: Recover Add In Modules?


    No messages for the add-in. I was worried about 2 other workbooks that were corrupted. I had to disable all macros and copy all sheets and modules to new files. I thought I was back up and running at that point. Then I think I tried to run some code in the add-in and Excel was complaining that it didn't exist, so I checked the add-in, but there were no modules in it at all, just one sheet object and ThisWorkbook object.

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