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Updated! Excel 2013 crashes when you attempt to scroll down the page

  • Article

Hello everyone

We have seen several reports of Excel crashing when you scroll down, even on a brand-new sheet. The Application Event log points to a crash in OSF.dll.

We have found that at least one cause of this particular crash is a conflict with Avast! Antivirus. Essentially, if you install Avast! and then open any workbook, Excel will crash if you scroll down using the scroll bar or the mouse wheel. This issue only occurs if you are logged in using a Microsoft Account (previously known as Live ID).

Unfortunately, the crash continues to happen even if you uninstall Avast! and run an online repair.

UPDATE:
Avast! has posted an update to their Antivirus programs that resolves this issue. It is dated November 11, 2013. Once you install the new version, obtained from https://www.avast.com, you must do the following to resolve the crash:

  1. Reboot your machine (the last step of removing Avast!)
  2. Click on the File Tab, and click Options.
  3. Click Trust Center and then Trust Center Settings.
  4. Click Trusted App Catalogs, and then click the Clear button.

After you do this and restart Excel, the crash should not occur.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    ;.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hello we are Dream Force LLC.Hey everyone we provide Microsoft Training from Kirt Kershaw who is a Professional Certified Microsoft Trainer. We recently just put out training for Excel 2013 and it is available at...http://videotrainingpro.com/Excel-2013-Videos.html Come check us out!Thanks for your time,Kirt Kershaw

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Congratulations

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2013
    I have same problem with Excel 2013 crashing when scrolling.  All other Office apps work fine.  I have Avast AV loaded.

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2013
    Further info on crash:  Excel 2013 worked fine until about 10 days ago. Was there an update that messed it up?  Come to think of it, I think Avast published an Engine update in that general timeframe.  Current Avast Engine version is 2014.9.0.2006.  I recall the previous version was 2014.8...

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2013
    Excel stopped crashing with scroll when I turned off unnecessary animations.  Avast is still active;  I did not disable it at any time.  FYI, I am running Windows 7 Pro (64-bit) & Excel 2013 under Boot Camp on latest MacBook Pro 15.6" laptop.

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2013
    Excel was crashed. And other Office apps works "Almost" fine. If signed in, all office apps cannot load any settings.(c.f. Office Theme e.t.c.)

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2013
    I have Avast and am experiencing Excel 2013 crashing on scrolling with a fresh Win 8.1 install on a brand new Dell laptop.   Excel does not crash if launched in safe mode, however I have no add ons installed. Disabling the animations in Windows Advanced settings appears to have fixed the problem, but I would really like a fix :P

  • Anonymous
    November 06, 2013
    If you are facing issue with office 2013 applications. Please follow the Instructions. 1)Open the following path. 2)C:Program FilesMicrosoft Office 15RootOffice15 3)Look for Osf.dll and rename it to Osf.DLL.Old 4)Close the application. 5)Restart the application.

  • Anonymous
    November 06, 2013
    I also have this issue, and am running Avast. Called avast support, they took me to a screen that showed I had a couple of drivers etc that did not install correctly and said, "you see that, a driver failed, that can cause all kinds of fixes. You can choose to believe this article if you want, but we don't have anything to do with excel or windows. There is nothing avast could do to cause this." And I have the paid version, what is the point of having support if they would not do anything to even attempt to remedy the situation.

  • Anonymous
    November 06, 2013
    Ok so my crashing came back even with animations turned off.  Happens much less frequently, but its crashed 40 times in about 14 hours of use today :( The OSF.DLL change appears to have fixed the crashing again.  We'll see if it holds this time.  Such a pain :(

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2013
    I uninstalled Avast and disabled both Hardware acceleration AND animations; rebooted and ... problem still present. The moment I move the vertical scroll bar, Excel crashes. Using Office 2013 (365) and on Windows 7 pro. The most frustrating thing is that I uninstalled Office 2010 to get Office 2013: bad move ;-(

  • Anonymous
    November 10, 2013
    Update to yesterday's post: With Avast removed AND "Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)" checked, if I sign out from my Office 365 account, the problem is not there. Excel won't crash. The moment I sign in to Office 365, Excel crashes. The source of the problem seems to be closely linked with Office 365 account sign in process. Please update on that asap. This is very annoying.

  • Anonymous
    November 12, 2013
    Yes! This solution (Regedit) works. Thank you Anita.

  • Anonymous
    November 13, 2013
    This advice was very helpfull. no crash during scrolling up to now.

  • Anonymous
    November 14, 2013
    I updated my free Avast version and made changes in Excel options as described and no more crash during scrolling!  Awesome!  Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    November 14, 2013
    You are a huge time saver. I have been trying to fix this for weeks. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    November 16, 2013
    This finally fixed this highly annoying issue.  Thanks so much!

  • Anonymous
    November 16, 2013
    Thank you so much!!  I've been dealing with this issue for a while, and this finally solved it.

  • Anonymous
    November 21, 2013
    Anita THANK YOU !!  Been suffering with this excel crashing for a week, and running a small business it has been almost impossible to cope with.  After googling all over the place for solutions and re-installing Office 365 to no avail, thank goodness I found this blog.  Having done the AVAST Nov 11 update it is now fixed.  Thanks so much!!!

  • Anonymous
    November 22, 2013
    I have seen quite a number of people reporting that they were able to resolve the issue by removing the connection between Office and their Microsoft account. See: answers.microsoft.com/.../b5f6a948-f4fe-4c8f-8458-07d086e9d100

  • Anonymous
    November 26, 2013
    I finally got this to work.  And it takes following completely through the final step 4 above, even though there wasn't anything in the Trusted App Catalogs.  I still had to click the Clear button.  But after 2-3 weeks trying to find the solution, I appreciate finally being able to use my worksheets again.  Thank you.

  • Anonymous
    November 27, 2013

          • OSF.DLL is the issue! * * * * *
  1. Attempted the Avast uninstall/update to v2014.9... ...Didn't work.
  2. Attempted to disable Smooth scroll in System Properties.. ...Didn't work.
  3. Attempted post by JasonG on 5 Nov 2013 10:47 PM to disable Windows Animation (top 2 options). ...Didn't work for Left-to-right scrolling.
  4. Attempted post by Shyam on 6 Nov 2013 7:09 AM to rename OSF.DLL file. ...Worked! Reenabled Animation and Scrolling...Still works.

  • Anonymous
    November 27, 2013
    I'm not been funny but I have fixed the problem by performing the steps discussed here but I don't want to have background animations etc disabled and office removed from my ms account. Is there nothing microsoft can do to fix this without removing functionality?

  • Anonymous
    November 29, 2013
    IT WORKED!! thank you very much! :-)

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2013
    Thx guys , it wooooorks. I'll maybe pass my exams, thaaaaaanks ^^ You saved my life!

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2013
    This worked for me! Thanks so much!

  • Anonymous
    December 13, 2013
    Thanks, this also worked for me, woo hoo

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2014
    It worked...frustration has been lifted....thank you much

  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2014
    I had same problem, your's solution fixed it. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    February 12, 2014
    I have the same problem of Excel 2013 freezing and crashing. I don't have a problem with Work or Outlook. I don't have Avast on my computer. I did change the name of the file from osf.dll to osf.dll.old. Rebooted the computer. Opened Excel and started working on my project for 20 mins. with no problem and then it started again. What could the problem be and what is the solution? Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    May 05, 2014
    This solution no longer works.

  • Anonymous
    July 17, 2014
    This worked for me. Didn't need to rename OSF.DLL at all. BTW, the problem I had was slightly different, but also caused by OSF.DLL -- my problem was that Word 2013 would throw an error every time I close out of it. Followed this procedure, and the problem went away immediately.