title: Excel VBA: Waiting for another application to complete an OLE action when macro tries to open another workbook
body: <p>A little background to the title: I've written a macro that gets called on workbook open. It opens a [shared] workbook on a shared directory and pulls in some information to the workbook the user is using.</p>
  
  <p>Any user working with this sheet already has the shared directory mapped to their computer (and the macro finds the correct drive letter).</p>
  
  <p>I've tested this worksheet multiple times with users in my office. I've also tested it and had two people open the workbooks simultaneously to confirm that the macros for both users are able to pull data from the shared workbook concurrently.</p>
  
  <p>So far, I've had no issues.</p>
  
  <p>This sheet then got rolled out to multiple other users in my company. All in all, about 40 people are expected to use this sheet (not necessarily at the same time.. just in total).</p>
  
  <p>One of the users is located in Poland (I'm located in London).</p>
  
  <p>When he opens the workbook, he gets a 'Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action' notification. The notification comes with an 'OK' button. Pressing this button seems to have no effect and the workbook effectively hangs on this notification.</p>
  
  <p>I'm having a lot of trouble resolving this problem as I have not been able to replicate it. Does anyone have an idea why this would come up? Code below:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Sub PreliminaryDataImport()
  Application.ScreenUpdating = False
  Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
  Dim x As Variant
  Dim usename As String
  usename = Environ("USERNAME")
  Dim xlo As New Excel.Application
  Dim xlw As New Excel.Workbook, wkbk As New Excel.Workbook
  Dim xlz As String, regions As String
  Dim LRow As Long, LCell As Long, LRow2 As Long
  Dim RegionList As String
  RegionList = ""
  
  
  xlz = Sheet1.Range("o1").Value &amp; "\Region Planning\TestDB.xlsx"
  Set xlw = xlo.Workbooks.Open(xlz)
  
  If Not Sheet11.Range("S1").Value = xlw.Worksheets("validation") _
      .Range("N1").Value Then
      MsgBox "YOU ARE USING AN OUT OF DATE VERSION" &amp; vbLf &amp; _
          "Please check your inbox or contact xxxx for the current version."
      xlw.Close False
      Set xlo = Nothing
      Set xlw = Nothing
      Call Module7.ProtectSheets
      End
  End If
  
  x = CheckValidation(usename, xlw)
  
  '~~ Check to see if User has access to view/modify.
  '~~ If they have access, return regions
  
  
  On Error Resume Next
  For i = LBound(x) To UBound(x)
      regions = regions + " --- " &amp; x(i)
      RegionList = RegionList + x(i) &amp; ", "
      Sheet1.Cells(i + 2, 33).Value = x(i)
  Next
  If Err.Number &lt;&gt; 0 Then
      MsgBox "You do not have access to view or modify any regions."
      xlw.Close False
      Set xlo = Nothing
      Set xlw = Nothing
      End
  Else
      MsgBox "You have access to view and modify the following regions:" &amp; vbLf _
          &amp; vbLf &amp; regions &amp; "---"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I believe the issue occurs somewhere within this section of the code as the msgbox on the last line doesn't show up prior to the notification. I haven't been able to run in debug from his machine as he's located remotely and that would be a large effort (should only be done if absolutely necessary).</p>
  
  <p>Anyone have ideas on why this one user is getting this error? I'm particularly confused because it's only him having the issue.</p>