Script Hangs on use Win32::OLE::Const

[TomW]

I've been using win32:le for some time to automate PowerPoint
(Office 2003) on a server. I know it's not recommended but I'm stuck
with it. It's been working well for several years but sometime over
the last few days it stopped working. I've tracked down the possible
problem to this statement:

use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Office 11.0 Object Library';

For some unknown reason the above statement now causes the script to
hang. It will eventually time out. I'm at a total loss as to why
this is happening. The version of office has not changed. I even
reinstalled Perl from a clean image and it still hangs. Has anyone
ever encountered anything like this ? I have checked the event viewer
and there is no record of any error. Could it be the module is now
unable to communicate with PowerPoint and that causes the hang up ?
I'm stumped. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Thrill5]

I've been using win32:le for some time to automate PowerPoint
(Office 2003) on a server. I know it's not recommended but I'm stuck
with it. It's been working well for several years but sometime over
the last few days it stopped working. I've tracked down the possible
problem to this statement:

use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Office 11.0 Object Library';

For some unknown reason the above statement now causes the script to
hang. It will eventually time out. I'm at a total loss as to why
this is happening. The version of office has not changed. I even
reinstalled Perl from a clean image and it still hangs. Has anyone
ever encountered anything like this ? I have checked the event viewer
and there is no record of any error. Could it be the module is now
unable to communicate with PowerPoint and that causes the hang up ?
I'm stumped. Thanks in advance for any help.

Have you installed any OS or Office patches on the server lately? The Win32
modules are wrappers to call Windows DLL subroutines and a patch could have
disabled some functionality or broken something.

 

[TomW]

Have you installed any OS or Office patches on the server lately?  The Win32
modules are wrappers to call Windows DLL subroutines and a patch could have
disabled some functionality or broken something.

I've asked the server team that same question. I know approximately
when it stopped working but have not yet heard back from them. In the
meantime I've done some testing and found that given enough time the
script will eventually run. I have a test script that normally takes
about 10 seconds to build a simple x-y area graph in PowerPoint.
Once "use Win32::OLE::Const" is called the script hangs for anywhere
from 10 to 15 minutes and then completes normally. Does that give you
any ideas ? I thought the anti-virus was causing the delay but I
cannot find any record in the av log that would confirm that idea.
I'll proceed with checking on the office and os patches. Thanks.