Microsoft KB Archive/181068

= WD98: Run-Time Error 5584 "Too Many DDE Channels Are Open..." =

Article ID: 181068

Article Last Modified on 6/17/2005

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Word 98 for Macintosh

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This article was previously published under Q181068



SYMPTOMS
If Microsoft Word or another program cannot open any additional Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) channels, you may receive the following error message:

Run-Time error '5584':

Too Many DDE Channels are open. Please close a window.



CAUSE
When using DDE to communicate between programs, a separate "channel" or line of communication for each DDE conversation is created. It is possible to have multiple DDE conversations happening at the same time. While there is no absolute limit to the number of DDE conversations that can exist simultaneously, there is a relative limit that depends on the amount of system resources available. This limit varies from system to system.



WORKAROUND
Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. To prevent the error message from occurring, terminate each DDE conversation after you are finished using the channel. To terminate a DDE channel, use either of the following commands.

Syntax to Terminate a Specific Channel Number DDETerminate(ChannelNumber) -or-

Syntax to Terminate All DDE Channels DDETerminateAll For example, the following macro (Sub procedure) uses DDETerminate to close each DDE channel that is initiated. Sub DDETest For x = 1 to 40 chan = DDEInitiate("Excel", "Sheet1") ' Your other commands go here. DDETerminate chan Next x  End Sub To reproduce the "Session too complex...." error message, start Word and Excel and run a macro that opens a number of DDE channels without terminating the channels. Sub DDEReproduceError For x = 1 to 40 n = DDEInitiate("Excel","Sheet1") Next x  End Sub

