Microsoft KB Archive/251135

Knowledge Base

BUG: Type Mismatch Error When Calling ShowBrowserBar Without Optional Parameter

Article ID: 251135

Article Last Modified on 5/12/2003

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APPLIES TO

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 128-Bit Edition
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5
• Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Learning Edition
• Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Learning Edition
• Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Professional Edition
• Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Edition
• Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition

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This article was previously published under Q251135

SYMPTOMS

Calling the InternetExplorer object's ShowBrowserBar method without the optional second parameter (pvarShow) produces the following error message:

Run-time Error '13':
Type Mismatch

The same error occurs if Null (or 0 or vbNull or vbNullString) is used for the second parameter.

CAUSE

ShowBrowserBar does not check for the variant types VT_ERROR and VT_NULL (passed by a missing parameter and the Visual Basic keyword Null, respectively) when determining the validity of the pvarShow parameter.

RESOLUTION

The second parameter must be present and must be declared as a variant having one of three values: true, false, or empty (an uninitialized variant). Note that passing empty has the same effect as passing true, since the default action is to show the bar.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

1. Start a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
2. Add a reference to the Microsoft Internet Controls (Shdocvw.dll) using References on the Project menu.

3. Copy the following code into the Code window of Form1:

   Dim WithEvents g_ieAuto As InternetExplorer
   
   Private Sub Form_Load()
      Set g_ieAuto = New InternetExplorer
      g_ieAuto.Visible = True
      g_ieAuto.Navigate2 "http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop"
   End Sub
   
   Private Sub g_ieAuto_DocumentComplete(ByVal pDisp As Object, URL As Variant)
      g_ieAuto.ShowBrowserBar "{30D02401-6A81-11D0-8274-00C04FD5AE38}"
   End Sub
                       

4. On the Run menu, click Start or press the F5 key to start the program. The error message will appear.

5. Change the call to ShowBrowserBar to the following:

      g_ieAuto.ShowBrowserBar "{30D02401-6A81-11D0-8274-00C04FD5AE38}", Empty
                       

6. On the Run menu, click Start, or press the F5 key to start the program. The error message does not appear and the Search bar is displayed.

REFERENCES

For additional information, please see the following MSDN Web Workshop site:

ShowBrowserBar Method
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/browser/webbrowser/reference/methods/ShowBrowserBar.asp

Additional query words: IWebBrowser2, InternetExplorer, WebBrowser

Keywords: kbbug kbpending KB251135

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