VBA On Error – Error Handling Best Practices
VBA Error Handling refers to the process of anticipating, detecting, and resolving VBA Runtime Errors. The VBA Error Handling process occurs when writing code, before any errors actually occur.
VBA Runtime Errors are errors that occur during code execution. Examples of runtime errors include:
- Referencing a non-existent workbook, worksheet, or other object (Run-time Error 1004)
- Invalid data ex. referencing an Excel cell containing an error (Type Mismatch – Run-time Error 13)
- Attempting to divide by zero
VBA On Error Statement
Most VBA error handling is done with the On Error Statement. The On Error statement tells VBA what to do if it encounters an error. There are three On Error Statements:
- On Error GoTo 0
- On Error Resume Next
- On Error GoTo Line
On Error GoTo 0
On Error GoTo 0 is VBA’s default setting. You can restore this default setting by adding the following line of code:
When an error occurs with On Error GoTo 0, VBA will stop executing code and display its standard error message box.
Often you will add an On Error GoTo 0 after adding On Error Resume Next error handling (next section):
On Error Resume Next
On Error Resume Next tells VBA to skip any lines of code containing errors and proceed to the next line.
Note: On Error Resume Next does not fix an error, or otherwise resolve it. It simply tells VBA to proceed as if the line of code containing the error did not exist. Improper use of On Error Resume Next can result in unintended consequences.
A great time to use On Error Resume Next is when working with objects that may or may not exist. For example, you want to write some code that will delete a shape, but if you run the code when the shape is already deleted, VBA will throw an error. Instead you can use On Error Resume Next to tell VBA to delete the shape if it exists.
Notice we added On Error GoTo 0 after the line of code containing the potential error. This resets the error handling.
In the next section we’ll show you how to test if an error occurred using Err.Number, giving you more advanced error handling options.
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Err.Number, Err.Clear, and Catching Errors
Instead of simply skipping over a line containing an error, we can catch the error by using On Error Resume Next and Err.Number.
Err.Number returns an error number corresponding with the type of error detected. If there is no error, Err.Number = 0.
For example, this procedure will return “11” because the error that occurs is Run-time error ’11’.
Error Handling with Err.Number
The true power of Err.Number lies in the ability to detect if an error occurred (Err.Number <> 0). In the example below, we’ve created a function that will test if a sheet exists by using Err.Number.
Note: We’ve added a On Error GoTo -1 to the end which resets Err.Number to 0 (see two sections down).
With On Error Resume Next and Err.Number, you can replicate the “Try” & “Catch” functionality of other programming languages.
On Error GoTo Line
On Error GoTo Line tells VBA to “go to” a labeled line of code when an error is encountered. You declare the Go To statement like this (where errHandler is the line label to go to):
and create a line label like this:
Note: This is the same label that you’d use with a regular VBA GoTo Statement.
Below we will demonstrate using On Error GoTo Line to Exit a procedure.
On Error Exit Sub
You can do this by placing the error handler line label at the end of your procedure:
Err.Clear, On Error GoTo -1, and Resetting Err.Number
After an error is handled, you should generally clear the error to prevent future issues with error handling.