You will need to save only the pointer to the collection, i.e., the collection variable.

I developed the experiment and Excel crashed pretty quickly. Either I’m not creating the loop properly or the theory is flawed.
Never mind!

I have an idea I’d like to fly by you (or anyone else listening).

I have filled a VBA collection object with items and I’d like this collection object retained, even if VBA loses its state. This is much the same problem as you have with ribbons.
It wouldn’t be enough to store a pointer address in an Excel cell because VBA garbage collection might have cleaned up.
Then I thought of the experiences with creating a Parent property against child classes – memory leaks could occur.

Here’s the sneaky idea.
What if I could purposely create a reference loop (memory leak) so VBA skips that object for garbage collection, then save the pointer address out to an Excel cell?
My object is then always available, even after loss of state, and I can keep my collection of items alive for whenever I need them.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

Here’s the scenario where I would not trust this technique.

There’s a class, say, Class1. There’s a global object X of type Class1.

So, there is only 1 handle (pointer) to the pointer that points to the memory allocated to X.

The code saves the value of the handle in X in a worksheet cell (or a name).

The project suffers a loss of state and X is lost.

At this point, there is no handle to the pointer to the memory location of X. Since there are zero handles pointing to the pointer to X, X is now subject to garbage collection.

The code re-establishes the handle to X using the technique in this discussion. But, now, there is no guarantee that X is still hanging around in memory! I’d say that if this technique works it’s sheer luck.

Clear description of how to use this technique!

One question. You write: “A key limitation with this technique is that the object variable of interest must be declared outside of the VB project of the workbook containing this code.”. This is contradictory to my experience: the technique works just fine for me, with the object variable being in just one VBProject (the one that may get “zapped”).

To create
Application.ExecuteExcel4Macro “SET.NAME(“”RibbonState”",”"1234567890?”)”

To retrieve
rState = Application.ExecuteExcel4Macro(“RibbonState”)

To Delete
Application.ExecuteExcel4Macro “SET.NAME(“”RibbonState”")”