win32com 'catastrophic failure'

[Richie Hindle]

[gerd]
> com_error: (-2147418113, 'catastrophic failure', None, None)

The last time I saw this error it was because I'd created a control instance
but hadn't initialised it before trying to use it.  I had to do something
like this (apologies for the C++):

    IPersistStreamInit* IPSI = NULL;
    pUnknown->QueryInterface(IID_IPersistStreamInit, (void**) &IPSI);
    IPSI->InitNew();
    IPSI->Release();

(pUnknown is the IUnknown of my newly-created control; error checking
omitted).

There are probably a million reasons why you might be getting that error,
but if this doesn't help then at least you'll have narrowed it down to
999,999.  8-)

-- 
Richie Hindle
richie at entrian.com