in the following code, line 232 (the save line that is called after the loop)
errors and kills the program. this is causing another error later on when i
call this again.

Does anyone know why this is or have suggestions on how to fix it?

if(-e "$labrep"){
#we are just adding to it, so open it
my $report = $Excel-Workbooks-Open("$labrep");
# my $ws = $report-Worksheets("$date - General");
my $ws = $report-Worksheets(1);

# start row counter
my $row=2;
# set row counter to continue at the end of what's there
my $ncell = $ws - Range("A$row") - {'Value'};
while($ncell =~ m/\w+/i){
$row++; # increment row & V- grab next row's data -V
$ncell = $ws - Range("A$row") - {'Value'};
}

# we need to get the information & parse it into the excel file for each
node
foreach my $node (@comps){
# for each node we check the information returned
my $ldate = localtime();
&rep("Examining information gathered from node $node @ $ldate\n", $verb);

# a sub routine defined later in the script is used for simplicity
&populate($node,$row,$ws);

# end the loop increasing the row number
$row++;
}
}else{
# we have to create it, including make the first row
$Excel - { 'SheetsInNewWorkBook' } = 1;
my $workbook = $Excel - Workbooks - Add();
my $ws = $workbook - Worksheets(1);
$ws - { 'Name' } = "$date - General";

# set first row titles
$ws - Cells(1, "A") - {'Value'} = "Node";
$ws - Cells(1, "B") - {'Value'} = "NAV";
$ws - Cells(1, "C") - {'Value'} = "Alarms";
$ws - Cells(1, "D") - {'Value'} = "SNMP";
$ws - Cells(1, "E") - {'Value'} = "Uptime";
$ws - Cells(1, "F") - {'Value'} = "Kernel Version";
$ws - Cells(1, "G") - {'Value'} = "Product Type";
$ws - Cells(1, "H") - {'Value'} = "Product Version";
$ws - Cells(1, "I") - {'Value'} = "Service Pack";
$ws - Cells(1, "J") - {'Value'} = "Kernel Build Number";
$ws - Cells(1, "K") - {'Value'} = "Registered Organization";
$ws - Cells(1, "L") - {'Value'} = "Registered Owner";
$ws - Cells(1, "M") - {'Value'} = "Install Date";
$ws - Cells(1, "N") - {'Value'} = "Activation Status";
$ws - Cells(1, "O") - {'Value'} = "IE Version";
$ws - Cells(1, "P") - {'Value'} = "System Root";
$ws - Cells(1, "Q") - {'Value'} = "Processors";
$ws - Cells(1, "R") - {'Value'} = "Processor Speed";
$ws - Cells(1, "S") - {'Value'} = "Processor Type";
$ws - Cells(1, "T") - {'Value'} = "Physical Memory";
$ws - Cells(1, "U") - {'Value'} = "Installed OS Hotfixes";
$ws - Cells(1, "V") - {'Value'} = "Other Applications";
$ws - Columns("A:V") - AutoFit();

# start row counter
my $row=2;

foreach my $node (@comps){
# for each node we check the information returned
my $ldate = localtime();
&rep("Examining information gathered from node $node @ $ldate\n", $verb);

# a sub routine defined later in the script is used for simplicity
&populate($node,$row,$ws);

# end the loop increasing the row number
$row++;
}

$workbook - SaveAs($labrep); # save active sheet
}

# save and exit
$Excel - Workbooks - Save(); # save file
$Excel - Workbooks - Quit(); # leave excel
my $et=locatime();
&rep("program completed at $et.",$verb); # wrap up log
close LOG; # close log