Very slow automated export to excel

Hello

I have created a simple automation which exports the contents of a table on a SQL server to a specific worksheet in an excel file.

I have created this automation several times before however this time, when the export object gets to the point of ‘Writing Rows Finalize’ it slows down to about 1kb per second. If I check the excel file on my file server I can see the size of the file increasing.

The export contains approximately 12600 rows with 24 fields and nothing complicated.

Eventually the automation will continue after approximately 1.25hrs of waiting and successfully finishes.

Can you advise what would make the export take so long especially since it is only export 12k rows?

Thanks

I am using Toad v3.0 and excel 2003.