excel - Merge Cells with Duplicate Data VBA -

i'm trying macro working merge cells duplicate data. work on small numbers of cells, following error if try run on larger group of cells. i'm not sure if there's more efficient way excel run through this.

run-time error '1004': method 'range' of object '_global' failed

here's code:

sub mergeduplicates()  dim vardata variant, varcontent variant  dim strmyrange string  application.screenupdating = false  application.displayalerts = false      strmyrange = activecell.address      varcontent = activecell.value      each vardata in selection.cells          if vardata.value <> varcontent              strmyrange = strmyrange & ":" & cells(vardata.row - 1, vardata.column).address & ", " & cells(vardata.row, vardata.column).address              varcontent = cells(vardata.row, vardata.column).value          end if      next      strmyrange = strmyrange & mid(selection.address, instr(1, selection.address, ":"), len(selection.address))      range(strmyrange).merge  application.displayalerts = true  application.screenupdating = true  end sub 

i have recreated issue using code posted , working me. did suggested , put merge loop. split strmyrange using comma delimiter. set test ":" character in testarray(0). if in target string, know ready merge. after reset strmyrange testarray(1) beginning of next range.

note: able step through debugger 100 cells , worked. tried running without code breakpoints, merged selected cells. put 1 second wait statement right before final merge , seems work.

here code:

 sub mergeduplicates()  dim vardata variant, varcontent variant  dim strmyrange string  dim testarray() string  dim target string  dim pos integer     application.screenupdating = false application.displayalerts = false  strmyrange = activecell.address  varcontent = activecell.value  each vardata in selection.cells      if vardata.value <> varcontent          strmyrange = strmyrange & ":" & cells(vardata.row - 1, vardata.column).address & ", " & cells(vardata.row, vardata.column).address          testarray = split(strmyrange, ",")          target = testarray(0)          pos = instr(target, ":")          if (pos > 0)             range(target).merge             strmyrange = testarray(1)          end if          varcontent = cells(vardata.row, vardata.column).value      end if  next  strmyrange = strmyrange & mid(selection.address, instr(1, selection.address, ":"), len(selection.address))  application.wait (now + #12:00:01 am#) 'this helps application run ok if there no breakpoints.  range(strmyrange).merge  application.displayalerts = true  application.screenupdating = true  end sub