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