Were there recent changes in VBA breakpoints and interactions with COM objects?

Question

In the past few months, debugging Excel VBA has become a nightmare for me.

It looks like, during step-by-step execution, a breakpoint is automatically set after every access to any member of a COM object defined in an external application.

For example, if I press F8 to execute a line that calls a function, and that function accesses hundreds of COM objects from an external application, the execution stops after every access, and I need to either press F8 hundreds of times, or set a breakpoint to the line after the original line and press F5. Pressing shift+F8 doesn't help, it will still stop to these phantom breakpoints.

I have test suites that I used to run by pressing F8 a handful of times, now I can only run them by setting one breakpoint per line and pressing F5 instead of F8.

I noticed this change in behavior (at least) a few months ago, but, since I don't work in VBA every day, I never bothered looking for help.

If this question does not really meet the Stackoverflow requirements, please let me know if there is a better place for it.

EDIT

Following Tim's suggestion in the comment, I tried to create an example that reproduces the problem. While working on the example I noticed that:

• The ghost breakpoints do not appear after every access to a COM object, they appear after some accesses and after some DoEvents
• The longer you work, and the likelier they are to appear, but I've seen them on the first try
• The more breakpoints you have, the the likelier they are to appear, but I've seen them without any breakpoints
• If you work long enough, they start appearing after every access and every DoEvents

The problem reproduces by creating a module with the following code, then:

• Click on Sub Test()
• Press F8 twice
• Press Shift+F8 -> the macro will run for a few seconds, and maybe, stop at a ghost breakpoint
• If the debugger doesn't stop at any ghost breakpoint, while the macro is still running, create a breakpoint by clicking on the gutter at the line with Debug.Print "Done" -> the macro will stop after a DoEvents
• When the debugger hits a ghost breakpoint, press Ctrl+Shift+F8, not F5
• If the problem does not reproduce, try again, keep adding and removing that breakpoint or other breakpoints. Sooner or later it will start stopping after WordApp.Visible, CreateObject("Word.Application") or other COM accesses.

Option Explicit

Dim WordApp As Object

Sub Test()
  Test2
End Sub

Sub Test2()
  Dim I As Integer
  For I = 1 To 10
    Debug.Print I
    CreateWordAppObject
    CloseWord
  Next I
  Debug.Print "Done"
End Sub

Sub CloseWord()
  Dim X, Doc As Object
  Debug.Print "Closing Word";
  For Each Doc In WordApp.Documents
    Debug.Print "Closing document"
    Doc.Close SaveChanges:=False
  Next Doc

  Debug.Print "Closing Word";
  WordApp.Quit

  On Error Resume Next
  Do
    Err.Clear
    X = WordApp.Visible
    If Err Then Exit Do

    Debug.Print ".";

    DoEvents
  Loop
  On Error GoTo 0
  Debug.Print

  DoEvents
End Sub

Sub CreateWordAppObject()
  Dim IsGlobalValid As Boolean, N As Integer, Doc As Object
  On Error Resume Next
  IsGlobalValid = WordApp.Visible
  If Err.Number Then Set WordApp = Nothing

  On Error Resume Next
  Set WordApp = GetObject(, "Word.Application")
  On Error GoTo 0

  If WordApp Is Nothing Then
    Debug.Print "Starting Word"
    Set WordApp = CreateObject("Word.Application")
  End If

  Set Doc = WordApp.Documents.Add
  For N = 1 To 10
    Doc.Content.Text = Doc.Content.Text & "Word " & N
  Next N

  DoEvents
End Sub

EDIT2

Here is a video that shows how the problem reproduces. Before starting recording I have created a new file and added a new module. Then the video shows that I pasted the code and stepped through the code. I only use the mouse to step through the code, so it's clearer than if I used keyboard shortcuts.

In this case it decided to stop at (maybe) all the COM accesses.