Slide show suddenly quits

Problem

You're in the middle of a presentation and PowerPoint suddenly ends the slide show and dumps you back at the editing screen or goes back to edit mode and displays a "Resume Slide Show" window.

Solution

This can be caused by a number of things.

• Flakey keyboard - try using a different keyboard if possible.
• Flakey mouse/pointing device or drivers - check for driver updates, try a different mouse
• User is accidentally tapping the touchscreen when advancing slides - try disabling the touchscreen
• Flakey remote control or interference from other remote controls or other radio devices in the area - try it without the remote. If it behaves, see if the remote can be set to a different frequency, try another remote.
• Interference from other programs

On that last one, PowerPoint MVP Bill Dilworth has this thought:

This is standard behavior whenever some other program grabs the focus (even if just for a moment). So I would look at what programs are running on this computer paying special attention to those that have periodic check functions. One major category might be your virus scanner. If this was my computer/setup, I would disconnect the computer from all networks, close all but the very essentail windows programs, and see if the behavior stops. If it does, then you know it is one of the processes that you closed.