Clipboard problem in Excel 2016

Anonymous
2016-04-16T23:39:19+00:00

I am running Excel 2016 on a Windows 10 Machine.

When I copy a cell (or cut a cell, or move a cell) I get one of two error messages:

"Cannot open the Clipboard"

"We couldn't free up space on the Clipboard.  Another program might be using it right now." 

I am then able to successfully paste what Excel told me it could not copy.  To restate for clarity...Excel throws error messages, but I am able to successfully copy and paste.

The problem is that it throws the error messages every single time I try and copy or cut or whatever.

Things I have tried:

I've ensured all other programs are not running (or using the clip board)

I've cleared the %temp% folder

I've cleared the Clipboard within Excel

Word does not have this problem...

Please help.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-02-28T16:18:02+00:00

Hello,

I have an update on this error dialog: “There's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still paste your content within this workbook."

When Excel shows this dialog after a copy (CTRL+C) action, it means that another app has a lock on the system clipboard.  In this situation you can still paste within Excel.  However you cannot paste to another app like Word or Outlook which uses the clipboard.

Last year we made some improvements to Office365 users so that this error message only shows once per Excel instance.  This is based on customer feedback - the design change prevents it popping up multiple successive times when the clipboard is locked.  We have also considered never showing the error dialog, but there was user feedback that this message is informative and helpful in some cases. 

We hope this helps shed some light on this error message.  For any design suggestions or new ideas on improving the Excel copy-paste experience, please post to Excel UserVoice.

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-10-26T19:28:10+00:00

    Baloney!

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-09-03T10:37:39+00:00

    It’s now Sept 2018 and I am experiencing this annoying problem. How do I fix it? Also, I am unable to scroll up or down. Any suggestions?

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-07-23T20:02:50+00:00

    What is astounding to me is that this problem has been going around since April 2016 (date of the original post), and yet no one in the Office365 team has been able to figure out a solution. This is so utterly... disappointing.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-07-23T19:58:33+00:00

    I get this error when try to Insert Copied/Cut Cells. It happens both when I use the keyboard shortcut and when I right click and choose the command.

    I click out of the error window and what I was trying to insert as a new row overwrites my selection instead.

    The workaround I've found is to manually create a new, empty row, then do a regular paste into that row and delete the source row later. However when you multiply this by how often I do it, the extra steps and lack of a quick keyboard shortcut are time-consuming and annoying.

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