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
    2016-11-14T18:51:37+00:00

    I think the newer is the one suggest by Freya.

    Also, all people here at our company are having the same issue.

    I have heard that this behavior is not the same out of a domain (2012 server).

    A user told me that at his house, with same excel and Windows OS version this doens't happen.

    I don't know. I don't see relation with active directory and local errors. But, that was what he said to me.

    Anyway, this is a real matter that must be fixed by MS team.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-11-02T07:58:10+00:00

    Excel 2016 | Windows 10 Home 64-bit

    I had similar problem. So what I did was I turned off the live preview feature and now the error message stops showing up. I don't know if this workaround will have the same effect on you guys but it doesn't hurt to try. I didn't disable the add-ins but you might want to try to disable/enable them to see which one works. The downside is, since the live preview is turned off, you won't get to see in real time the changes you make in terms of formatting, like when you change the font type, size, etc, but at least it got rid of that copy-paste error message.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-10-27T20:48:15+00:00

    Go to File, then Account and look at the Office Updates section towards the middle on the right. It shows the current version and also if there are any updates to install.

    (At least, that's what's shown on my excel - I've got an Office 365 subscription. )

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-10-27T05:36:04+00:00

    I think you are right about this being a cut and past issue rather than a clipboard issue.

    I use Windows 10 Pro with Office 365 and Excel 2016 on the desktop running on Suface Pro 4 with i7, 16GB RAM, 512 SSD, so plenty of capacity.

    I have elsewhere reported that I not only receive these messages (only in Excel) but also lose cell boundaries after cutting and pasting, ie, the cursor cannot identify a cell, in which case I have to find the corner of the cell then drag down as if copying to recover the boundary.

    In addition, often after filling a cell with colour I lose control by the cursor and have to log out of Excel and log in again to regain cursor use.  This problem has persisted for a year now and it is truly pathetic that it has not been resolved yet, especially since so much reliance is placed on Excel by business users.  I also use a W7Pro PC with Office 2010 and have never problems like this.  Google Apps are gaining traction all the time and MS needs to more responsive to these issues if it is to retain its customer base.

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