Clipboard problem in Excel 2016

Anonymous

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.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

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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255 additional answers

Anonymous

2017-03-03T00:32:33+00:00
What kind of answer is this, come on guys, it is ridiculous for a product like Excel to have such a glaring and annoying bug. Your answer compelled me to try clearing my clipboard only to find the answer here is nonsense - and the waste of my time adds insult to injury - the error shows over and over, no matter what the clipboard state is at the beginning, please fix it!!!!

While you are at it please fix the Excel clipboard behavior all round, such these two:

1 There being some kind of "time out" for pasting in Excel, so that I never know if paste will work if I don't hurry. What if I want to look through a long spreadsheet and paste the same thing over and over? Or stretch my legs before i paste?
1. When I use cntrl drag to copy the contents of one cell to another, not only do I get the error message, but it also clears the clipboard of anything I may have been working with from any other apps.
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Anonymous

2017-02-27T17:17:27+00:00

My problem was also fixed by disabling clipboard use in a VNC viewer (a different one from the one shown, but the same idea). I've re-enabled the option, and the problem hasn't come back in Excel, even after closing Excel down and restarting it.
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Anonymous

2017-02-26T15:48:09+00:00

Yes it is dreadful.

Why has it gone on for so long? Why is it not fixed?

I will tell you.

NO ONE AT MICROSOFT ACTUALLY GIVES A DAMN ABOUT THIS ISSUE.

All their concern is just meaningless bull.

Steve
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Anonymous

2017-02-26T08:56:04+00:00

This is an absolute horror. I am copy/pasting some cells using Excel clipboard within Excel, cell by cell, and I am using "Paste All" function. Whenever I download a spreadsheet from Google Analytics, "Paste All" function starts malfunctioning. It does not paste all cells. It means that again some program or process in interfering in clipboard, which should not be allowed of course. I am using Mozilla Firefox for this purpose because Microsoft Edge frequently freezes my PC so I need to shut it down (another "great work" from Microsoft engineers).

So it could be a Firefox, Flash, Java or any other number of processes that is causing this.

This never happened in Windows 7.

We all already concluded in this thread that the problem is in Microsoft Excel, which allows other programs/processes to mess up with Excel clipboard while user is working with it. I wonder why it takes so long for Microsoft to solve this issue.
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