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
    2017-06-12T07:50:09+00:00

    Hi Josef, I feel free.

    Your link is wrong. This is the correct link:

    https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/18508126-remove-the-pointless-message-there-s-a-problem-wi

    Since March. And nobody from Microsoft seems to take notice of it. Although it was recommended several times on the thread here on Microsoft Community to post this problem again at another place, i.e. the Uservoice.

    And since February there is a wrong, useless and not helpful post marked as "answer" here on this thread on Microsoft Community. But neither Mike Maxey nor the Forum Administration react to the request to unmark it as "Answer" and open the thread again as unanswered.

    I recommend to read my post from March 3rd, 2017 here on this thread.

    There is everything you need to know if you want to be the first to really help on this issue.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-06-10T15:42:38+00:00

    Hi Tom,

    It seems that the suggested workaround for the issue didn't take effect. May we suggest posting a feedback on this link regarding the Excel issue you have. To help you get started, here's the link. The developers should be able to take a look into the issue you repeatedly get.

    Feel free to post back should you need further assistance.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-06-07T14:41:17+00:00

    Update - Sadly, as an update to my 6/5/17 post where I thought I had solved the problem, suddenly today I resumed receiving the dreaded "There's a problem..." notice every time I attempt to copy in Excel.  It had worked fine for the past 2 days until today when I attempted to copy, for the first time, from Excel to MS Word 2016.  The initial copy worked fine.  Then, all subsequent copies resulted with the problem. Maybe this provides someone with more tech savvy some ideas about what's going on...

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-06-07T13:28:37+00:00

    So, I am NOT seeing a solution here.  

    While the error indicates I can still paste into Excel, that is not my experience.

    Please provide the workaround.

    Thank you.

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