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
    2017-06-19T11:25:07+00:00

    The Microsoft team have been yanking our chains for the last 4 years, and will continue to keep us dangling for the next 4 years.

    This problem is not going to get fixed.

    Microsoft have a vast team of programmers and billions of dollars ......... and is it fixed yet? No, because the people at Microsoft that are 'dealing' with this are incompetent. They should be ashamed of themselves.

    Wah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Steve

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-06-16T23:35:19+00:00

    Had some computer problems so Windows 10 Pro had to be reinstalled. And I had to reinstall Microsoft Office 365 Personal. Made sure I was at Version 1705.

    Opened Excel to a file I use everyday. Had to do some copy/paste and I got the dreaded box telling me of the clipboard problem.

    I have made Twitter posts asking Microsoft WHY they have not fixed this error. All I get back is for me to "Follow . . ." so that they can monitor the problem. I even ask, does Microsoft know that this problem is going on. The reply was yes.

    Why is it not fixed Microsoft??

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-06-16T19:51:46+00:00

    See my comment below yours to see if there is any similarity with your situation.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-06-16T19:50:45+00:00

    I began experiencing this problem today (June 16, 2017). I reported this via the Microsoft Feedback process as discussed later in this thread (although for some reason they posted it in the NFL app section and not Excel).  Anyway, I have discovered a "work-around" in my case.  

    There have been a number of comments through time on this error message that say the issue is caused by "clipboard listeners" so I did a little looking around. I discovered that Beyond Compare (a tool I used to compare folders and files) has a "clipboard compare" tool that runs all the time and so I "guessed" that it may be the listener that was causing Excel trouble. So I disabled it and my Excel problem went away.

    Beyond Compare has an option to disable running the clipboard compare at run time.

    If you want to see if this will resolve your problem and you use Beyond Compare -- look for BCClipboard.exe in your Task Manager while you are having the Excel problem -- end BCClipboard.exe via Task Manager -- try again and if Excel works, then the work-around is to change the Beyond Compare option -- uncheck "Run Clipboard Compare on Windows Startup."

    It still seems (since this Excel issue has come up for years) that Excel is being too sensitive.

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