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
    2017-10-12T21:21:20+00:00

    Is there a way to just disable the message? as there are user who don't need the notification.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-10-04T16:36:42+00:00

    The problem with Excel is that it throws up an error immediately it encounters the clipboard being in use by another Application instead of waiting a reasonable length of time for the other application to finish what it is doing and release the clipboard. It seems that Microsoft programmers are the only ones who do not understand how to use the Windows clipboard!

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-10-04T16:02:06+00:00

    When I close Outlook, Excel works fine, but as soon as I open Outlook, the clipboard is broken.  It doesn't only show it 1 time, it shows the error every time I try to drag items in Excel.

    I had to switch from Outlook to Thunderbird to fix my problem.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-09-28T17:28:46+00:00

    Hey everybody, I had something different happen today.

    In my spreadsheet, I copy the whole line, like line 31.

    I highlight the line, right click the mouse & box opens, click on copy.

    The thing is, the line has nothing in it.

    I go to where I want to put the empty line and right click again & click on insert Copied Cells. The line is inserted.

    But if I do this with data in any of the boxes in the line, I get the “There's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still paste your content within this workbook."

    Has this happened to anybody else??

    Microsoft, when are you going to fix this??

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