Phantom Drop down boxes in excel 2016

Anonymous
2016-01-14T14:47:08+00:00

I use lots of data validation drop down list and recently some phantom boxes have been appearing in my spreadsheets.  You can select the grey arrow but the list is empty.  You then select the cell to get the correct data validation list, which appears to overlay the the box.  Can anyone help?  I created a new spreadsheet from scratch and it appeared to have fixed it but today i opened the spreadsheet and once again i have phantom drop down lists!!!

I removed all the data validation from the cell and it still remained!

Can anyone help?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-02-13T00:56:43+00:00

    Hello Sean.

    Can you provide a sample workbook showing the issue?  Can you try with a sample workbook and remove the external references?   I don't believe they are related but it is too early to rule things out.

    Thanks

    Thao Moua (Excel Desktop)

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-02-13T00:29:53+00:00

    i save everything to onedrive. my spreadsheets open up asking to update, its then these boxes appear..as i have links in my spreadsheets to external spreadsheets...could this be issue?

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-02-12T23:59:31+00:00

    I apologize, but we have not been able to repro this bug.

    The provided VBA code is only a short term solution to remove the unwanted controls.

    Thanks

    Thao Moua (Excel Desktop)

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-02-12T23:43:55+00:00

    my workbooks are edited on a daily basis and emailed and returned, so when i get it returned it has phantom boxes.  every time i or person i've emailed workbook to forget to select a cell that does not have data validation this vba script has to be ran....this is not a feasible solution for me...or anyone....

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-02-12T23:29:10+00:00

    Obviously it is a bug in Excel, but at least this can fix existing workbooks. By using the VBA code supplied, you can erase the phantom validation boxes and then you can delete the VBA code afterwards.

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