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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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-05T21:54:10+00:00

    There are threads all over the place, both on Microsoft support communities and in other communities on the internet. Has anyone at tech support bothered to actually test the problem on our end? Or do you people just pass along suggestions to fix the problems? I ask because I only ever hear suggestions that never fix the problem? Yet the sad thing is, the problem is so easily repeatable in EVERY SINGLE installation of Office 2016 I have come across? So have you bothered trying to replicate it?

    Create a test workbook with a few worksheets. And I mean create a few. On each worksheet create rows with dropdowns.  On each worksheet, leave the cursor on an active cell that has a dropdown. Now close Excel. Reopen Excel. Guaranteed a few of your worksheets will have phantom dropdowns. Not all the sheets every time, but some will. Interestingly, the very first worksheet won't tend to create phantom dropdowns.

    UPDATE: 03/05/2016 - <Case number removed for privacy>.

    The issue has been escalated and will be patched in a future update of Excel. It will NOT be patched in the update coming out in the week of 03/06/2016.

    ***Personal information deleted by the moderator. Please see the Microsoft Community Frequently Asked Questions for more information on how you can protect your privacy.***

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-03-05T21:43:23+00:00

    Your recommendations do not fix the problem. Even in safe mode, Excel creates the phantom dropdown boxes. Even after completely removing Office, cleaning everything up, reinstalling, ONLY running Excel in safe mode for the very first time... AND opening the excel file, it creates the phantom dropdown boxes.

    Dear Microsoft developers and tech support. This issue began in late November or early December when you did some kind of update. FIX THE PROBLEM. It is a software glitch. it is repeatable to all of us. Stop stalling.

    I DO NOT HAVE EXTRA addons and this happens!!!

    Update -

    <Case number removed for privacy>- 03/05/2016

    This issue will be patched in an upcoming patch to Excel. There is an update coming out week of 03/06, but it will NOT be in that update. This is per the tech support and development teams. 

    ***Personal information deleted by the moderator. Please see the Microsoft Community Frequently Asked Questions for more information on how you can protect your privacy.***

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-03-05T13:30:19+00:00

    Having the same problem of a dropdown arrow which doesnt disapear :-(

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-03-02T17:48:09+00:00

    I really resent that this is necessary, but it's absolutely the fix I needed. Running the second version of that script across all worksheets that used validation wiped out all of the phantom boxes, but the proper list validation drop-down functionality remained intact.

    There is no doubt that this is a bug and it certainly seems to be specific to Excel 2016.

    For good measure, I added a script that selects a "safe" (unvalidated, unprotected) cell in each worksheet on workbook save events.

    Thank you for posting this script. I've been looking for a solution for many weeks now.

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