Excel 2016 (Protected Mode) Crashing When Opening Files From Email

Anonymous
2015-09-29T23:14:57+00:00

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

  • Receive an Excel file in email (both GMail and (desktop) Outlook 2016 (using a live.com account, not a GMail one) have been tested);
  • Double click on it to open it. (Excel 2016 is already open);
  • The file opens in Excel with that irritating little "Oooooh, very dangerous! Could be scary monsters inside!" message which, I'll admit, is potentially useful for files from outside the organisation which is the only reason that I leave it on. Of course, there's no point if it doesn't actually work.

Then one of two things happens. Either

  • You go to click the Enable Editing button and Excel completely hangs on you; or
  • You get the "Excel (Protected Mode) {breathless pause...} Has! Stopped! Working! Pretending to check for a solution that has never once been found in my lifetime, please waste your time waiting" dialog.

There is nothing wrong with the file itself. I have tried with two different files, both have a problem. In both cases if instead of opening them from the Email application I save them to a trusted location I can open them without problem. But opening them directly from either browser or Outlook completely crashes Excel 2016 in a way that it didn't with Excel 2010.

Anyone else?

PS: If anyone from Microsoft responds to this post, looking into this specific question, I'll be more than happy to listen. If instead they copy and paste a script about restarting Windows in Safe Mode I may just need to throw a shoe at something.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2015-11-10T23:39:54+00:00

I just heard back from a displaylink tech support person.  Apparently they are aware of the issue.  He had me do a work around that has fixed the issue for me.

  1. Open a blank excel document.
  2. Go to file

3.  Go to options

  1. Go to advanced
  2. Under Display
  3. Check the box...Disable graphics hardware acceleration.

7.  Click apply.

This has fixed my issue until there is a driver update.

Thanks...Matt

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Anonymous
2016-02-24T04:16:51+00:00

Updated to displaylink driver 7.9m5 dated 2/23/2016 and problem was resolved for me.

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88 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-11-11T05:28:37+00:00

    I had the same problem but disabled graphics hardware acceleration in Excel according to the previous post and now I can once again preview Excel files in Outlook.  This also appears to fix previewing Word files in Outlook which were halting with the Protected Mode Crashing when Opening error.  My DisplayLink driver was updated 11/9/2015 and the problems with Excel and Word previewing in Outlook started then.  Need a new update driver for DisplayLink.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-11-10T19:54:49+00:00

    Thanks LuminalDust, I uninstalled DisplayLink 7.9M3. Docs/Excel opened fine.

    Installed DisplayLink 7.9M2. Docs open fine.

    Plugged in my HP USB dock. Docs still open fine.

    Unfortunately 7.9M2 seems to intermittently blank out my second screen, but I can open attachments downloaded from my webmail client without having to bypass protected view now.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-11-10T14:49:05+00:00

    I uninstalled the DisplayLink driver and it seems to function ok until I reinstall it. The thing is that it used to work before with my DisplayLink.

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