"there's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still paste this content within this workbook"

Anonymous

Perhaps someone could direct to a discussion where this has been tackled, but I keep getting this error "there's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still past this content within this workbook " with simple cut/copy and paste actions in Excel. The error box pops up and an alert sounds (which is super annoying) after every paste. I can still perform the actions however my selection is not highlighted and I can't be sure that I have selected the correct information until I do a paste in the same, or another, worksheet. I have Excel 2016 in Office 365 on a machine running Windows 10.

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Anonymous

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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202 additional answers

Anonymous

2018-08-11T13:24:38+00:00

i disagree with Mike Maxey on this. I am using Excel currently (office 365) and i got this message 6 times back to back while trying to use Format Painter on the same page, from one line to the next. i am also not using any other program that is locking clipboard that i am aware of. i have Outlook open for my emails, but am not currently copying anything from that.

additionally, why is clipblard locking to anything? as a default, it should pull the requested data to the clipboard each time you give the command to. that may be something Microsoft would want to look in to.

this alert is simply maddening.
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Anonymous

2018-08-07T19:00:22+00:00

Any updates on this- because I still get this constantly. I have open up to 5 spreadsheets at a time and receive this message constantly.
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Anonymous

2018-08-01T23:35:00+00:00

I don't work for Microsoft (they canceled an interview at the last minute and have ignored my applications since), so I can do nothing to fix the error message.

However, they should be able to fix the problem. It is their bug in Excel. If they cared enough to fix it.

And I did give a workaround. Click on a different cell, press Esc, and then select and copy the cell or region you want. That's the best I can do.
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Anonymous

2018-08-01T22:27:47+00:00

Can anybody believe that this problem has been going on since November 2016??

UNBELIEVABLE!! It's like Microsoft's Engineers are STUCK ON STUPID. How is it a difficult concept to grasp that the flashing of this error message should be something I can TURN OFF. Especially since this warning seems to be much to do about NOTHING. It only serves as a way to slow down productivity.
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