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

Anonymous
2016-11-17T14:55:36+00:00

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.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-02-28T16:18:43+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
    2018-09-16T19:05:48+00:00

    Despite the explanation, this problem seems to persists. Excel is usually the only app open, and I get multiple instances of the error message, frequently on consecutive uses of Ctrl-C. I've observed a very loose association of the error with an increase in the number of cells being copied, but that is not a consistent element of the problem.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-10-12T12:37:13+00:00

    Does anyone experiencing this issue have Trend Micro Anti-Virus installed by any chance? If the majority of people here are working in an organisation that deals with card payments you may have software installed that monitors the copying and pasting of card numbers, or even prevents it.  This could be what is causing this issue.  Quite often anti-virus software causes issues with all kinds of things and not obviously, it is not always the developers fault.  Only temporarily, try unloading your anti-virus software, use Excel and try to make the issue happen, if it goes away then you know the culprit!

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-10-12T13:43:00+00:00

    The "culprit" is Excel behaving in a manner that it shouldn't..

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-10-12T13:46:39+00:00

    No, I do not use Trend Micro but do experience the problem.  Although, my experience does not seem to be as egregious as some have reported.

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