Excel 2016 - Cannot type anything into a cell all of a sudden

Anonymous
2017-04-14T07:08:05+00:00

Hi,

I am experiencing a problem with Excel 2016 that is really frustrating.

I am working normally in excel 2016, when all of a sudden I cannot type anything into a cell. If I press Ecs nothing happens. I do not have macros, nor protected sheet or cells. I am working with multiple (2 or more) open excel files at the same time. I tried to figure out, if I press some combination of keys that would cause this, but found nothing. I, however, can move the mouse over the sheet and click different cells. I think the arrow keys work as well.

The strange thing that always "solves" the problem is pressing Enter. Pressing the Enter opens another Excel file that is already opened, and after simply going back to the first one, I then can work on normally. This can occur once, twice but sometimes even 10-times in a single day! Just terrible.

This is time demanding, many times I write into a cell and then see that the cell is still blank, I press the enter to make it work again, going back... - I cannot work like this.

When I was working with the same files in Excel 2013 and 2010 I hadn't have experienced such problems. 

I already read some other forums with people experiencing the same problem, but haven't found any solution yet.

Do you have any?

Thank you!

P.

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-09-18T06:58:42+00:00

    Dear Cliff,

    this thread has been opened since April 2017 and no solutions nor any reply from you.

    When can we expect to get a reply from Microsoft about this matter?

    Thank you.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-09-08T12:41:46+00:00

    Cliff, why do you/MS ignore an ongoing issue?

    Pretty reprehensible

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-07-21T11:47:05+00:00

    I had the same problem and found that I was stuck in End Mode. I had been using the Numeric Pad but not with Num Lock on.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-12-06T19:55:51+00:00

    From my experience, this seems to happen when you have more than 1 excel doc open. The only workaround found so far is...when a doc becomes unresponsive to input or other ways, click on another doc's cell, and then go back to the doc you wanted to input to. Should be able to then.

    Hey, Microsoft -- this problem has been going on for quite a while. You have not responded in any fashion, as far I can tell. What gives here? We are your customers, don't you think this number of people with the same problem would warrant some response? Hmmmm.....Buehler?

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-09-03T07:43:30+00:00

    Got a few users here in Finland with the same problem. The laptops are running Finnish versions of Windows and Office, so it is not a locale / language specific issue restricted to English versions of Excel, it is clearly a core-code issue.

    Whenever my users have this Excel "keyboard lock-up" issue, I have advised them to open a new tab within the Excel sheet they are on, then simply close it, and, as with people here, the keyboard "magically" works again.

    As there are 200+ posts so far (and counting), it is odd that no-one in the Microsoft support team is responding anymore. I really hope this gets looked at soon, as clearly there is an issue, and just ignoring it is not going to make it go away! Maybe a "not fit for purpose" class action suit will get their attention instead?!

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