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

Anonymous
2020-04-08T18:30:07+00:00

I am using the Microsoft Office 365 Business desktop app, and as of this posting am running Windows 10 version 1903 (OS Build 18362.720) on this particular laptop. This problem has been witnessed across multiple computers, Windows 10 versions, Microsoft accounts, all while using the Office 365 app.

I track a lot of data in Excel and often copy cells from it and paste them into online forms, ETC. Within the last few weeks I have started getting a pop up when I try to copy a cell that says "There's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still paste this content within this workbook."

It does not seem to matter if the file is stored locally or not.

I have found that if I continue to press Ctrl+v 2 to 4 more times it usually at some point copies the data as it should, without the pop up, and allows me to paste it wherever I want.

I searched for an answer to what is going on and or if there is a solution, and found that people have been periodically having this problem for years, and but could not find a solution that worked despite a post on this site having over 20 pages of replies and over 1500 reports of having the same problem, before comments were locked due to the thread age.

I have tried repairing the app without success. I have tried updating Office, which did do an update but did not solve the problem. I've restarted the computer and Excel many times.

This is making use of Excel inefficient and annoying. I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before I and others I've spoken with that are experiencing the same thing, are not able to paste outside of the workbook at all. As is, I may as well just type everything again instead of bothering with the broken copy/paste feature.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-12-29T14:54:04+00:00

    This is completely insane. I've been having this problem for years. I just did a full fresh reinstall of Win10, hoping it might help... but nope, a few days later this and the rest of Excel's insane bugs and weirdness with the clipboard are back again.

    How is it that my clipboard is perfect in every other program, all sorts of trivial little things that most people have never heard, from all sorts of developers at all skill levels, on every OS... Yet a huge company like MS can allow this to go on for so many years, on one of the mostly widely used pieces of business software in the world, on their own OS.

    Even dragging rows to move them gives me these garbage clipboard warning modals... what does that even have to do with the clipboard to begin with?

    If MS had the resources to create the web + mobile versions of Excel, can't they at least fix some of the garbage code that's been plaguing the desktop version for so many years?

    Not always, but most of the time the modal warning is false for me. i.e. The clipboard DOES actually work. So I'm just having to repeatedly dismiss this stupid modal that's lying to me about a problem that doesn't exist. People have requested in the past to at least give us an OPTIONAL setting to disable the modal, and of course we get the usual simplistic reply about it as if anyone was asking for it to be the default. Nobody asked for that. If you aren't going to fix the problem, at least just give us a registry setting we can change to get rid of the false modals constantly interrupting complicated work we're trying to get done.

    I just have to give up on Excel. The only "solution" is to just go back to Google Sheets + LibreOffice Calc. I've wasted enough of my life trying to solve these issues and waiting for fixes. Enough is enough. Excel is unusable.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-12-06T16:36:31+00:00

    There seems to be a direct correlation to this problem when you have File Explorer open. I have an issue with this as long as it is open. AS soon as I close all File explores this problem goes away. So this tells me that there is a conflict with File explorer and excel, that causes the clip board to go wonky.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-09-17T15:38:20+00:00

    I have had this problem at home (Pro Plus 2019) and at work (O365) with or without Add-ins enabled. Mine occurs whenever I attempt to use the special paste function. I mouse over the options to find the correct one such as formula/format/etc. and it generates the error and Excel stops showing cell selections; it's like driving on a dark road without lines.

    It's certainly not related to having a subpar system, graphics card or running on virtualized devices as it's easy to reproduce with 9th & 11th gen i5/i7's, modern AMD/nVidia and integrated Intel graphics with a physical Windows 10 install (occurring for a few years and I'm currently using build 19043.1237).

    I have disabled it but it's ridiculous that there is a bug like this that has been around for so long with no resolution or acknowledgement when I have had no issue reproducing the problem.

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-08-31T10:35:39+00:00

    This problem began for me after adding an add-in. I have deleted the add-in (even deleted it from the recycle bin) and did both of the below options changes and STILL have the problem.

    Open Excel >File>option>General>under User Interface Options un-check Enable Live Preview 

    did not help.

    Open Excel >File>option>General>under Linkedln Features un-check Enable  Linkedln features in my Office applications 

    Help! Super annoying. Any updates on this issue sine April?

    thanks

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-08-08T23:06:21+00:00

    Jennifer,

    Sorry I can't help because after installing Microsoft 365 on this PC the problem returned but I turned off "live preview" and it solved the problem with the exception for the 1st Excel sheet I opened for the day.

    Thanks, Chuck

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