How to fix an issue where a black bar is covering my sheet tabs in Excel

Connor Otterbeck 135

Capture

In Excel within Citrix, a black bar appears at the bottom of the window, obscuring the sheet tabs. This issue occurs across multiple workbooks and machines, making it difficult, but not impossible, to navigate between sheets.

I have attached a screen capture from one of our users that shows the issue.

I am not exactly sure on the steps to reproduce as it seems to happen at random when switching between applications within Citrix.

This is happening since last week but is not affecting all the users at once across our business.

To attempt to fix this issue we have:

Disabled hardware graphics acceleration.
Verified no third-party add-ins are installed.
Adjusted display scaling and resolution.

Any help would be appreciated.

Edit:

Please Read:

As stated by BclemZ in a comment on T J's answer the current workaround is to switch to the semi-annual channel and downgrade to Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184). This has worked for us and we have not gotten another report of it happening since we downgraded a month ago.

However there is no official fix yet

Anonymous

2025-08-26T19:21:08.9733333+00:00

Hi guys my organization is experiencing the same issue, I was wondering if there has been a fix yet? Thank you.
Connor Otterbeck 135 Reputation points

2025-08-27T08:04:14.9733333+00:00

Hi Abishek, Currently the only workaround is to switch to the semi-annual update channel and to downgrade to office version 2506 Build 18925.20184 that was released on July 22nd which you can see here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/current-channel#version-2506-july-22
GP-1827 5 Reputation points

2025-09-15T11:06:50.82+00:00

So relieved i finally found this thread and i am indeed not going mad, Literally wasted hours on this as couldn't find any relevant mention anywhere
Connor Otterbeck 135 Reputation points

2025-09-19T12:51:33.85+00:00

I have updated the initial question with the current workaround provided generously by BclemZ
AdamPenney-7212 0 Reputation points

2025-09-26T09:04:34.5933333+00:00

I have reports from a user that a potential work around I put in place seems to have resolved the issue for them. This is for those using Citrix. I have implemented a Citrix policy "Desktop Composition graphics quality" and set this to High instead of the default of Medium.
Kühlem, Markus 0 Reputation points

2026-06-25T07:06:31.7166667+00:00

This issue is still happening on our systems. We have Windows Server 2019, users connect via RDS, our office version is Apps for Business 16.0.20026.20182 - since the last update, the black bars are back for a number of users. This is highly disruptive to the way we work.

After disabling Add-Ins, the issue is still happening.

Answer accepted by question author

Tina L 12,435 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

(The lasted update: The official workaround has been added as a comment below this answer)

Latest Update as of August 18 – Potential Microsoft 365 Service Incident

Hello @Connor Otterbeck and everyone in this thread
Thank you @Connor Otterbeck for the update in the support ticket.

According to the latest response from our Microsoft technical support, the issue we’re experiencing might be related to a broader Service Incident (SI) within the Microsoft 365 environment. However, this incident has not yet been officially published on the Microsoft 365 Service Health Dashboard.

Based on Connor Otterbeck's screenshot:

User's image

While we wait for further confirmation from our Microsoft technical support, let’s all stay patient and continue monitoring the situation.

I’ll share any new updates as soon as they become available.

Tina L 12,435 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-20T07:48:05.6033333+00:00

Hello @Connor Otterbeck and everyone in this thread.

If you have any updates or additional information regarding this issue, please feel free to reply directly under this answer.

This will help keep everything organized and ensure that others can easily follow the latest developments.

Thanks in advance for your contributions!
Tina L 12,435 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-20T08:34:51.99+00:00
Latest Update as of August 20 – Latest Update as of August 20 – Official Workaround Available
Hello everyone in this thread.

Thank you @Connor Otterbeck for providing the latest update from Microsoft Support regarding the issue where a black bar is covering the sheet tabs in Excel when running within Citrix.

According to the escalation team, the recommended workaround is to change the Office update channel to Semi-Annual (Deferred). This solution has reportedly helped resolve the issue in affected environments.

Here’s the action plan they provided:

Close all Office applications.

Open Command Prompt as Administrator.

Run the following commands:

cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun

OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Deferred

OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user

This appears to be the current official workaround, and it aligns with what some users here have already discovered.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed!

If anyone has further updates, please feel free to reply under this comment so we can keep everything organized and visible for others experiencing the same issue.
AlexM 40 Reputation points

2025-08-21T15:17:34.8+00:00

Tina L - Has Microsoft official acknowledged that this issue is being worked on and what release for the current channel this will be fixed in? I don't see anything in the release notes since Build 19029.20156 that indicates this issue has been fixed?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/current-channel
Tina L 12,435 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-22T08:53:02.9966667+00:00

Hello AlexM,

Thank you for following up and staying updated on the issue.

As of the latest update on August 18, Microsoft has not officially acknowledged the issue of the black bar covering sheet tabs in Excel when running via Citrix LTSR 2402 as a known incident on the Service Health Dashboard.

This was also confirmed in an email response from the Microsoft technical team to Connor Otterbeck, which clarified that the issue has not yet been officially recognized, and that only temporary workarounds have been provided on a case-by-case basis.

The information you saw in the release notes is accurate; there is no mention of this issue in recent builds such as 19127.20082. This suggests that the problem is still being tracked internally, and no official fix has been released.

Currently, Microsoft’s technical team has supported a few isolated cases, such as Connor Otterbeck’s, by providing temporary workarounds. However, these are not official solutions, and there is no confirmation yet that a fix will be included in an upcoming update.

Microsoft has received user feedback and reports, but there is currently no formal recognition of this as a widespread issue, nor any timeline for resolution. I encourage you to continue submitting feedback and reporting the issue via Excel to help Microsoft prioritize it.

Once again, thank you for your contribution.
AlexM 40 Reputation points

2025-08-22T09:00:38.0633333+00:00

Thanks Tina, however like many others have posted on this thread, our customers don't use Citrix and are using just Microsoft RD session hosts on 2016/2019 and Office 365.

Additionally Rolling back the version of Office 365 resolves the issue, and is the current recommended workaround?

So in don't understand why this is not an accepted as an official issue..
Mathias Hoppe 0 Reputation points

2025-09-24T10:52:02.2033333+00:00

Any updates?

We have changed to semi-annual and the black bars are gone but Copilot is not working with that channel so that is not a workaround that we can use.
I have to try and find the latest monthly enterprise channel that we can use and then disable the updates.
GP-1827 5 Reputation points

2025-09-24T11:09:10.1166667+00:00

Still no official acknowledgement from Microsoft........i suggest asking all the upset users to start reporting feedback to the issue via excel

28 additional answers

T J 10 Reputation points

2025-08-14T16:12:23.96+00:00

Just got this from MS support this morning

Confirmed issue details

Environment Affected: Windows Server 2019 RDS, Citrix, Horizon desktop environments

Excel Version: Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2507 Build 16.0.19029.20136), both 32-bit and 64-bit

Symptoms:

Black bar intermittently appears at the bottom of Excel, hiding sheet tabs

Menu/ribbon options may disappear

Theme colors not displaying in dropdowns

Issue typically occurs within 1–2 hours of Excel usage

Likely Root Cause

The issue appears to be related to UI rendering problems caused by Citrix VDA 2402 or similar virtualization layers. These platforms may mishandle Excel's graphics rendering, especially when:

Switching between applications

Using multiple monitors

Running Excel in full-screen mode

Why It Happens:

Citrix and Horizon use virtual display drivers and GPU passthrough (e.g., NVIDIA vGPU)

Driver mismatches between host and guest VMs can cause UI glitches

Hardware acceleration in Office apps may conflict with virtual drivers

Excel’s rendering engine expects consistent GPU behavior, which virtualization layers may not guarantee

Horizon 8 users with NVIDIA GPUs have also reported similar issues in Excel and Outlook

Workarounds & Fixes :

Rename Excel Cache File

Path:

C:\Users<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Excel\CatalogCacheMetaData.xml

Rename to CatalogCacheMetaData_old.xml and restart Excel

Effect: Temporarily resolves the black bar issue

Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration

Go to File > Options > Advanced > Display

Check "Disable hardware graphics acceleration"

Restart Excel

Avoid Full-Screen Mode

Use Excel in windowed mode, especially with multiple monitors

Resize or minimize/maximize the window to force a redraw

Use Keyboard Shortcuts

Use Ctrl + Page Up / Page Down to switch sheets when tabs are hidden

Switch Update Channel

Users have reported that the Semi-Annual Channel is unaffected

Consider switching from Monthly Enterprise Channel to Semi-Annual

Reset Graphics Driver

Press Win + Ctrl + Shift + B to reset the graphics driver

Helps in some cases with rendering glitches

Check Display Scaling

Set display scaling to 100%

Avoid custom scaling settings that may interfere with rendering

Below are the recommendations

Update Citrix VDA or Horizon Agent to the latest stable version

Match GPU driver versions between host and guest VMs

Disable hardware graphics acceleration in Excel

Avoid full-screen mode; use windowed mode and resize to force redraw

Switch to the Semi-Annual Channel for Excel if possible
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AsifKhetab-1868 20 Reputation points

2025-08-14T17:29:11.7566667+00:00

Thanks! did they say they are working on a fix? seems they are blaming virtual host drivers. What features will we miss by going from current channel to Semi-Annual?

Alex A 20 Reputation points

2025-08-14T18:06:37.3966667+00:00

Yeah, the blame on virtual host drivers is lazy, as this issue was never reported to us prior to the July 30th update. Some of our servers have updated to 19029.20156 and 19029.20184. So we'll see.

BclemZ 30 Reputation points

2025-08-14T20:38:13.2033333+00:00

Chiming in here since I have been banging my head over the last 3 days but I was able to correct the behavior in Excel.

Windows Server 2019 Datacenter
Office 265 ProPlus 32-bit
Citrix VDA 2203 LTSR CU5
MCS Catalog - non-persistent servers based of a base image
Citrix Workspace App Version 24.2.0.172 (LTSR 2402 no CU)
Users access via Published Desktop

Issue started in Version 2507 (Build 19029.20136) and continues in Version 2507 (Build 19029.20156) and Version 2507 (Build 19029.20184)

My experience with their "recommendations":

Rename Excel Cache File: They even say themselves that it's a temp fix. Closing Excel completely & reopening is also a temp fix.

Update Citrix VDA or Horizon Agent to the latest stable version: Update the VDA...not a quick fix & current VDA is still in support. If they meant "update Citrix Workspace App on user end points", I have updated users to 2503.10, which is the current release and it still occurs.

Match GPU driver versions between host and guest VMs: N/A in my environment

Disable hardware graphics acceleration in Excel: That is no longer in Excel options, I believe I read that it uses some compatibility list somewhere to determine if acceleration is uses. I could be wrong.

Avoid full-screen mode; use windowed mode and resize to force redraw: Tell that to end users...I can't move their cheese. But I tried this, that does not fix a thing.

Switch to the Semi-Annual Channel for Excel if possible: No input from me here, I did not attempt this.

Display scaling: I thought this to be the issue right out of the gate as our users are on Surfaces with high resolutions and they often use the recommended 150% scaling. I have scaled the laptop monitor and all external monitors to 100%. It slows it down from occurring, but issue still occurs.

What I have done to correct: Similar to switching to the Semi-Annual Channel for less updates, I opened my base image for these servers, uninstalled Office 365, reinstalled targeting version Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184), and deployed it to 1 server and have 2 users currently working without issues.

User 1: Workspace updated to 2503.10 & scaling of Surface screen is set to either 100% or 150% (tested both), with external monitors set to 100%. Published desktop is spanned across the 3 external monitors in full screen mode. No issues.

User 2: Workspace left at 24.2.0.172 (2402 LTSR with no CU) & only uses 3 external monitors scaled at 100%, published desktop spans all 3 monitors in full screen mode, Surface laptop remains closed. No issues.

User 3: Workspace updated to 2503.10 & only uses 3 external monitors scaled at 100%, published desktop spans all 3 monitors in full screen mode, Surface laptop remains closed. I left this user on our current production Citrix servers which runs Office 365 Version 2507 (Build 19029.20156). Issues!

Results:

I left everything else (VDA, Workspace, scaling) "as is" and downgraded Office 365, targeting Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184)

I put a monthly reminder on my calendar so I remember to check to see if Office has been fixed. :-)

How I accomplished it:

Office Deployment Tool added TargetVersion to the Updates Enabled option in the config XML. Here's a partial of my config XML:

<Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="1" />
<Property Name="FORCEAPPSHUTDOWN" Value="FALSE" />
<Property Name="DeviceBasedLicensing" Value="0" />
<Property Name="SCLCacheOverride" Value="0" />
<Updates Enabled="TRUE" TargetVersion="16.0.18925.20184" />
<RemoveMSI />

I also set the TargetVersion in a GPO - Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2016 (Machine) -> Updates:

I hope this helps someone. The fix was not terrible for me because we use MCS, so it was a fairly quick image update, test, and push.

AsifKhetab-1868 20 Reputation points

2025-08-14T20:45:07.0933333+00:00

When uninstalling Office and reinstalling Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184), do users need to sign back into 365 (in an RDS environment)?

BclemZ 30 Reputation points

2025-08-15T10:23:59.09+00:00

AsifKhetab-1868, I would not perform the rollback with active users on the server; the uninstall required a reboot. I also rebooted after the reinstall even though I wasn't prompted to reboot.
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AlexM 40 Reputation points

2025-08-14T10:39:56.3566667+00:00

Getting exactly the same issue reported.

Windows Server 2019
Microsoft Office 365 version 2507 build 19029.20156
We don't use Citrix - users connect via RDP

The only application which appears effected is Excel.

Work around seems to be close excel and re-open it multiple times and its hit/miss if this resolves the issue for a short time, but it always comes back eventually.

Also noted that in addition to the black bar covering the sheets in the workbook, the minimise/maximise and close button also don't display correctly, which also looks to be an issue on Connors original screengrab.
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Dean Lofthouse 10 Reputation points

2025-08-14T01:12:43.51+00:00

Hi All,

We are also seeing this. We have temporary fix but as yet have not investigated further.

Ask the user to close all instances of excel then rename the CatalogCacheMetaData.xml to old or something similar. Restart excel all is OK.

C:\Users%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Excel\CatalogCacheMetaData.xml

Again only a temporary fix.
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Cody Deeg 5 Reputation points

2025-08-14T06:27:03.5233333+00:00

A lot of my clients are also experiencing this issue. When you say temporary fix do you mean that it comes back after some time?

Dean Lofthouse 10 Reputation points

2025-08-14T06:33:08.26+00:00

Correct, when we apply the fix the user seems to be okay for the rest of the day but may again experience the issue on next login.

Connor Otterbeck 135 Reputation points

2025-08-14T10:49:45.1333333+00:00

Has this been consistent when you've replaced the cache on each user or does the time it takes for the issue to reoccur differ between users?

Just asking as I am looking to see if this works for us at all.

Cody Deeg 5 Reputation points

2025-08-14T11:08:48.2933333+00:00

I have tried this and as Dean says, it seems to be when the user logs off or hard restarts their Excel

Connor Otterbeck 135 Reputation points

2025-08-14T11:12:41.4466667+00:00

I see, thank you very much

Is there any explanation for why this temporarily solves the issue?

Joe B 10 Reputation points

2025-08-20T08:57:09.5066667+00:00

Didn't help us on RDS Server 2019, user connect via RDP and Citrix is not used!
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T J 10 Reputation points

2025-08-13T21:27:55.24+00:00

Same issue here. Two separate sites, two different templates, both showing the Excel black bar. Timeline lines up with Richard and Alex. Infrastructure is nearly identical.

We’re running a Horizon desktop environment on Server 19 os.

Templates on Current Channel are affected. Semi-annual channel templates are fine.

Black bar shows up at the bottom of Excel, hiding sheet tabs. It’s intermittent but consistent enough to cause problems.

Already tried disabling hardware graphics acceleration, adjusting scaling and resolution, uninstalling and reinstalling Excel to the Monthly channel. Same result. It works for a couple of hours, then the issue comes back.

Anyone have a real fix or reliable workaround? Could just go back to semi-annual but copilot...

EXCEL GURUs PLEASE SAVE US. Accounting is yell...
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How to fix an issue where a black bar is covering my sheet tabs in Excel

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