A family of Microsoft spreadsheet software with tools for analyzing, charting, and communicating data
Use this troubleshooting path in order for the affected Excel 2019 devices:
- Check whether Paste Options is disabled in Excel.
- Open Excel.
- Go to File > Options > Advanced.
- Under Cut, copy and paste, make sure Show Paste Options button when content is pasted is selected.
- Test Excel in Safe Mode to check for an add-in conflict.
- Close Excel.
- Press and hold CTRL and start Excel, then confirm Safe Mode.
- Try copy/paste again.
- If paste works in Safe Mode, disable add-ins one at a time until the conflicting add-in is found, then leave it disabled or uninstall it.
- Close all web browsers and test again.
- Browser processes can conflict with Paste Special behavior in Excel.
- Install the latest Office and Windows updates.
- Recent updates can correct problems caused by outdated files and known Excel issues.
- If Excel still hangs or paste remains broken, perform an Office repair.
- Use the Microsoft 365/Office repair process from Control Panel or the Office repair guidance.
- If the issue started immediately after the Windows update and affects multiple users at the same time, test whether the update is the trigger.
- On one affected PC, review Settings > Windows Update > Update history.
- If the problem clearly began after a specific update, test removing that update on the pilot machine first, restart, and verify whether paste works again.
- This should be tested on one machine before wider rollback.
- If Excel becomes unresponsive rather than only failing to paste, continue with conflict checks:
- Perform a selective startup (clean boot) to identify a background process or service that conflicts with Excel.
- Check whether antivirus integration with Excel is causing the issue. Disabling antivirus integration can reduce conflicts, but this has security risk and should be done carefully.
If all three users were updated on the same date and the issue appeared at the same time, the most likely paths are:
- a conflicting add-in loaded in normal mode,
- a Windows update side effect,
- or another background process/security integration affecting Excel.
- Paste Special option is missing or not working in Microsoft Office
- Excel not responding, hangs, freezes or stops working
- Excel not responding, hangs, freezes or stops working
- Excel not responding, hangs, freezes or stops working
- Excel not responding, hangs, freezes or stops working
- Bug in Windows File Explorer - Microsoft Q&A