Forum Discussion
Spin Control only increments
I have a sheet that I use for tracking statistics. Each cell contains a simple number with 0 decimal places.
I have added a spin controls in my sheet to simply increment and decrement the value of a field by 1.
As I have added and tested the spin controls, I have found that many of them will only increment the field, not decrement the value. Both the up and down buttons are visible, but when clicking the down arrow in the control, the field is incremented improperly.
Thanks for the help
16 Replies
I have the same issue with spin buttons in one of my Excel files. I have other Excel files that don’t seem to have the issue though I don’t use those files very often. To try and fix the issue a Microsoft technician ran some repair programs. After extensive testing post repair it appears this may have fixed the issue. However, the problem has been intermittent, so I’m not confident the problem has been permanently fixed. I have used spin buttons in Excel for many years and have never experienced this issue before.
- I've been stuck with this since a year now and unfortunately nothing changed. Is there someone that has found a workaround to use similar spins ? That would be great.
And hopefully Microsoft will patch this very soon. Same issue. It's been nearly a year since the first post and the issue STILL exists?!?
In my case, the spinners on rows 3 and 10 work fine. All spinners below that show the issue.
I mean ... come on, Microsoft. Maybe it's time to fix this?
- Would be really helpful if Microsoft could at least post a reply. Even if it is '...this will not get fixed' that would be helpful in planning what to do about the issue.
- I don't know if this is applicable to everyone but I noticed I can trigger this glitch when I scroll the screen up to a particular height (row 4 for me). When I move the screen up or down from that height the spinner works normally again.
Same problem here. Seems amazing MS have let this basic fault in their software go unfixed for so long. To attempt a workaround I replaced all the form control spinners on the worksheet with active x spin buttons. Bad idea! The active x controls broke after being hidden and, after a while, it seemed they would spontaneously self-destruct when moving the worksheet in any direction that was not aligned with some mystical meridian. So, its back to the equally buggy form controls and hoping for a solution. The disadvantages of the, effective, MS monopoly really bites home when these things happen.
- I'm having the same issue where sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Will try it tomorrow scrolling down rows and see if I can narrow it down. This is ridiculous.
- Same problem here. I was updating an old workbook and now the spinner only goes up. Windows 10 Pro and MS Office 365.
- It's so strange but it started doing the same thing again on day 3. I eventually got it fixed by going to start and pulling up windows update settings, then update history, and then uninstalling the latest batch of updates to windows 11 that occurred. It ask you to restart afterwards and of course it just reinstall updates on restart. However when it did that all the updates were back and I am no longer having the issue since that time. Maybe something buggy in the last update, hard to say but everything seems to be normal now.
Rayburn- Also started to see this error appearing towards the end of last year when I moved from the Desktop version of Office to M365. Still on Windows 10. Tried resizing the spin button, moving it, clearing the associated cell data validation - still can't work out how to reliably create the error or fix it. Any news on when MS will fix this?
- I also have this problem. I'm using M365 Excel + Windows 11.
I was having the same exact issue, I had 10 spinners on worksheet at first they work as intended and then after a few hours they started doing what you described, only incrementing no matter if I click the up or the down arrow.
Rather randomly by the way I happen to notice that you can get them to decrease the value if you click the very very bottom of the spinner, below the down arrow itself on the bottom border. I'm sure there is a reason for this but I can't say I know what it is.
I couldn't get them to function properly no matter what until I went into add/remove programs and found office, clicked advanced options, and proceeded to do first the repair and then reset option afterwards when repair didn't work.
They seemed to work as intended after this, well for a few hours and then right back to this frustrating behavior you described. I had a windows 11 update pending which I restarted for and now after that, they work normally again for the last day and half.
I'm not sure if any of this is helpful but I didn't really see any answers for this issue so hopefully it might.
- Rayburn
I am encountering the same exact issue (M365 Excel + Windows 11).
I found that when you resize the spin control significantly (like 3x larger), the 'click zone' of the down arrow is enlarged enough for you to hit it successfully and it will de-increment as expected.
Of course the problem is that I don't want to resize the 12 spin controls I have on this sheet and the hundreds I have in other workbooks.. And I definitely don't want them all to be 3 times larger just to get them to work!
- I'm encountering the same issue. I confirmed that when you resize the control larger it will allow you to click the down button, but then restoring the size to original goes back to only increasing. This wont be a good workaround for the end user, but it does help troubleshoot and confirm the problem.
I've seen another report of this behavior - perhaps it's a bug in a recent update.
Spin button and scroll bar form controls
You can report it from within Excel: File > Feedback > Send a Frown.
