Forum Discussion
Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action
Hi there,
Whenever I copy paste special in excel, my excel file freezes and after a waiting for a few seconds to few minutes, depending on the amount of data being copy pasted, I get this error 'Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action'
I tried a few things like this but none help and the problem persists.
1st troubleshooting
1. Open the Excel sheet and go the File menu. In the File menu, click on Options.
2. An Excel Options dialog box will appear. Go to the Advanced tab and scroll down to the General area. Over there check Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE).
3. Restart Excel.
2nd troubleshooting
Tried opening Excel in safe mode
3rd troubleshooting
Removed all the Add ins
4th troubleshooting
Reinstalled MS Office.
Can someone help.
41 Replies
I had this same issue persistently when trying to open an Excel file from a fileshare. I was pasting a path like this into Windows Explorer:
\\<servername>\<foldername>\<filename>.xlsx
I created a shortcut on my desktop to this location and double-clicked it. The file opened OK without displaying the error first time.
Not sure if I got lucky, or whether it's a solution that may work for others too.
For me it was the VPN... I mainly work from home, and the "OLE action" message stopped popping up as soon as I connected to my work VPN (which should have been automatically). I suppose Excel was trying to retrieve data from a resource I have access to only when I'm on a secure/trusted connection.
nileshparekh, in my case I only ever used to get the 'Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action' error when my WiFi connection wasn't strong enough. I work from home and had to find a solution to this. I wasn't able to sit closer to my router, and I wasn't able to move the router to closer to my desk. I initially resorted to using a network cable directly from the router to my computer, but I've since also set up a mesh WiFi network in my house. I never get the error anymore. Hope this may help others who are plagued by this!
I am having the same problem. I save my file on a shard drive for work. This problem comes up every couple of months and I have to copy all of my data to a new spreadsheet. I can't copy the entire row, I have to only select the data. I've also noticed that the file size goes from about 200kb to 80000kb. None of my coworkers have this issue. We can't control any of our add-in or anti-virus settings. nileshparekh
Arietis24 I am currently having the same problem - the excel file is located on a remote MS 2019 Server and this just started a few days ago and now another user is being affected with just this one file. They have been sharing this same file for years. Did you solve your problem any help would be appreciated.
Yea, I've never found a solution. Sorry I couldn't help you, it's very frustrating. conchcrawl
- I tried all what you have , still same issue
Whenever I copy paste special in excel, my excel file freezes and after a waiting for a few seconds to few minutes, depending on the amount of data being copy pasted, I get this error 'Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action' - Google Drive stream was my issue. Seems to have resolved it.
- For me, the problem was Google Drive. I use Google files synchronized to my local folders and open the spreadsheets from there. The problem is that Google Drive tries to sync with every little change, so a large file with a macro making many changes tries to sync constantly and hangs the spreadsheet with the above message. Moving the spreadsheet to a non-Google Drive folder solved the problem instantly.
- Veo que todos los que opinaron en esta consulta desactivaron el antivirus Macafee, cosa que no creo que se la solucion, entiendo con esto que el problema entonces es macafee? la cuestion es que macafee no responde los correos tampoco sobre este tema... osea que no hay solucion
Si, asi es. El problema es McAfee Virus Scan. Cuando yo fue hablando con McAfee, ellos dicen que solucion es 'update' su applicacion. Para mi, esto sirve.... para usted...quien saben?
airborne63 a mi no me funciono incluso tuvimos que cambiar el antivirus
nileshparekhJust a note that the Azure Information Protection plug in may also be causing it. Disabling it fixed the same problem I was having for a user on our end.
Live_Undead Where do I find this Azure Protection Plug?
This might be an old issue but my recent experience with this error:
Testers with my macro got this error and the issue was testers did not have modify access to the network folder where workbook was opened and saved. Hope this helps.
