Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action

[nileshparekh]

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.

[#2]

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

[#3]

@JLRBSanMateo 

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?

[#4]

The McAfee thing worked for me as well. Thank you!

Does this mean that in order to keep your computer/unit to maintain McAfee protection, one has to toggle that setting on and off every time you want to open an Excel spreadsheet? 

[#5]

@airborne63  a mi no me funciono incluso tuvimos que cambiar el antivirus

[#6]

@Sprybert For me, after I had opened the spreadsheets that Excel had flagged with this, (antivirus OFF), it then said that the files had been tagged as 'causing a crash' before, and did I want to open them again?   Check yes, and they will open, and remove the tag on the file.

You can them open them normally the next time.....just MY experience.  Good luck.  :)

[#7]

That worked for me too.@PWarrior 

[#8]

@teribryant, I was having the same issue. I found that when I copied the files from a streaming folder to my PC it stopped and everything works as expected. I used google drive and I think that was the issue. Pausing the streaming didn't solve the problem but moving the file to a non-shared (i.e. not streaming) folder worked.

Best wishes

[#9]

@ZenithWoman That makes sense!  I'll try that.

[#10]

@teribryant 

It does not always work.
You'll see that you'll receive the error at a moment in time.

[#11]

I appreciate your response. My case was probably caused by the McAfee's Real Time Virus scan. Turning it off resoved my issue. Someone else pointed that out some time back.

[#12]

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.

[#13]

Google Drive stream was my issue. Seems to have resolved it.

[#14]

It was that!!! Thanks!!

[#15]

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'

[#16]

I tried the steps from link .still issue persist .Can someone help pls

[#17]

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 

[#18]

@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.

[#19]

@conchcrawl 

Still MS engineers are working on it.  They are not able to fix their own issue, very strange. 

[#20]

Yea, I've never found a solution.  Sorry I couldn't help you, it's very frustrating. @conchcrawl 

[#21]

@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!