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A very unusual problem haunts my colleague
From time to time when she works with Excel 2010 (numerous workbooks, some of them quite large), the computer "decides" to undo everything that was done since the last save. You can see on the screen how past actions are being undone one after another. After that they cannot be redone back, as the button is grayed out. I've never seen such problem on any other PC I've worked on, but I witnessed with my own eyes how this happened on hers.
A Quick look at opened workbooks didn't show any VBA macros. I didn't look inside every worksheet though--as there were probably a hundred or so of them. I also suspect this has nothing to do with macros as running a macro immediately clears Undo list. This happens not too often, probably once in week or so and I cannot replicate this because it happens sporadically and just on one PC.
Just for clarification - this happens when file is opened. Not when it is saved and reopened (which was a problem some time ago with shared workbooks).
Any ideas what causes this?
Where should I look for clues?
Dennis Sakva
Posted 2014-05-28T13:45:14.620
Reputation: 241
Today is April Fools!? Try saving the worksheet locally and see if it happens. Perhaps too many users sharing the workbook. Try converting over to a database like SQL Server to handle sharing data better, or use Google Sheets which is better with concurrent usage. – Sun – 2016-04-01T17:52:46.583
This has happened twice this week to a co-worker working on a local file (on desktop) running the latest Office 365. Nothing conclusive seems to have come from this thread thought, except that it is likely an Excel bug. If that is the case, it still exists in the latest version (Feb 2017). I kind of expect this with cloud synced files, but not with a desktop / local file. – radsdau – 2017-02-06T01:21:07.160
2Sorry, are you saying things undo like it is being animated? You can see each step being undone? – Dave – 2014-05-28T14:18:26.957
Are the workbooks being saved/stored on your colleague's local hard drive or on a network drive/cloud? – P Fitz – 2014-05-28T14:23:52.083
Try disabling macro's completely (I know you've searched for VBa). See if occurs on another machine but the same work book – Dave – 2014-05-28T14:24:54.917
Hi Dave, you are right. You can see step after step as previous actions are being undone. This happens quickly but you can still see individual steps. – Dennis Sakva – 2014-05-28T15:05:25.250
Peter, workbooks are stored on a network drive. – Dennis Sakva – 2014-05-28T15:06:08.273
I tried opening some of those workbooks but the frequency of the error is so low that I couldn't reproduce it. Just opening set of workbooks doesn't trigger it. It happens randomly. As if some other program stars spamming Ctrl-Z into Excel. – Dennis Sakva – 2014-05-28T15:23:42.460
How clean is the keyboard? How much of the time when the machine is being used is Excel the front most application? Has it ever happened with another program? – Jason Aller – 2014-05-30T17:29:18.623
@DennisSakva, you need to 'ping' when you reply, I had no idea you had replied. Use the
@and then type in their username to ping. Since we're replying to your post, we don't actually need to use the@but I do as an example. However, you do need to use it to let us know you've replied. – Dave – 2014-06-02T08:11:23.8301I know it's not easy to replicate, so your findings will take time. First off, copy the file to another computer and see if the issue persists. This will limit it to file or not. On the faulting computer, under the trust center, disable all macros (I know you've checked but, just to test it). You could also try disabling the Auto Recovery option in Excel. – Dave – 2014-06-02T08:12:11.660
Where are the files being saved too? – Dave – 2014-06-02T08:19:44.390
Hmmm. One of my answers seems to be missing. @JasonAller The keyboard is quite new. Excel, Word and Chrome are used roughly equally. It happens only with Excel spreadsheets. – Dennis Sakva – 2014-06-03T09:56:48.257
@DaveRook. Thanks Dave for your help! The problem is that files are on the network drive and used (concurrently) by several users. And it's not one file particularly. The UNDO is applied to all open and unsaved files. Disabling Macros are not an option as they are used in some spreadsheets to generate Graphs, extract data from other workbooks. But I know those Macros as I edited them. Files are saved to network drive. – Dennis Sakva – 2014-06-03T11:26:15.847
4@DennisSakva, ah, this is actually well documented (well, I should say well complained about) on the forums... the MS Answers site has this question repeatedly. I'm sorry, I think this is a bug with Excel and it's version control... and only MS can fix this! – Dave – 2014-06-03T11:58:48.080
Oh really? Looks like your search skills are much better then mine. I couldn't find even a single case of such behaviour. Thanks! – Dennis Sakva – 2014-06-04T18:11:33.310