Excel is not re­spond­ing: What to do when Excel is not working

Microsoft Excel is by far the most widely used spread­sheet software for Windows, but un­for­tu­nately the ap­plic­a­tion doesn’t always run smoothly. Excel often freezes upon opening or it suddenly stops re­spond­ing when you open a file. This issue is fre­quently caused by pre­vi­ously installed add-ins or macros and not by Excel itself. Antivirus software and Windows updates are other common causes of this error. An Excel spread­sheet that has not been saved correctly may also cause Excel to freeze.

The following solutions will usually help fix the issue if Excel isn’t working properly.

If the problem was caused by an add-in, Excel should now run smoothly. You can also use this method to re-enable add-ins one by one to identify the specific add-in that’s causing the issue. If you really need the add-in, try to install a new version of it. Otherwise, remove it or just leave it inactive until the vendor releases an update.

Third-party antivirus software can conflict with Office ap­plic­a­tions, causing Excel to freeze, fail to start, or stop re­spond­ing after startup. Some antivirus software does not recognise macros or add-ins correctly and blocks them. In many cases, a warning message is not even displayed. Check the scan log of your antivirus software to see whether it blocked Excel or an add-in. Even if you can’t find anything in the log, you should try to start Excel with the antivirus software de­ac­tiv­ated. If that solves the problem, it usually means that your antivirus software was the culprit.

Some antivirus software includes add-ins that are installed in Excel to provide ad­di­tion­al security features. However, these add-ins often conflict with add-ins from other vendors. In this case, consider which add-in is more important.

Go to the settings of your antivirus software and try to exclude Excel along with all the add-ins you want to use. You are unlikely to have any problems starting Excel and other Microsoft ap­plic­a­tions if you use the built-in Microsoft Defender Antivirus software in Windows 10 instead of third-party anti-malware programs.

Some third-party ap­plic­a­tions use Excel in the back­ground to perform cal­cu­la­tions or display tables. If these ap­plic­a­tions are not pro­grammed correctly according to the Microsoft guidelines for OLE (Object Linking and Embedding), Excel may fail to start as long as the other ap­plic­a­tion is running. If Excel is not re­spond­ing but the ap­plic­a­tion window is still open, the status bar at the bottom of the window will show that another process is using Excel. Wait until this process has finished cal­cu­lat­ing or end it (from the Task Manager, for example) for Excel to work properly again.

Microsoft has a built-in Office Repair utility. This tool fixes many problems that may stop Excel or another Office program from re­spond­ing. This feature is hidden in the Windows 10 settings under ‘Apps’. To use the Repair utility, proceed as follows:

1. Go to ‘Settings’ (via the Start menu, for example).
2. Choose ‘Apps’.
3. Search for Microsoft Office in the list of apps and features, and click on ‘Modify’.
4. Choose ‘Yes’ when prompted by User Account Control to confirm. In the next dialogue box, you can add or remove further features and repair the program.

If the repair is suc­cess­ful, you will usually be able to start Excel without any issues.

2. On the ‘Developer’ tab, click on ‘Visual Basic’. The Microsoft Visual Basic for Ap­plic­a­tions editor will appear.
3. In the Tools menu, select ‘Options’.
4. In the dialogue box that appears, go to the ‘General’ tab and select ‘Compile on Demand’ under ‘Compile’.
5. Then add an empty module. To do this, mouse over the ‘Project’ window at the top left, right-click, and select ‘Insert’ and then ‘Module’ from the context menu.
6. Close the empty window that opens and exit the Visual Basic Editor.
7. Save your current file in Excel and restart the program.

The ‘Excel not re­spond­ing’ message should no longer appear the next time you run a macro.

You may encounter problems with Excel hanging or not re­spond­ing if Excel has not been updated recently and you’re using newer macros or Windows system com­pon­ents. Follow these steps to ensure that Excel and Windows are regularly updated.

1. Press the Windows logo key and select ‘Settings’.
2. Click on ‘Update & Security’.
3. Click on ‘Advanced options’ at the very bottom of the screen. On the next screen, activate ‘Receive updates for other Microsoft products when you update Windows’. This means that when you update Windows, it will auto­mat­ic­ally search for updates for Excel and other Office com­pon­ents and install them in the back­ground, just like Windows security updates.