Ribbon Unresponsive

Question

Got a really odd thing happening to me on my laptop. At the moment I am putting it down to Office, as it seems to mainly happen in there, but it has also happened in other places.

Basically, every now and then, I lose all functionality in the Ribbon. I can click through the tabs, i.e. HOME, INSERT, DRAW, etc but none of the items I click on in each tab work. i.e I click on Bold in the HOME tab and it won't bold, or I click on Picture in the INSERT tab and it won't bring up the Insert Picture wizard. The close X doesn't even let me close the workbook.

To resolve, I have to go into another application, or workbook, then go back to the original, then I get all the functionality back.

As i said it seems to mainly happen in Office but once when in Windows Explorer the ribbon in there just disappeared, I had a white area where the ribbon should have been. So couldn't close it using the X. I had to close it by right clicking on the File Explorer in the Taskbar and clicking on Close Window there, but when I went back in to Windows Explorer the Ribbon would still be missing. To resolve this I had to restart my laptop.

Some very odd goings on. Has anyone else had this and how did you resolve it?

Many Thanjs

Simon

Answer 1

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your efforts on this issue and telling us that this issue has been resolved.

As you shared the resolution with us, I would like to summarize the information about this issue so that other community members can refer easily.

Symptom:

Excel freeze and ribbon have no response.

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Environment:

Excel for Windows

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Root Cause:

A Power Query which links with a rogue file refresh automatically may lead to this crash.

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Resolution:

Change the refresh of Power Query from automatically to manually.

Have a great a day!

Regards,

Ivy

Answer 2

Hi Ivy

I think I have found out what the issue was. I had the rogue file open on my machine but wasn't working in it. I was on Google Chrome doing bits in there. All of a sudden Excel crashed and reopened itself. Which lead me to think that it might be one of the Power Query's have have linked into the file and that it was set up refresh every so often.

I went into the Querys and found one that was set to update every 15 mins. I changed this back to manual refresh and, so far, I have had no further issues.

Not sure why Power Query being on automatic refresh would affect Excel though, wasn't even a large Power Query either.

But anyway, hopefully the issue has been resolved now.

Thanks for your help.

Simon Gillham

Answer 3

Hi Ivy

Apologies for delay in coming back, it happens on my works laptop and I wasn't working at the weekend.

We've tried various things, online repair, updating windows, etc, but its still happening. Its mainly in Excel as thats what i use mainly. I rarely go into any other office application, other than outlook for my emails, but it doesn't seem to be happening there, so I am putting it down to Excel.

Today Excel has crashed on me 3 times. Each time I've not been doing anything much, but switching from one excel workbook to another.

I click into a different workbook, go to click on a cell and it doesn't do anything, then Excel just hangs, doesn't come up 'not responding' it just freezes, then all of a sudden all of the workbooks close and reopen in recovery mode.

We have a main workbook that we use, and it seems to be when we are in that workbook that it mainly happens. Its not a big workbook, just 2.5MB, but it does have links to other data sources. But that shouldn't cause a problem as they are tables in my workbook, that only update when I refresh them. So I am really confused. 

Others use the same Excel document and they don't have this issue.

Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks

Simon

Answer 4

Hi Simon， 

Have your tried my suggestion, how is issue now? 

Please feel free to contact us if you need further help. 

Regards,

Ivy

Answer 5

Hi Simon，

Sorry for the inconvenience caused by this issue.

Based on our description, Office application can’t work normally especially the Ribbon no respond and it will resolve after you change back form other program.

To narrow down this issue, we suggest you try these ways to try to fic this issue:

1. Enter Apps&Features-> Office-> Modify-> Online Repair to check the outcomes.
2.  Go to Office application like Word-> File-> Account-> Update Options-> Update Now, try to use the latest version of Office.
3. Create a new user profile to check if the local account settings affect this issue.

If the issue persists, we want to collect more information about it:

1. You said this issue happened in other places. Does it happen to all Office application?
2. Can you provide the Office Product Information to us? Please go to Word-> File-> Account-> Take a full screenshot.  Also your Windows version, you can enter Run in search bar, then input winver to check version.

3. Can you remember when did this issue happened?

Regards,

Ivy