Excel Custom list popup doesn't work

Question

Hi,

A student of mine has an issue with Excel 365. Excel doesn't accept the fill series or it won't sort. So I figured out that there was a problem with the "custom" list.

as Cindywang_666 discussed in this topic:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/excel-custom-list-not-working/e47a5127-7c6f-445d-b224-d66c495015ed

I'm not able to open the pop-up window under File>Options>Advanced>General>Edit Custom Lists

I can click on the "button" but no window with custom lists appears.

We updated Office but still the problem remains.

However opening Excel in safe mode solved the whole fill series & sorting issue, so I presume in safe mode the custom lists are in place.

Any thoughts / Help on the matter would be nice!

Answer 1

So another techy student solved the puzzle, here are his "instructions" so maybe some other people can solve the above issue:

To do a Microsoft Excel factory reset there are several issues

one of them the sync all over the system so even if u delete and reinstall the previous changes will be automatically added.

to solve this you have to find the connected data in the windows registry files and erases them and after reinstall the excel

in this case you can start over clean again

you can do trough the windows registry editor or in the terminal with commands

I hope my short explanation can help :))

Answer 2

Hi,

Thanks for posting in our community.

We went through your post carefully and do understand the issue that Custom List box can NOT pop out via clicking Options>Advanced>General. If so, from our tests, the box can also pop out from Data>Sort>Custom List in Order column. May I know if this way will also fail to open the box on your side?

If so, as you mentioned the issue won't appear in Office Safe Mode, then the issue can be caused by some add-ins. See: Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC (microsoft.com) If so, the next troubleshooting step to locate which add-in exactly caused the issue is to manually uncheck the add-ins. See: Add or remove add-ins in Excel (microsoft.com)

If I made the misunderstanding that the issue appear in Office Safe Mode but won't appear in Windows Safe Mode, then the issue can be related to some background programs from system side like default settings and basic device drivers that had conflict with the customize list feature in Excel.

Feel free to post back if there have anything else I can do for you. Hope you a nice day!!

Best Regards,

Mia

Answer 3

I have same issue, however in safe mode it works all well. I have removed all addins which didn't required admin rights. Back to normal mode and issue is still there. what else i can check?

Answer 4

Hi Mia,

so as for the problem you are right, no popup window shows after clicking on the Edit custom list button.

I tried your suggestion of going via Data>Sort>Custom List but to no result, I just can't select "custom list"; as in there is no action following this selection

allso tried the addins, no addins are beeing used on the computer. So this doesn't solve it.

Lastly we have repaired the Office app (both quick & online repair) but still the "custom list sorting" doesn't work.

Answer 5

Hi MH8632,

Thanks for posting back and sharing the updates that the issue persists even after the Office Repair process.

In this situation, the following troubleshooting steps are Windows Safe Mode and Windows Clean Boot, which will restart the PC in selected startup programs and extensions so it can help to narrow down the cause of the issue further.

See: Start your PC in safe mode in Windows (microsoft.com)

How to perform a clean boot in Windows (microsoft.com)

Meanwhile, as it seems like there have some other customers who are facing a similar issue, please provide the detailed product version of Excel so engineers can further investigate the issue from our sides to confirm it is not a potential bug or something related to specific licenses. Share the screenshot in Excel>File>Account page.

Appreciate the kind patience and understanding. Feel free to post back with us and we will offer the further support.

Best Regards,

Mia