Summary: This guide helps you resolve Excel not responding and frequent Excel freeze issues in Excel on Windows 10. It mentions some effective solutions to repair Excel and resolve Excel is not responding problem. These solutions will also help you fix Excel crashing problem while working on the spreadsheet.
Similar to any other program, you may experience problems with Microsoft Excel while opening or working on a document. Sometimes, it may not start at all or freeze and display an error message such as ‘Excel is not responding’. When it happens, you may want to wait for the program to respond.
Tip: If you are experiencing Excel not responding problem with a particular Excel file, it’s quite possible that the file is corrupt or partially damaged. And thus, leading to an Excel freeze or crash problem. Use Stellar Repair for Excel software to quickly repair and restore Excel (.xls/.xlsx) file in its original, intact form. You can download the free trial version of the software from the below link.
But if Excel doesn’t respond after a while and remains stuck, you need to force close the program from “Task Manager”. Now, this could be disastrous if happens while you are working on an important Excel document that took you hours to prepare. Force closing Excel due to such error can damage the Excel document and it may fail to open next time.
Excel may stop responding, freeze, or crash suddenly due to several reasons. It can happen while saving a spreadsheet or opening an Excel document. It may also occur while editing or inserting images, graphs, etc. But usually, it occurs when the system crashes or shuts down abruptly while you are working on a document. Here’s an instance,
Suppose, you worked overnight on a critical document which is to be presented at a meeting the next day. This Excel spreadsheet includes critical graphs and charts, and much more. When you are about to save it, there is a power failure, and your system shuts down without warning. When the power is up, you restarted the system to check your Excel. To your dismay, a message pops up – “Excel Crashed” or “Microsoft Excel not responding”.
This could be frustrating. However, there is no need to despair as there are solutions to not just overcome this error but other corresponding issues such as Excel freezing, hanging, crashing, etc. Below is an infographic that quickly briefs all the possible solutions to fix Excel not responding error.
Follow the solutions discussed below in the given order to fix Excel freezing and hanging issues.
If Excel is not working as intended and frequently stops responding, you may try to start Excel in Safe Mode. It is a common DIY way to fix ‘Excel is not responding’ problem.
In Safe Mode, Excel starts with only essential services, bypasses certain functionalities and doesn’t load the add-ins, which might be the reason behind the error in MS Excel . To open and troubleshoot Excel in Safe Mode:
Open the Excel file and check if it still crashes. If not, the problem could be a faulty add-in or formatting and styling error.
Proceed to the next solution to check and fix the problem.
In Microsoft Excel, there are two types of add-ins:
Both types of add-ins can cause the freezing problem in Excel . Follow the steps below to disable unwanted and faulty add-ins:
If Excel doesn’t freeze, enable subsequent add-in and then again use Excel to observe it. Repeat the steps until you find the faulty plugin, which is causing the problem.
Then remove it from Excel add-ins to resolve the problem.
This problem may also occur if Windows and MS Office are not updated. Therefore, install the latest updates for both Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.
You can set the installation and update option to ‘Automatic mode’ in Windows. This will download and install critical updates for MS Office, which might fix the Excel performance issue. The steps to enable automatic updates are as follows:
After update, restart Excel and check if the problem is resolved.
NOTE: From now on, MS Excel will also get the latest update consistently, without the need for manual intervention.
Antivirus is important for device safety. However, if your antivirus conflicts with MS Office apps such as Excel, it could lead to Excel freezing and not responding errors.
To check if the problem is due to anti-virus, disable it and reopen the Excel document. Check if Excel performs well or if it still hangs.
If the problem is resolved, contact your antivirus software provider for help to keep antivirus running without affecting the system and other programs such as MS Excel.
Although it may seem irrelevant, changing the default printer is another easy and effective solution to overcome the error. Reason being, Excel communicates with the printer to find supported margins when we open an Excel sheet.
If Excel doesn’t find the supported margin, it may stop responding or crash. The steps to change the default printer are as follows:
Reopen the Excel document to check whether the error occurs or not.
A corrupt or damaged Microsoft Office can also cause the ‘Excel is not responding’ problem. You can resolve this by repairing the Microsoft Office files. The steps are as follows:
This may take a while. After the repair is done, check your Excel program and file for the error.
Sometimes, repairing MS Office may not work. In such a case, removing and reinstalling Microsoft Office can resolve the ‘Excel is not responding’ problem. To do so, follow these steps:
Then run the MS Office installation setup to re-install MS Office on your system.
In several situations, a corrupt or partially damaged Excel (XLS/XLSX) file is the cause of this error. In such a case, you can download and install Stellar Repair for Excel to repair the corrupt or damaged Excel file. By repairing the Excel file, you can resolve the Excel freezing error quickly without applying much efforts.
The steps to use the software for Excel file repair are as follows:
And keep Stellar Repair for Excel installed on your system. You never know when you might need this handy tool.
You may also refer to Microsoft support for more details on Excel not responding, hangs, freezes or stops working issues.
Conclusion
Now that the methods for fixing the ‘Excel is not responding’ error are before you, try all these and see which one works for you. If the cause of this error is a damaged or corrupt Excel file, only repairing the XLS/XLSX file can resolve the issue.
For this purpose, it’s recommended to use a reliable software such as Stellar Repair for Excel as it offers an easy-to-use interface, thereby making Excel file repair process a seamless experience.
The software recovers table, chart, chart sheet, cell comment, number, text, shared formulas, image, formula, sort and filter, and other objects. It also preserves worksheet properties, layout, and cell formatting. It can repair multiple XLS/XLSX files simultaneously and fix all Excel file corruption errors.
All these features extend the software capabilities beyond just fixing the ‘Excel not responding’ error.
Problem solver and Data recovery specialist. Usually share informative articles on data recovery, database corruption and ways to recover lost data.
I did 1st option for fixing my Office 2016 and it seems to finish 100% repairing. Thank You!
Good!
But, a “safe mode” is not sufficient for all cases. In case of severely damaged Excel file, you need the instant help of Stellar Repair for Excel Software.
Thanks for the great article. So many options to fix the problem. My file was severely corrupted and Stellar Excel repair helped me to repair my file.
Hello James,
Thanks for sharing your experience!
It’s good to know that, our software worked for you.
Why did it happen in newly purchased Excel 2016 package? Is it a bug?
Hi Maria,
It is not a bug. You can experience this error due to common reasons like power failure, an improper close of application etc. At the initial stage, you should run inbuilt repair option.
While printing from Excel or word 2016 it is giving the error “Microsoft Office has stopped working “.
I have checked in safe mode and by uninstalling and repair the office also its giving same error.
I have uninstalled the office and installed freshly but no result, I tried all option which is mentioned above and changing settings in regedit(word rename) but same problem.
I uninstalled the printer drivers completely and installed again but the same problem, the print is working from pdf, notepad etc..only MS office giving the problem.
we are using MS office 2016 standard version
Printer: HP LJ 1020
Kindly help me!
Hi Anji,
Don’t panic for this one error!
You can try some useful tricks as follows:
1. Open Excel in Safe Mode
2. Change settings of Default Printer
3. Diagnose Latest Updates
4. Unwanted Add-ins
5. Run Repair Office
6. Clash with Anti-virus update
If a problem still exists then I suggest analysis of Excel file through a free demo of Stellar Repair for Excel .
Alter Default Printer solved annoying error i.e. ‘Excel Not Responding while formatting cells’.
Hi Arun,
Thanks for sharing your practical experience with us.
Our team always publish informative guides related to Excel and other database files. To read the latest tutorial, you can subscribe our blog.
Your mode of describing everything in this post is really nice, all be capable of simply understand it, Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much for your kind words.
Keep Reading!
Excel was giving me “Excel not responding” error message abruptly while working on spreadsheets which was leading me to get extremely frustrated, so after I came across your article, I tried the first three solutions, but they were not able to solve the issue however after I disabled all the plugins installed, it started to work perfectly.
Thanks for helping.
Dear Regin,
Thanks for your kind words.
Keep Reading!
Thanks Jyoti!
Opening the file in Excel safe mode did the magic but I think I’ll still have to ultimately reinstall my office since I’m experiencing this problem in the whole Office suite.
Dear Jack,
Thank you so much for your feedback.
Keep reading!
I tried all options before landing on this page. Stellar Repair for Excel software did a fantastic job.
Hello Mentor,
Thanks for your the valuable comment.
Keep Reading!
Hello Jyoti,
These manual options are not working for me. Should I buy this software?
Hello Kim,
As no manual options are working for you, so you can try the demo version of Stellar Repair for Excel software because you can see the repairable information in the preview option.