When opening an Excel workbook, you may encounter an error message stating that MS Excel has stopped working or is not responding. In some instances, the Excel file freezes, hangs, or becomes unresponsive. In a handful of cases, an Excel file becomes slow while printing or working on it over a network.
In this article, you will learn why your Excel not responding or has become slow. You will also find solutions to troubleshoot and fix the issue at hand.
Table of Contents
Why is the Excel file not Responding?
There are many reasons why your Excel file could have become unresponsive or frozen. Some of these are listed below:
- Faulty COM add-ins
- Incorrect/missing registries
- Issues with files in startup folders
- Outdated MS Office application
- MS Excel is in use by another process
- Performance issues due to hidden cells, formatting, invalid names, formulas, etc.
- Incorrectly generated Excel file by a third-party application
- Interference from a startup application
- Faulty MS Office files
- Antivirus program conflicting with MS Excel
Methods to Fix the Excel Not Responding or Freezing Issue
If you frequently encounter MS Excel crashing or freezing, you can try reopening the file. You can also launch Excel safe mode. Finally, you can also try to update or repair MS Office.
If you have used the above workarounds and are still facing issues with Excel, proceed with the detailed methods below.
Solution 1: Check and Remove Faulty Add-ins
If you are able to launch MS Excel in safe mode without any issues, a possibility for unresponsiveness or crashes could be faulty add-ins causing interference or conflicts with the Excel program.
You can use the safe mode to find and remove the faulty add-in to resolve the issue. Here is what to do:
- Launch MS Excel normally and go to File > Options > Add-ins.
- Select COM Add-ins from the drop-down against Manage and click Go.
- Uncheck all the checkboxes and click OK.
- Now, Press WIN + R and type exe /safe.
- It will Restart Excel in safe mode.
- If Excel doesn’t crash or freeze anymore, open COM Add-ins and enable one add-in at a time, followed by an Excel restart.
This process will help you identify the problematic add-in. If removing it doesn’t fix the issue, move to the next solution.
Solution 2: Clear Conditional Formatting Rules
If the Excel is freezing or not working after opening a worksheet, it could be due to a problem with that particular sheet. In such a case, you can try clearing the Conditional Formatting rules. Here are the steps to clear conditional formatting rules:
- Under the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting > Clear Rules > Clear Rules from Entire Sheet.
- You may repeat this step for all other sheets in the Excel workbook.
- Then click File > Save as and save the Sheet as a new file at a different location.
Saving the file as a new file prevents overwriting or changes to the original Excel file. Now, the worksheet should not encounter any issues.
Solution 3: Remove Multiple Cell Formatting and Styles
A shared workbook is prone to incorrect formatting due to multiple edits made by different users. Incorrect cell formatting can result in formatting issues with Excel, which could cause Excel to crash, freeze, or become unresponsive, subsequently leading to Excel file corruption. This can also happen with a workbook containing multiple worksheets with formatting.
You can read this guide to learn how you can remove different cell formats and styles, and fix formatting issues with your Excel file.
Solution 4: Disable Microsoft Excel Animation
Animations are resource resource-intensive part of MS Excel. They require a significant amount of system resources to run smoothly. If your Excel file is not responding, slow or lagging, try disabling animations in Excel to resolve the freezing and crashing issue. Doing this will also improve its performance.
Here is how you can disable the animations in MS Excel. Follow the steps below:
- Go to File > Options.
- Click Advanced and check the Disable hardware graphics acceleration option in the Display
- Click OK to close the window and then restart MS Excel.
Solution 5: Clean Boot Windows
When you boot Windows, it automatically starts several processes, services, and applications that run in the background. These services sometimes interfere with other applications, such as MS Excel, which could prevent Excel from working properly. You can confirm this by performing a Clean Boot.
Here are the steps to perform Clean Boot:
- Press the WIN key + R, type MSConfig, and press Enter.
- In the System Configuration window, click the General tab and choose Selective Startup.
- Uncheck Load startup items and click OK.
After this, close all running applications and restart your PC.
This should fix the Excel freezing problem.
Use an Excel Repair Software
If none of the above-mentioned methods helped you fix the Excel freezing issue, then it could be severely corrupted. In such a situation, you can leverage Stellar Repair for Excel.
It is an advanced Excel file repair software specifically designed to help you repair severely corrupted or damaged Excel files. This software can repair excel files of different file formats such as .xls, .xlsx, .xltm, .xltx, and .xlsm. This software is capable of repairing a severely corrupted Excel file and saving its contents in a new Excel file.
The software is compatible with all Excel files created using MS Excel 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, or 2000. After repairing and saving the Excel file, you can open it in your MS Excel program and work on it without any performance issues.
Conclusion
There are numerous reasons that could make your Excel file unresponsive or frozen. While there are varied reasons behind a freezing or crashing Excel file, file corruption is a major cause of all. To fix the issue, you can try the methods explained above and see which works for you. You can also use Stellar Repair for Excel to help you repair corrupt Excel files and recover data from severely corrupt XLS/XLSX files.
Don’t let Excel problems slow down your work. At NextMagazine, we’re committed to helping you solve technical issues with clear, practical solutions. Remember, if all else fails, a specialized repair tool might be your best option to recover important data and get back to business.
