OLE error "Microsoft excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action"

Question

Hi All,

I am getting an error in Excel 2013 version. "Microsoft excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action".
This error is very frustrating and keeps coming in every 5-10 minutes. I know there are a couple of solutions available on google and trust me I tried all of them but no luck.

I tried couple of options like enabling Options--> Advanced-->Gereral-->"Ignore other application that use dynamic data exchange (DDE)" but because of that now I can't open my excel file which has some excel file references in vlookup.
When I try to open my excel sheet after enabling this ignore DDE option I get a blank excel workbook where everything is disabled and no row or columns are visible. As soon as I uncheck this ignore DDE option my file starts opening again.
Is there a way to enable this ignore DDE option but along with that I can still open my file with formulas where I have references to some other excel files?

The second option I tried is to disabled all com add-in and Excel add-in but that also did not help.

Please help me out with this very frustrating error. Any leads will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I know this is a year old but I have the same issue and I was researching it. I saw some suggestions on another post that this issue is caused when the file you're working with is on a cloud drive, OneDrive or Google Drive and it's trying to sync constantly. I moved a file to test and it seemed to work.

Answer 2

@Ankit Kumar Ranka

Does this issue occur with all Excel workbooks?
I suggest you send one workbook with this issue to others to have a check.

> I can't open my excel file which has some excel file references in vlookup.

Do these files run macro codes? Besides, are there many formulas in these workbook?
It’s recommended to back up files, then change some formulas to values for a test.

> The second option I tried is to disabled all com add-in and Excel add-in but that also did not help.

Have you tried to open workbooks in safe mode of Excel?
To run Excel in safe mode, you could hold on Ctrl key and double click Excel icon, and then choose "Yes".
If this issue no longer occurs in safe mode, I also suggest you locate to C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART, temporarily remove the files and subfolders in the startup item folder.

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Answer 3

I got slowness opening ms Word and ole action error in excel due to cisco webex. I found the issue with cisco webex add in. Try below steps: open excel in safe or normal mode.go to File option - options - add-ins - under manage select COM Add-ins - click go. In the new pop up disable cisco webex desktop app option if it's enabled. I did same steps in MS word and MS excel. It worked for me.

Answer 4

Hi guys.

I think I've found the solution that actually works:

1. Open new file (empty one) in Excel.
2. Go to the Home and press Recent files.
3. Press right click of the mouse and choose to remove all the files that you've ever opened with the same name of the file you're just trying to open. Don't use the search option as it opens the file instead of just searching and marking it. You need to look for the file that was open for every single day you could have had it open.
4. After you make you ALL of the previous files are removed open new file again.
5. Instead of normally closing the file open Task Manager and End Task for Microsoft Excel.
6. Try to open your destination file. If the problem persists keep repeating no. 3,4 and 5 until your destination file will eventually open.

Explanation:

If you open the file on your computer Excel automatically saves the recent version of this file recalculated at the moment you just opened it. This helps the Excel to open the file quicker next time as it just recalculates differences between the file you open in a new version and old version. Problem starts when different person edits the same file and they have saved different shortcut to yours. Most of the time file is updating itself without any issue, but the larger the file is the more probability of failure, hence we start to see that OLE error, basically Excel tells us that

"File name doesn't match it's content as there is another file with same name you have opened, but the data in it is different".

The error occurs when internet is too weak (in my office it is often) or when SharePoint/One Drive have small downtime. These two things cause that the file is not uploaded fast enough to update new changes, so the error occurs as the system thinks you opened two different files with the same name at the same time.

It could be solved very easy by Microsoft, but they have never read or listened my advice in this matter, so I'm not bothered writing it down again.

The point with shutting down Excel using Task Manager is to discard any sort of reference to the old file that had ever existed as a temporary file. If you close down the software there are sometimes processes that still work in the background for some time due to the several reasons (safety is one of them in many cases). Therefore shutting down the software with Task Manager stops these processes, so the file has a "clear" path to open itself as "something new" for the Excel.

I hope this will help someone and Microsoft will finally solve this issue, but I doubt.

All the best!
Marek