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I have recently started experiencing a weird bug with excel, for some reason it has stopped sorting columns. It does not matter the way I try to sort, it just does not do it, however, filtering does work.

I have been googling for over an hour but the issues I found do not seem to be similar to mine, and I have tried sorting in any simple way I know:

  • HOME > Sort
  • DATA > Sort
  • Selecting the column > right click > sort
  • Making a table from a range > click on the filter > sort

Note that this happens in a blank new spreadsheet with manually entered data, no files downloaded from the internet or generated from any other software. I went as far as re-installing Office without success. Nevertheless, if any of the explanations above are unclear, you can appreciate in the following gif my issue.

Window Recording - Excel

If any of you have any pearls of wisdom, I would really appreciate it.

Mokubai
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EOZyo
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  • Please don't link to a video to explain your issue. Questions need to be self-contained so [edit] and describe your problem with words. – DavidPostill Apr 24 '20 at 14:37
  • I have taken your recommendation, however, I do not know how "it does not sort in any way I try" is not clear. If I added the gif, it was simply to show, from a blank new file, that many of the solutions that could be given (as per my research on Google) may not apply. – EOZyo Apr 24 '20 at 14:47
  • What if you save the file and reopen? Is Custom Sort working? – patkim Apr 24 '20 at 17:01
  • @patkim nop, it made no difference :( – EOZyo Apr 24 '20 at 21:55
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    Try starting Excel in safe mode and see if that makes a difference. If it does, there's an add-in that's causing the issue. – Ron Rosenfeld Apr 25 '20 at 00:50
  • @EOZyo,, one silly question, only Sort in Descending order is not working or the Ascending also ? – Rajesh Sinha Apr 25 '20 at 06:48
  • **Cont,,,** few reasons stops proper sorting/sorting like, leading space, Filter applied before U sort,, or range does have formula,, getting data by Cut & Past. But none of these applies on your sheet since you have entered data and trying to sort ,,, better try on others Sheet/ WB once ! – Rajesh Sinha Apr 25 '20 at 06:49
  • @EOZyo,, once try with Date & Text data too, if problem exists then get in touch with Microsoft Team ! – Rajesh Sinha Apr 25 '20 at 06:55
  • @RonRosenfeld I have tried now with the safe mode and it does work. However, and even though I have deactivated all of the add-ins that excel says are active, it does not work when I start normally. Do you know if there is a way to see what excel loads while starting? – EOZyo Apr 25 '20 at 07:54
  • @RajeshS The problem is with both ASC and DESC (as it can be appreciated in the gif). Neverthelesss, as I replied to RonRosenfeld, in safe mode does actually work. – EOZyo Apr 25 '20 at 07:56
  • You navigated to `File`--> `Options` --> `Addins` and nothing is showing there as being active? Any chance you have a `Personal.xls` file? Not sure where else to look. If you have O365 you probably can contact MS Help, and they can remotely log in to your computer and examine it. – Ron Rosenfeld Apr 25 '20 at 10:38
  • @RonRosenfeld I did have some add-ins (Inquire, MS Power Map for Excel, MS Power View for Excel, Team Foundation Add-in, MS Power Pivot for Excel, MS Data Streamer for Excel, Dropbox for Office, and Acrobat PDFMaker Office as COM addins). I have contacted MS at their support forum and, there, I have a screenshot of what I see in add-ins [Microsoft Forum](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/excel-365-stopped-sorting-in-normal-mode-works-in/5b7c5248-511b-4c1b-806f-cf36fcadb5db). I will look into that personal.xls file because I am unaware/unsure about it. – EOZyo Apr 25 '20 at 11:33
  • That is not what I meant. Most respondents are ordinary users, and I've not found the "so-called" MS engineers to be particularly helpful (they are not MS Employees). There is a method of getting to an Office 365 help desk directly, staffed by MS employees, but I don't recall how I got there. – Ron Rosenfeld Apr 25 '20 at 12:34
  • @RonRosenfeld I see. I naively assumed that there was some sort of tier-based support (that could escalate from the voluntary support to real MS support). Having said that, I think that I am out of luck, since I have a student license I would have to contact my school's IT administrator, and that will be an absolute dead-end road :( – EOZyo Apr 25 '20 at 13:03
  • @EOZyo,, I never came across any such situation,, working in safe mode is temporary solution,,, better get in touch with Microsoft Team,,, will help U to fix the issue with copy of software you are working with also suggest the exact reason ! – Rajesh Sinha Apr 26 '20 at 05:40
  • @RajeshS it is rare, however, it does not seem to be a new issue. I was able to find another case on the [Microsoft answers forum](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/excel-sort-not-working/8b4c296d-52d2-439f-89af-4ccc706e7271) from November 2019, but in another question (that I could not find again) the user claimed in 2018 that s/he had the issue for over a year. The replies to the similar questions I found provide almost always the same solutions and none of them are marked as solved (obviously, because they were not). – EOZyo Apr 26 '20 at 14:21

2 Answers2

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For me, removing my user account from the PC and recreating a new one solved the problem. I also had the situation that everything worked in safe mode and I tried a few re-installations but I had no success. Removing my account helped.

Chaos_99
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Ljuba
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I had the same issue with Excel 365 on Windows 10 and I was able to sidestep this issue by wiping out Office installation completely - firstly with the official office extermination tool from this guide, than cleaning up remainings manually according to this guide. I haven't verified it, but I believe that HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office registry subtree is the real crux and it's removal before the reinstallation was what finally fixed it for me without the need to recreate the account.

zeronineseven
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