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harold40291
Contributor II
Message 1 of 47

Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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I have Mcafee Total Protection V16.0 R36  Build 19.6.169  Updated 8/19/21

The problem is with Microsoft Excel 2016 and Word 2016

When I open Excel and click on an existing spreadsheet I see "Running Virus Scan..." at the bottom left corner but the spreadsheet windows stays blank with the hourglass. After a while I get a window that says "Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action". At this point the Excel program is locked up causing me to have to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and terminate the program.

If I disable Mcafee Real Time Scanning everything works perfectly so it looks like possibly the latest update is causing an issue. Is their a known solution? Is it possible to roll it back the update or will I possibly have to change virus protection software? 😞
Everything was working fine till I processed the update!

Thanks,
Harold

 

 

1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
harold40291
Contributor II
Message 35 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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Good News

My Mcafee processed an update yesterday and when I closed Word and Excel 2016 and reopened them I was able to open files with no issue.

I also rebooted the computer and started Word and Excel 2016 and was able to open files with no lockup.

 

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46 Replies
Bharani_BD
McAfee Retired
McAfee Retired
Message 2 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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Hi @harold40291 

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused, this is a known issue and our engineering team is working on a fix. We will update you as soon as we receive an update from them..

Thanks & Regards
Bharanidharan S

 

 

creinsch
Contributor II
Message 3 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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I am getting an identical problem with both Excel and Word hanging while attempting a virus check.  My only option is them to use task manager to terminate the process.  Turning "Real Time Scanning" off is required to open the files.

harold40291
Contributor II
Message 4 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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Is there an option to roll back the upgrade or reinstall without allowing the bad upgrade to install? If not, perhaps in the future you may want to at least make this available for non critical upgrades which could save millions of hours people all over the world will spend trying to figure out why their favorite program like Microsoft Office suddenly does not work.

p8er
Contributor III
Message 5 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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There is another topic about the same issue: McAfee Support Community - Live Safe is stopping Excel opening files with err... - McAfee Support Co... 

 

A simple workaround that works for me: 

Temporarily stop running Real Time Scanning, then open a new, empty Excel file, then immediately turn Real Time Scanning back on, and keep that empty Excel file open all day long, and don't use it. Any other Excel files you now open while you already have an Excel file open, will not be affected by the issue.

harold40291
Contributor II
Message 6 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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Thanks! That does seem to work for Excel.  I tried the same for Word 2016 but it still locked up.

p8er
Contributor III
Message 7 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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You're welcome.

Yeah, I'm using 2013, so unfortunately that seems to make a difference.

p8er
Contributor III
Message 8 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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Other tip in 3rd reply (4th post) here: McAfee Support Community - Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not o... - McAfee Support Co... . Might also work for Office 2016.

creinsch
Contributor II
Message 9 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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08/24/2021 - There was an update this morning to virus scan, but it did not fix this problem.

WarriorneX
Contributor II
Message 10 of 47

Re: Mcafee Real Time Scanning not allowing Excel & Word files to open

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Hi, I'm also experiencing the same problem since Sunday on Excel and Word, on Office 2007 and 2010. I have multiple computers at the office, and it had been total chaos this 2 days. 

On the computer with Microsoft Office 2007, excel keeps on "running virus scan" forever and it doesn't work, after trying to kill the process in task manager it gave an error and the computer froze completely. Force shutdown needed to be done.

Word 2007 doesn't even open.

On the computers running Microsoft Office 2010, excel keeps on "running virus scan" and it stay there saying that "Excel waiting for another application to complete an OLE action".

The work around of adding excel and word to the exclusion of real time scanning only works on windows office 2010. For windows office 2007 real time scanning needs to be turned off completely.

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