Refreshing screen on Excel and Word - Windows 7

[lensilva]

I recently started having a problem with Excel where frequent screen refresh (about every 4 seconds) was interfering with work. The same thing was happening in Word.

After many hours of troubleshooting, an online community suggested Dropbox as the cuprit. I uninstalled Dropbox and the probem was cured. I reinstalled it and the problem returned.

Windows 7, Office 2007

Thanks for any advice

[gregvydra]

Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint) popup menus - from autofilter dropdowns, right-click menus, and ribbon menu dropdowns - would disappear quickly - often in 1-4 seconds, too quickly to make a selection.

Before any change to the document, the popup menus would work fine.  But, after the first unsaved change, the problem would appear.

After hours of exhaustive testing, I have conclusively isolated the problem to the Dropbox desktop client.  When Dropbox desktop client is running, the problem is present; when it is not, the problem is gone.  Pause syncing is not enough to clear the problem; I must quit the desktop client.

I suspect the auto-update to version 32.4.23, which was installed on my computer on Thursday, August 10, 2017, and that's when I started having the problem.

I noticed an old post from 2016-03-02, describing the same problem:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Installation-and-desktop-app/dropbox-client-affecting-menus-in-Word-...

User: Robin E. https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/246229

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I've been running the same setup for years, with very little change in configuration, and no problem like this until now.

MacBook Pro (late 2015)

Windows 7 Ultimate running under Bootcamp

Microsoft Office 2010

Dropbox Business account

[gregvydra]

I found a workaround!

In Dropbox Preferences General,

Set Dropbox Badge to Never Show.

[pellefsen]

Fixes it for me too - thanks

[HughMartin]

Switching off Dropbox worked for me after hours of head scratching. What annoys me is that when I googled for the problem, everyone was pointing at printer and display drivers. Even the MS support team didnt refer to Dropbox as being the problem.

[Hugocohen]

It worked!!!

Thank you!

[billyjiv]

I am not sure the category I selected is the correct one or not. I am not a power Drobox user and I have never used this forum before.

Our company recently started deploying Office365 which is using Office 2016.

I have a personal dropbox account, not a corporate one.

I started noticing that when I am using Office Suite Programs (WORD, EXCEL, POWERPOINT, etc.) that "something" was stealing the focus. By that I mean, if I had a cell selected in EXCEL and RIGHT CLICKED to select an option, suddenly the context menu closed. I looked more closeliy and noticed that the "box" around and excel cell, was "flashing" every2 second or so. That seemed to go along with the "focus stealing" activity.

I started closing appications one at a time and when I closed DROPBOX, it stopped.

I have removed all references to DROPBOX within OFFICE and removed all addons to use DROPBOX.

I would like to keep DROPBOX running in the background without it stealing the focus from OFFICE SUITE programs, but the constant stealing the focus, makes using the applications almost useless.

For not I have to CLOSE DROPBOX when using OFFICE365 programs and then start it again when I am not using OFFICE.

Has anyone else seen this and is there a solution?

Thank you!

[bcrow]

I have been using the desktop app to sync with my Windows PC's for years.  This issue with the focus "stealing" just started for me on Friday last week (8/11/17).  I am using Office 2010 and this was happening in Excel and Word, all files, whether sync'd w/ Dropbox, local HDD, or network share drive.

I uninstalled the Dropbox program this morning, and the problem disappeared...

Re-installed the Dropbox program this afternoon, and the problem was immediately back...

This issue renders Excel and Word practically unusable with focus being stolen every second or less.  This occurs regardless of the sync/program status (i.e. I disabled it, and did nothing to fix it)...

Although I was very happy to see someone else having this issue, it is disappointing.  I hope it's resolved quickly.

-B'

[lensilva]

Work for me, thanks very much.

[Troubled]

This solution worked for me too.

Thank you.