topic RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed in Product Forum

Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

Soumya21 — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 11:14:00 GMT

Hi

I am trying to use MS Excel VBO Actions to select, copy and paste while pasting I am getting the Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed. When I am executing in debug mode its working fine but while executing in control room it is throwing the above error sometimes
I have used actions Activate worksheet, Select, Copy, Go to Cell, Paste.
I am also getting RPC error. Can anyone explain the reason behind RPC error and solution
Kindly please let me know any solutions for this.

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Soumya kalal RPA Developer
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

ewilson — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:25:00 GMT

@Soumya21,

Is there existing data in any of the cells of the range you're trying to paste over?

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

michaeloneil — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 16:08:00 GMT

Hi @Soumya21

As @ewilson has suggested it could be there is data there already which is causing the failure. As for the RPC error I've found this is usually a result of trying to perform an action before the previous action has completed. I've seen this in both excel and outlook, generally the code actions arent released until the action is complete but for some actions they can be a little slow. I would suggest maybe adding in a small sleep action or if its always on the same action you are seeing this error then try catching the error, sleeping for maybe 30 seconds then retry the action.

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Michael ONeil
Technical Lead developer
NTTData
Europe/London
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

Soumya21 — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 06:54:00 GMT

@ewilson

Yes, I am trying to copy and paste formula as values and bot throwing error even if there is no values in the cell range

Thanks.
Soumya

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Soumya kalal RPA Developer
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

Soumya21 — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 07:00:00 GMT

Hi @Michael ONeil

Thanks for the reply,

We have implemented this, but we are not sure where exactly this occur, it is occurring in all the pages where MS excel VBO is used, and we have retried by keeping sleep
Is there any other solution for this.

thanks
soumya

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Soumya kalal RPA Developer
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

ewilson — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 16:22:00 GMT

@Soumya21,

I think it might be best if you can paste some screenshots to let us see how you've configured things. I've run a quick test, but I'm not seeing the issue you're having. Here's the test spreadsheet I threw together and the simple test process.

I was able to copy the range A1:A4 into the same workbook and worksheet as range B1:B4. I was also able to copy the formula in C5 over to D5.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

Soumya21 — Sat, 19 Nov 2022 17:10:00 GMT

@ewilson
Thanks for the reply
I am applying one excel formula and I am doing drag and drop after that I am copying and pasting that data in that column only as values, I am using actions Select, copy, go to cell, paste.
when in debug mode it's not throwing any error when in control room its throwing error.

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Soumya kalal RPA Developer
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

ewilson — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 13:45:00 GMT

Hi @Soumya21,

Apologies for the delayed response. Are you still dealing with this?

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

Soumya21 — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 14:08:00 GMT

Hi @ewilson

Thanks for the reply. As of now I have added retry logic for that error because when this error comes if I give rerun it will work. So, I added logic to retry
It would be better if you suggest any other idea to solve this issue.

Thanks,
Soumya

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Soumya k RPA Developer
RPA Developer
Qualesce India Private Limited
Bangalore
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

ewilson — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 14:41:00 GMT

@Soumya21,

Just to be clear are the copy/paste issues only seen when you encounter the RPC error? What is the actual RPC error message?

Generally, there's not a lot that can be done with regards to RPC errors when trying to automate Office applications. This comes down to simple issues between managed applications (i.e. Blue Prism) and legacy COM-based applications (i.e. Excel). The common theme I've seen for addressing this, in various support forums and Stack Overflow), are to do exactly what you are doing. Catch the exception and retry. 🙁

With that said, you might want to take a look at Microsoft's Graph API. This gives you a REST API for dealing with some Office apps (excluding Word at this time). The main catch to Graph is that you have to be dealing with files stored in the Azure cloud (ex. OneDrive or SharePoint).

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

Soumya21 — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 16:01:00 GMT

Hi @ewilson

copy/paste exception doesn't depend on RPC error.
the RPC error message states that Could not execute code stage because exception thrown by code stage: The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)

Thanks,
Soumya

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Soumya k RPA Developer
RPA Developer
Qualesce India Private Limited
Bangalore
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

ewilson — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 18:17:00 GMT

Thanks for the clarification @Soumya21. In either case, your approach of catching the error and then retrying is a god approach. I will try to recreate the copy/paste issue to see if we can figure out what's going on there.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

Soumya21 — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 11:41:00 GMT

Hi @ewilson

Is there any issue in Paste action in excel VBO,
Before I used to get errors, in particular some paste actions, but now, I am facing issues with all paste actions wherever used in the entire process it occurs at various stages and not in the fixed stage.
Please help me to resolve this issue

Thanks,
Soumya

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Soumya k RPA Developer
RPA Developer
Qualesce India Private Limited
Bangalore
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

ewilson — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 17:57:00 GMT

Hello @Soumya21,

You stated that you're performing "Select, copy, go to cell, paste". Is the data that you're copying contained in a single cell? When you go to the new cell what action are you using? Is it another Select?

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

Soumya21 — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 05:00:00 GMT

Hi @ewilson
No. I am selecting whole column data and pasting in another column (go to cell, Paste actions)

Thanks,
Soumya

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Soumya k RPA Developer
RPA Developer
Qualesce India Private Limited
Bangalore
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RE: Failed to paste from clipboard: PasteSpecial method of Range class failed

ewilson — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 14:49:00 GMT

@Soumya21,

Ok. Please try changing the flow of your process to perform a select on the source column and then copy. After that perform a select on the destination column and then paste. Here's an example of what I'm describing:

This works fine for me.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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