How do I prevent the cell I am highlighting from auto-deleting the text in the cell?

Wilcha

I keep running into an issue with my sheet where if a cell is clicked on and I do not click off it or click another cell it will just delete out the text in the cell. This happens constantly where the cell it highlights as soon as I open the sheet will just go blank. If I don't notice it and hit undo the information in that cell will be lost. It does the same with drop down box cells. I also have a "latest comments" column. When it blanks that column out it will not put the latest comment back in until a new comment is submitted.

As you can imagine this gets extremely annoying and is causing me to lose data constantly as if I do not notice it blanked the cell out at the time, it saves and I close it out, I cannot hit undo to get my information back. I understand the box thinks I want to type something over the text in that cell, but this should only happen when I click it twice and should not just do it when I first open my sheet.

Does anyone know how to stop this?

Lucas Rayala

@Wilcha that's super weird. I've never heard of this happening before. If you have a cell highlighted and type anything, you will type in the cell, but it shouldn't just delete something in the cell. What does your cell history say? Right click and check, maybe include a screenshot in your response. From your basic description, I can only think that you are either accidentally typing something or your computer has some odd glitch that is forcing an input, like a scanner is attached or you have some odd autofill setting that's gone glitchy. Does this happen in Excel? Or if you highlight a word in an editable document (not Smartsheet) and let it sit, does that word disappear? That would point to a glitch in your computer. Very odd.

Wilcha

@Lucas Rayala, Thank you. You sort of answered my question by asking more questions. I think I figured it out. The issue was happening on both of my work laptops. I tried it on my personal laptop, and it was not doing it. This led me to try and figure out what was different. I use the Caffeine app on both my work laptops since IT sets both computers to lock after 15 minutes of inactivity. I don't have it on my personal laptop, since I could just shut it off on there.

In order to stop my machines from locking, I think the app either clicks your mouse or hits the space bar. This is why it was blanking out the cell when highlighted. If you single click a cell then hit space it blanks it out, but if you double click, like you mentioned, it keeps allowing you to continue adding text to what is already there.

I simply disabled Caffeine and that fixed the problem. Keep that in mind for anyone who uses apps like these. I also appreciate the tip about cell history. Still have lots to learn about SS.

Thank you, again.

Lucas Rayala

@Wilcha that's super weird. I've never heard of this happening before. If you have a cell highlighted and type anything, you will type in the cell, but it shouldn't just delete something in the cell. What does your cell history say? Right click and check, maybe include a screenshot in your response. From your basic description, I can only think that you are either accidentally typing something or your computer has some odd glitch that is forcing an input, like a scanner is attached or you have some odd autofill setting that's gone glitchy. Does this happen in Excel? Or if you highlight a word in an editable document (not Smartsheet) and let it sit, does that word disappear? That would point to a glitch in your computer. Very odd.

Wilcha

@Lucas Rayala, Thank you. You sort of answered my question by asking more questions. I think I figured it out. The issue was happening on both of my work laptops. I tried it on my personal laptop, and it was not doing it. This led me to try and figure out what was different. I use the Caffeine app on both my work laptops since IT sets both computers to lock after 15 minutes of inactivity. I don't have it on my personal laptop, since I could just shut it off on there.

In order to stop my machines from locking, I think the app either clicks your mouse or hits the space bar. This is why it was blanking out the cell when highlighted. If you single click a cell then hit space it blanks it out, but if you double click, like you mentioned, it keeps allowing you to continue adding text to what is already there.

I simply disabled Caffeine and that fixed the problem. Keep that in mind for anyone who uses apps like these. I also appreciate the tip about cell history. Still have lots to learn about SS.

Thank you, again.