Group and Outline become grayed out unexpectedly

[cwe6279]

I have created a sheet where I have 3 levels of expandable
groups but every time I try to do any kind of formatting
to the sheet it seems to lock the sheet so that the groups
cannot be expanded or collapsed from whatever state they
happen to be in. Also, I can open a new sheet and re-type
everything manually and re-create the groups and they work
again but when I cut and paste even one value from
the "frozen" sheet into the new one, the new sheet also
then freezes and no longer allows expanding and collapsing
the groups. In addition, the "Group and Outline" menu
suddenly becomes grayed out along with many other menu
items

Anyone? this has been driving me absolutely nuts. Also,
I am not using the Sharing feature that is known to freeze
these menu items.

 

[Dave Peterson]

It sounds like the worksheet is being protected.

Next time it won't allow you to use it, try Tools|protection. Do you see an
option for "Unprotect Sheet"?

If yes, then something is protecting the sheet.

You may have an event macro running that's doing more than it should.

Right click on the worksheet tab that has the trouble and select view code.

If you see stuff there that you need help interpreting, post the code (not the
workbook) and you'll get lots of good answers.