This is a maddening problem, and it's one we see far too often. A user spends hours building a protected form, carefully limiting cell selection to guide data entry, only to have the sheet betray them. The protection is removed, yet the cursor still refuses to land on certain cells, jumping instead to a distant comment box. The frustration is real, and the cause is almost certainly hiding in plain sight, not in the protection settings, but in the event-driven macros running behind the sheet.
The most likely culprit is a `SelectionChange` event in VBA. When a user clicks a cell, that event fires. If the code is written to redirect the selection, for example, to force focus back to a specific input range, it will do so even when the sheet is unprotected. The macro doesn't care about protection status; it only cares about the trigger. In this case, the "Additional Comments" cell is probably a designated landing zone, and the code is set to jump there whenever a user clicks a cell outside the allowed range. The fix is straightforward: open the VBA editor, find the `Worksheet_SelectionChange` subroutine, and look for a `Select` or `Range` call that moves the cursor. Comment it out, and the behavior stops.
What this means for you is that your design is actually fighting itself. You built a macro to enforce data entry discipline, but that same macro is now running unchecked. The lesson here is about separation of concerns. Data protection should handle boundaries; macros should handle automation. When you mix them without clear logic, especially logic that checks whether protection is active, you create a ghost in the machine. A simple `If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then Exit Sub` at the top of your `SelectionChange` macro would prevent it from firing when the sheet is unprotected.
We recommend you take a step back and audit the macro's purpose. Do you really need it to force cell selection, or can you rely on data validation and protection alone? If the macro is essential, add a condition that checks protection status before it acts. That small change restores control to the user and stops the sheet from second-guessing every click. Your form is powerful. Make sure the automation serves the user, not the other way around.