Footnotes keep getting cut off and disappearing

THE PROBLEM IS RELATED TO AUTORECOVER

I am almost sure that this is a bug in Microsoft Word 2011. I have been trying to figure out a solution to this problem for months. I have tried all of the suggestions and hundreds of my own...all to no avail. HOWEVER, I have discovered something that has not been mentioned here...

I have my AutoRecover set to 1 minute. Footnotes are fine until Word saves the AutoRecover information and then they disappear. I can see the blue AutoRecover progress bar flash across the status bar at the bottom of the window and immediately the footnote disappears. I then reapply the footnote style and they reappear as they should until the next AutoRecover.

Would someone please verify this. Hopefully we can get Microsoft to address this issue if we can demonstrate that it is a problem with Word and not the document formatting or the end user. Thanks.

THE SOLUTION FOR ME:  mentioned above. 

HIGHLIGHT ALL FOOTNOTES, ENTER STYLES, RE-APPLY FOOTNOTE STYLE TO THEM.

Works like a charm.  But i'm sure I'll forget it next time.  Here's a thought: someone at Microsoft could fix the bug.

I've experienced the same problems. In my current document, the first footnote (which is 5-6 lines) cuts off at the first line.  Disabling AUTORECOVER seems to have solved the problem, but this is a terrible long-term solution.  

Is there a real fix for this?  This is a major problem, in my view.

Am using Word 2011 on a mac.  Last update: 14.3.2

Thanks!

Between Endnote's "autoformat" and this problem with footnotes, I was ready to give up, but disabling auto-save worked! Thanks so much - it's three am and I was ready to jump ha ha ha.

I have seen several responses trying to find a workaround and the one I posted originally (January 13, 2012) is still THE workaround for this problem. I did extensive testing and can reproduce the problem 100% of the time as being directly related to the Autocorrect function. The workaround is to disable Autocorrect and remember to CMD+S often so you don't lose anything. Placing a table in the footer may work, but it is a complicated solution and I don't know how it will work with Endnote or papers large numbers of footnotes. Since disabling Autocorrect, I have completed several long and highly referenced research papers and have not had this problem rear its ugly head a single time. It would be nice if Microsoft would fix the problem, but its already been a while and the problem remains. This applies to Word 2011 Mac Version.