Excel comments not displaying

The update that rolled out today 18-Jan-2018 has broken the rollover functionality.  The behavior I see is similar to what is described, but also includes a loss of speed of any data entry response over time.

When a spreadsheet with comment is first opened you can rollover a cell with comment and see the comments.  If you leave the spreadsheet open eventually this stops working, and at that point I seem to notice a delayed responsiveness to the app.  

The failure to show a comment is not instantaneous.  I timed this and after roughly 20 min the "display comments on rollover" stops working.  Perhaps there is a memory leak that is filling up virtual memory, but I'll leave that to the coders.

The only fix is to Quit Excel and re-boot.  I tried closing the file in question without Quitting Excel but that doesn't work.  You have to Quit the app.

Excel Team -- Please repair this and return Excel to normal functionality as soon as possible.

For the record I’m running 2016 Exel on a Mac. 

I have a similar problem. Was working on a spreadsheet and mid-session the comment feature changed. When I hover over a cell, instead of seeing the comment box I see an arrow and a line. No box. When I select to edit the comment, the long line extends up to the top of the document and the box is compressed. Once I edit the comment and return to the cell, the comment feature behaves normally, but only for that cell. If I add new data & comment, everything works fine. But for all of the data that was in my document prior to the "change", I find I have to edit all the comments one by one to fix it.

In addition to copying information into a new file, I have done the following within the same file:

1. Open the Excel spread sheet(s)
2. Go to the bottom tab of the named sheet
3. Right Click: "Move or Copy"
4. On the bottom is a box "Create a copy"
5. Check "Create a Copy" and then "OK"
6. The copied page is added 
7. Click on copied page and see roll over works
8. If it does, then delete the original page 
9. Save your work

Note:  Any NEWLY ADDED comments after the copy will be a lighter background shade and different font vs. the older version (at least in my case).

This may be an easier solution to those with 5 or less pages in your excel file vs making a new file.  You can keep the copied page and the original one as a temporary backup until you are comfortable in deleting the original page.

I am still encountering the same issue.  See screenshot below.

Some comments display okay, but many just show the arrow.

I'm using Office 365 Pro Plus, Excel 2016 MSO (16.0.9001.2102) 64-bit.

Alternative to a Fix -- Restoring Previous Version of Excel 2016 for Mac

Configuration -- Running Excel 2016 Version 16.9 (180116) on MacOS High Sierra 10.13.2.

After much fiddling, along with waiting for Microsoft Insider Slow Builds that might fix the problem, I looked into restoring the previous version of Excel, and was able to do that.  The problem is now "fixed" by running Excel 15.41.0.

If your interested in restoring a previous version here are the steps --

1. Go to https://support.office.com/en-us/article/update-history-for-office-2016-for-mac-700cab62-0d67-4f23-947b-3686cb1a8eb7#bkmk\_history
2. Click on Release History for Mac.
3. Click on the Word "Excel", not Download (unless you wish to also restore the rest of the Office Suite to the same older version).
4. Before installing the Download Excel app, to to the Mac Applications Folder, find the Excel App, and drag it to the trash.  Provide an authentication password to delete the app.
5. Run the Excel installer in your Downloads folder.
6. Open Excel.  You will get the error message "We ran into a problem while accessing the Office Document Cache. Excel needs to be restarted."  Click OK.
7. Start Excel again.  When it says it needs to clear the document cache let it do so.  The process seems to get stuck, so use Force Quit (CMD/Option/Esc) to force quite Excel.
8. Start Excel again.  It works fine this time and you're back in 15.41.0 land.

There may be a more elegant way to deal with Step 7 above, but I couldn't find it in two tries.  

Note - When the Auto Updater runs next, be sure to check the version of Excel that it offers to provide.  If it is not 16.9.1 then you're just re-installing the version with broken comments functionality.

Good luck.