Excel comments not displaying

Anonymous
2017-01-22T11:53:30+00:00

I have excel 2016, and the comments have been working fine.  Just recently it does not display comments when I mouse over them. The show/hide command in the review tab is greyed out.  I never had this problem before, and never had to see if the comment show/hide feature was active or not.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-02-23T16:21:02+00:00

    Yes it seems to come and go. There gave been a number if xcel updates. Kately you see the arriw but no box which i hadn’t noticed before.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-02-23T09:58:33+00:00

    Unfortunately problem not solved. Still display the arrow only with no comment box. It's unbelievable how a simple issue  common to all cannot be solved.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-02-22T12:58:35+00:00

    I have exactly the same issue in Excel on Office 365.

    Some comments display fine on rollover while others just display the arrow and line with no comment box.

    Have you managed to resolve this issue?

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-01-27T18:21:11+00:00

    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.

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-01-24T00:14:29+00:00

    UPDATE -- While the "so called" Fix described above worked for a while the problem has returned.

    Still looking for a fix.

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