In excel, when I click the help (?) icon, I get "Sorry, something went wrong. Please check your network connection and try again." My network connection is fine. How do I correct this error?

My take is that this issue is a problem at the server end at Microsoft. For some reason, the connection is lost and cannot be reestablished. Help and some other functions are provided via the web. In my experience I see this issue with all my Office 365 desktop applications ... in my case Outlook, Word, Excel, Power Point, and Publisher. All of them are up to date.

Where do I go to speak directly to Microsoft about this problem? No one here has an answer or even a good reason behind this bizarre action.

This is a sponsored Microsoft community, and you'd think they would monitor it for feedback. This issue has been around in one form or another for a couple of years with no acknowledgement or solution. So, it's not clear if MS pays any attention to their own forums or really cares about customer feedback despite all their PR to the contrary. I have dug pretty deeply over the years to find a way to get through to them but in most cases I have not been successful.

In each of the desktop Office programs there is a Feedback button on the Help menu. There is also a Contact Support button on the same menu. I've used both and have received replies, but not much in the way of real in-depth help. Most of what comes back is pretty standard ... run a diagnostic, reboot, reinstall. Nothing very insightful.

I wish I could be more positive, but this seems to be the current state of play on this issue. There are quite a few people experiencing this problem but not enough to get Microsoft's attention.

JLC45's solution worked not only for the Help issue but also added an Action Pen to the Drawing tab in Excel 365 in Windows 11.

Many thanks.

I did a variant of the original answer which seems to work so far.

i.e.: after doing this:

* Open the Excel app> go to File > options> select trust center> select trust center settings> Click on Privacy Option> Click on privacy settings > Check all the connected experiences including "Turn On experiences that download online content" and "Turn on experiences that analyze content" *

Close and reopen Excel

which didn't work, I then unchecked:

Optional diagnostic data

Personalized offers and discounts for Microsoft products

Close and reopen Excel

and help was working again!

I was unable to find this issue documented at the Microsoft Feedback Portal, so I just posted at https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/db1e9bdb-488d-ee11-a81c-0022484f9f6d

If anyone wants to vote on this at the Feedback Portal, it might be helpful to get Microsoft to look at it more closely and correct it.