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?

Let us know if your issue returns. Based on my experience, it will.

The short-term fix is to stop and then restart the offending MS Office product. After all this time the reported problem still has no permanent fix.

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!

This worked for me, but originally the *Optional diagnostic data was unchecked, so I checked it. Close and reopen excel and help was working again. Thanks!

Yes, that is typically my experience. A reboot will resolve the problem, but not for long. I use Word and Excel a great deal, but it is not a mission-critical app. And when I return to it an need the Help access or the feature that gives you extra forms or even routine forms like page number placements the problem returns.

The annoyance is at a very high level.

I see this behavior in all my Office apps: Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Publisher. I think it has something to do with maintaining a reliable connection to Microsoft's servers. This has been an issue for at least two years, maybe more, and yet to be resolved. I use Outlook on the desktop quite a lot and it loses it Help functionality often. Some days it fails in minutes, other days it runs all day without issue. I am connected to my Microsoft account when the Office apps are failing. All my other internet connected apps on my system like those from Adobe, Google, and Zoom continue to work fine. A lot of people have reported the issue but there must not be enough of us to get Microsoft's attention.

In short, to get Help to work one has to share a bunch of extraneous information? Why? What value does it deliver for your users?

Candidly, it seems coercive - give us information we can employ for marketing the product you have purchased (leased in this case) or kiss any help goodbye.

A google search has always been a more effective way of getting help than MS's offerings - unless you are seeking help on getting Word to support its own built-in help without strings attached.

Did you ever come across a solution to this issue?