Some comments not appearing in contextual view, but appear in list view.

Anonymous
2024-09-21T00:50:47+00:00

Greetings,

Since the last update (currently running MS Word Version 2408 (Build 17928.20156), some of the comments that I make in Word documents do not appear in contextual view, even though they appear in list view. I am not able to click on them in the text and have the comment appear in contextual view. After I make some comments, they disappear and are only available in list view. I am working on an important paper for the top medical journal in the world, and it is debilitating as an editor to not be able to make comments. This document is shared with 20 people. It has also happened in another document that I am working on for another client (in this document, it happened before the document was shared).

I called support. They cannot help and claim that it is not a Microsoft issue. I have copied and pasted the text with the broken comments into a new document and the problem still occurs. Saved the document to my PC (instead of OneDrive) and the problem still occurs. I have accessed the document on another computer and the problem still occurs.

I am beyond frustrated. My colleagues, global leaders in their fields, are mainly older and are technologically challenged. They will not understand if I tell them to look at the comments in list view instead of contextual view. Essential comments will be missed. I just need it to work properly. I am beyond frustrated.

Any advice is most appreciated!

Thanks

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-10-22T02:21:57+00:00

    Hi Everyone,

    I've been searching for a solution to this and in a way I'm just glad to have found others having this issue because I was wasting so much time trying to figure it out.

    There seems to be no clear pattern. I thought it was when the comment was attached to tracked changes, but that's not a consistent trigger for the comment to vanish. I believe only comments attached to tracked changes disappear, but not every comment attached to a tracked change disappears.

    I really hope that Microsoft figures this out. It's making editing work take so long. We shouldn't have to guess what does or doesn't cause a comment to disappear and then spend time trying to figure out which character will be safe for attaching a comment to.

    Anyway, I'm on version 2409 (Build 18025.20160)

    Robert

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-10-03T20:47:55+00:00

    There might be an easy way to tell. For normal comments, the text associated with the comment is pink. For the comments that disappear, the text is grey and when you select the text, the comment doesn’t appear. Sorry, I feel your pain!

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-02-05T01:04:01+00:00

    I appreciate that you are a volunteer, but please stop stating that there are known limitations that will not ever be fixed. I have been using Microsoft Word for decades and am a technical writer and editor who has substantively edited close to 1000 scientific manuscripts, book chapters, grants, etc. ALL of these documents have used Track Changes and have included comments, and very often, multiple drafts and collaborators. This has NEVER, and I repeat, NEVER, been an issue for me or any of my colleagues until I first posted in the forum several months ago, nor was I able to find any mention of this issue in the forums until my post. This issue clearly has a start date; we can only hope for an end date.

    There are undoubtedly hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are also experiencing this issue, but have not come to the forums or have not noticed their deleted comments. I am completely maxed out on frustration with this ridiculous problem (as I sit here, digging through comments in list view to copy, delete, and recreate a comment that disappeared from contextual view so I can waste my time finding a work around to get the comment to stay).

    For me, formatting changes to the text such as italics and highlighting create the problem regularly, if not every time (I don't have time to do Microsoft's work of troubleshooting here).

    Jenn

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-10-08T16:36:29+00:00

    Found a bit of a workaround, at least for the one document I am in. Under Tracking on the Review Tab, if you select "Simple Markup" then you can see the comment. If you select "All Markup", then the other edits are visible in balloons, but you cannot see the comment.

    Bruce

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  5. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2024-09-21T11:17:05+00:00

    Please report this via Help | Feedback | Report a Problem. Other users have also reported this issue, and it has been escalated to the Word product team, but every internal error report will help focus support on the problem.

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