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. Stefan Blom 352K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2024-09-22T18:40:15+00:00

    The comments are not resolved. The comments in question vanish before they are even posted in contextual view.

    Yes, that is not helpful in this case. I need them all to appear in contextual view as they should.

    Thanks!

    Thanks for the follow-up.

    I would suggest that you copy the document content, minus the final paragraph mark (¶), into a new, blank document and see if that improves the situation.

    To show/hide paragraph marks as well as other nonprinting characters, click the ¶ icon on the Home tab.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-09-22T18:20:21+00:00

    Thanks for this suggestion. Although Microsoft tried to tell me that this issue was isolated to me, my computers, my SharePoint, and my OneDrive, I know that others must be experiencing this glitch.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-09-22T18:19:24+00:00

    The comments are not resolved. The comments in question vanish before they are even posted in contextual view.

    Yes, that is not helpful in this case. I need them all to appear in contextual view as they should.

    Thanks!

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-09-22T18:18:18+00:00

    It only happens to maybe every 20th comment or so. I am not able to upload screenshots as the paper has not even been submitted. This is how it goes: I make a comment (using any method of inserting comments) and in the second or less that it usually takes for the comment to post, it vanishes. The vanished comments are only in list view and not contextual view. If I were to take a screenshot and hover over the selected text associated with the comment, it would be grey and not pink and no associated comment would appear in contextual view. The comment does then appear when I select the text in list view.

    I do not have balloons selected for mark-ups. This is about comments, not all changes/mark-ups made to the document. The document becomes too cluttered to work with because, as an editor, I make thousands of changes.

    Disabling modern comments had no effect.

    Thanks for the suggestion about new documents. Yes, this occurred in a new document the other day.

    Best,

    Jenn

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  5. Stefan Blom 352K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2024-09-22T17:54:31+00:00

    Resolved comments won't display in the Contextual view; they will only show up in the List view.

    Maybe you have already checked if the comment threads are resolved or not? If you have confirmed that that can't be the issue, report the buggy behavior to Microsoft via Help > Feedback, as Suzanne suggested.

    Keep in mind that you will always see all comments in the Reviewing pane, which may or may not be helpful in this case.

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