Why is Word crashing when a document that has comments on it is accessed through SharePoint?

Question

We are currently having an issue with people reviewing documents on SharePoint when the documents have comments on them.

Documents are uploaded by one user onto SharePoint. One of our proof readers then goes through the document, making suggestions for improvements using the comments feature, and then saves this to SharePoint. When the original uploader (or anyone else) tries to access the Word document, it opens, and then within a couple of seconds the document will become unresponsive (unable to scroll and the top of the page also says its unresponsive). This will happen continuously and will not stop, making the document unreadable.

We have found the following during our investigation so far:

-When the file is saved locally, it stops crashing
-This affects the majority, but not all users, we are yet to find a difference with this accounts/machines
-This issue only occurs when the document has comments on it
-This issue only occurs when the document is accessed through Sharepoint

Answer 1

Hi Nathan,

I'm glad that I'm not going crazy and other people having the same issue. Sadly, like you, I haven't found any answers to why this is happening and how to fix it quickly. However, I found a workaround.

I would like to add a bit more information from my investigation.

As you mentioned, this happens only when the document is saved on SharePoint (not SharePoint 365)

If the file is saved anywhere else (locally, 365 Sharepoint, network storage drives) issue disappears.

I noticed this is a more common problem for users who had different Office packages and were upgraded to Office365 a year ago.

In the end, I found out it was related to the user's profile AppData and probably some cached files stored there causing the issue. I'm not able to find exactly where this is happening as per many attempts to clean removal on Office 365 apps and installation again, this was still happening. Sounds like AppData Microsoft folder is causing this or/and the Edge folder. But not able to find exactly where and what.

So after this, only one thing left to do - recreate the user's profile. And it actually does the job. It fixes the issue as it creates all AppData files correctly and without corruption. It takes time to deal with as you need to make a backup for the old one just in case, but it resolves the main problem.

Done additional testing as well - slowly placing back AppData files. Crashing and hanging came back and as I said, around the Microsoft folder and Edge, something terrible is happening :)

Answer 2

Hi @Nathan Devonish ,

According to the information I got so far, I did some research, and this problem should be sporadic. To further narrow down the problem, let's clarify a few things:

1. It is recommended to clear the cache or open SharePoint in browser privacy mode to see if the problem changes.
2. Is the problem the same site? If so, put the file on another site and see if the problem changes.

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Answer 3

I've been running into this issue recently. The issue starts occurring when in review mode and adding a comment. Working on the document itself in review is generally okay, but it really starts to go wrong when I add a comment. My setup is a BYOD device for a client and when I logged into Office with the client credentials, I select that it is just the app I'm authenticating with and the device isn't to be managed by the client. If I manage to change from Reviewing to Editing, the problem seems to resolve itself. Submitting a comment in editing mode does also seem to stutter for a while, but once it's settled down, I'm able to carry on working. I just wanted to add that I've had the exact same experience on two devices. The second one had never been logged into this client and was a brand-new Windows profile, so I don't believe there is any caching issues related to this.