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

Question

This is a duplicate of this issue, I am reposting since that was closed without a solution: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1286656/why-is-word-crashing-when-a-document-that-has-comm

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

Repro steps:

1. Documents are uploaded by one user onto SharePoint.
2. Someone else then comments on the document.
3. 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 the accounts/machines
• This issue only occurs when the document has comments on it
• This issue only occurs when the document is accessed through SharePoint

The linked issue has a suggested temporary workaround i.e. create a new user profile. However, the user highlights that the problem then recurs at some point, so this is a very temporary workaround and will not actually resolve the issue. The other workaround is "do not use SharePoint" as it seems not very fit for purpose until this is resolved. I'm hoping to find an actual solution.

Additional info:
I am using a Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 2a, with an AMD Ryzen chip and therefore AMD Radeon graphics. Starting to wonder whether this has something to do with it, as Procmon logs show lots of GPU calls.

Answer 1

Hello @Tee Ell,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum.

Thank you for reaching out to us. Based on the information you provided, I understand that you are encountering an issue when opening a Word document stored in SharePoint. Specifically, when a document contains comments left by someone else, Word becomes unresponsive and eventually crashes.

I have reviewed the previous thread you created in 2023. It appears that the issue was never fully resolved on your side, and unfortunately, it still persists today. I completely understand how frustrating and inconvenient this ongoing problem must be.

Since the issue has continued for a long period of time and none of the earlier moderator‑suggested workarounds have resolved it, I strongly recommend contacting the Microsoft Support team directly. They will be able to check whether any configuration might be conflicting with the Office application or if there are any service‑side issues. If necessary, they can escalate the case to the back‑end engineering team for a deeper investigation.

As a moderator, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. My access is limited, and I do not have the internal tools or permissions needed to perform in‑depth diagnostics on your tenant from the back end.

To submit a new request, please help me to:

Go to the admin center at Admin Portal

• On the bottom right side of the page, select Help & support.
• 
• Select "Contact Support". Then, choose contact method: "Phone" or "Email"
• Enter a description of your issue, confirm your contact number and email address, select your preferred contact method, and then select Contact me. The expected wait time is indicated in the Contact support pane.   

Please feel free to let me know if you have any update or further concern about the issue.

Answer 2

Based on the described behavior and the available information, the issue is most consistent with a damaged or corrupted Word document (or its template) that only manifests when opened directly from SharePoint, especially when comments or tracked changes are involved.

When a Word document is damaged, typical symptoms include the application becoming unresponsive or the computer appearing to hang when the file is opened. This can happen specifically with documents that contain comments or tracked changes, and it may be more noticeable when the file is opened from a SharePoint library rather than from a local drive.

To distinguish between a damaged document and a broader software problem, the following checks are recommended:

1. Open other Word documents from the same SharePoint library that also contain comments or tracked changes and verify whether they show the same freezing or crashing behavior.
2. Open the problematic document from a local copy (which was already tested and works) and compare behavior. If the local copy works reliably but the SharePoint version does not, this strongly suggests that the specific server-stored file is damaged or that the way it is stored on SharePoint is causing corruption-like behavior.
3. Check whether other Office applications or other Word documents exhibit similar freezing or crashing. If not, the problem is likely isolated to the specific document(s).

If the behavior is isolated to one or a few documents, treat them as damaged and follow the damaged-document recovery guidance:

1. Confirm that other documents open normally. If they do, focus on repairing the affected document(s).
2. Use the damaged-document troubleshooting steps to recover content into a new, healthy file. The guidance in “How to troubleshoot damaged documents in Word” explains how to:
   • Test whether the problem is document-specific.
   • Rebuild the document content (for example, by copying all but the final paragraph mark into a new file, or using other recovery techniques described in the linked article).
3. After recovery, upload the repaired document back to SharePoint and test adding comments again to confirm that Word no longer hangs when opened from the library.

If multiple documents from the same library show similar behavior, repeat the above checks on several files to confirm whether each is damaged. If all other documents behave normally and only specific ones with comments cause Word to hang from SharePoint but not locally, those files should be treated as damaged and rebuilt using the damaged-document procedures.

If, after confirming that the documents themselves are healthy, Word still hangs only when opening from SharePoint and not from local storage, the next step is to treat it as a broader Office/Word installation issue and repair Office. Use an Online Repair of Microsoft 365 Apps so that all Word components and integration with SharePoint are refreshed. If the Online Repair does not resolve the issue, a full uninstall/reinstall of Office is the next escalation.

Summary of practical steps:

1. Verify whether the issue is document-specific by testing other commented documents from SharePoint and from local storage.
2. For affected documents, follow damaged-document recovery guidance to rebuild them into new files, then re-upload to SharePoint.
3. If the problem persists across multiple documents, perform an Online Repair of Office, and if needed, a full reinstall.

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References:

• Fix problems opening documents in SharePoint libraries
• How to troubleshoot damaged documents in Word
• we are sorry, but word has run into an error that is preventing it from working correctly. Word will need to be closed as a result. Would you like us to repair now? - Microsoft Q&A
• word will not open "Would you like to repair now? - Microsoft Q&A
• How to fix MS Word has run into an error that is preventing from working properly. Word will need to be closed as a result. - Microsoft Q&A