Bug 86725 - Comments disappearing
Summary: Comments disappearing
Status: CLOSED INSUFFICIENTDATA
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.0.0.3 release
Hardware: x86 (IA32) Linux (All)
: medium major
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Calc-Comments
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2014-11-26 07:25 UTC by Mattias
Modified: 2021-05-02 04:54 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
My economy, the reason I'll have to switch to OpenOffice. There should be 17 comments. (48.77 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet)
2014-11-26 07:25 UTC, Mattias
Details

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Description Mattias 2014-11-26 07:25:03 UTC
Created attachment 110035 [details]
My economy, the reason I'll have to switch to OpenOffice. There should be 17 comments.

I've discovered two instances where lots (or all) of the comments I've added to my spreadsheet disappear. I will provide the file in question. The problem is so annoying I might have to switch to OpenOffice.

First, if I edit the sentence at C:43, "SENAST KOLLAD 23 NOVEMBER" to "SENAST KOLLAD 26 NOVEMBER" by only changing the 3 to a 6, then save the document, close it, and reopen it, all the comments are gone.
Actually, if I change it at all, the comments disappear in this way.
If I just add in the text "blabla" somewhere, save, close, open, the comments are all gone. So yeah, seems I can't really do anything with the document.

Second, if some comments are shown when I save and close the document, all other commens will be gone when I open it. If I show a comment, then hide it, it will still be there when I open the document again. If not, it won't be there.

God bless Dropbox for their restore function. It really saved my ass a couple days back. I haven't been as furious in quite a while as when I opened my document to find all the important notes gone.

The file attached is the file in question, my economy since August.
Comment 1 Terrence Enger 2014-11-27 02:59:56 UTC
Thank you, Mattias, for taking the time to help us improve
LibreOffice.  That is particularly good of you when the program is
serving you poorly.

Can you please let us know what version of LibreOffice you are using?
When you respond, please set the status of this report back to
UNCONFIRMED.

Thanks,
Terry.
Comment 2 Matthew Francis 2015-04-26 13:10:29 UTC
This is most likely a duplicate of bug 74325 - which was fixed in 4.2.1 / 4.3.0
Comment 3 Andrew Poth 2015-11-11 15:04:03 UTC
The bug is NOT fixed, at least not as of LibreOffice 4.3.5.2 on a Linux 32-bit system, and the comments in Calc disappear whenever cell contents are removed.  This problem was reported in Bug 77383, which was declared "invalid" due to "lack of activity".  The truth is, it was never investigated, even though it is ridiculously simple to replicate.

To demonstrate, open a new sheet in Calc.  Enter a number or any text in a cell.  Move the cursor to another cell, then go back to the cell in which you entered a number or text.  Press the delete key on the keyboard or backspace in the Input Line until all the characters in the cell are gone.  The comment has disappeared, never to be seen again.

Actual behavior:
When text is cleared from a cell, the comment disappears.

Expected behavior:
Comments are persistent until one right-clicks on the cell or group of cells and selects "Delete comment".

This is unexpected behavior.  I would expect comments to be persistent, regardless of cell contents.  Comments are often used in cells in order to remind oneself of the type of data in a cell or the format in which it is to be entered into that cell.  Deleting the contents of a cell in preparation for entering new information is a natural thing to do, and a user would not expect the comment to disappear as well.  I can find no setting in the Calc Options menus that would allow a user to modify this behavior.  This bug appears to be due to a design deficiency, i.e., the behavior of comments in cells not having been defined adequately from the start, and thus not coded properly.
Comment 4 Andrew Poth 2015-11-11 15:17:33 UTC
Bump (to get my comment cc'd to my email).
Comment 5 mahfiaz 2016-04-19 05:27:22 UTC
I opened the attached document with 5.0.5.2, all the comments were hidden (the red dot next to cell).
Changed a cell, saved as to my desktop. Opened it again. Comments were still there (although hidden as they should be).

Does it work for you in 5.x or am I doing something different?
Comment 6 QA Administrators 2016-11-08 12:26:50 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 7 QA Administrators 2016-12-07 12:29:21 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 8 Thanos 2018-06-26 05:54:50 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 9 aadil khan 2019-07-16 11:38:10 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 10 Ron Johnson 2019-11-20 03:44:35 UTC
I've had this same "at random times, ALL comments in a calc ODS file just... disappear" problem for YEARS, and through MANY versions.  Currently, I'm on 6.16 (because 6.2 under gtk3 looks ugly), and still happening.  The reason I'm here is because I just noticed the problem AGAIN, and decided to google it.
Comment 11 Mykola 2020-09-29 08:27:22 UTC
Can confirm this issue is present in v7.0.0.3.
 majority of cell comments (not all) disappeared despite cells content is in place. Can't recall the movement leading to this outcome. Just spotted this today opening my sheet. This is quiet a drawback for me, cause I'm doing some accountant stuff. Please take a measures, unless I have to switch to something more robust
Comment 12 zabi78 2020-10-09 11:42:53 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 13 BrianB 2020-11-04 18:02:52 UTC
One possible workaround is to save the Calc file in xlsx format instead of ods.
It seems to reliably retain the comments when opened in Calc, however there may be other incompatibility issues that will prevent this being a universal option.
Win 10 Calc version 6.4.6.2(x64)
Comment 14 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:11:19 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 15 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:20:10 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 16 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:22:03 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 17 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:22:59 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 18 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:24:17 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete, spam)
Comment 19 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:31:22 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 20 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:33:44 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 21 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:34:38 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 22 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:35:14 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 23 avisek kumar 2020-11-19 07:35:56 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 26 Ron Johnson 2021-02-12 20:37:52 UTC
Still happening in Version: 7.0.3.1
Build ID: d7547858d014d4cf69878db179d326fc3483e082
CPU threads: 6; OS: Linux 4.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 27 Car Rental DXB 2021-04-28 09:40:31 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 28 Aron Budea 2021-04-28 11:52:27 UTC
Ron, if you have a reproducible scenario, please open a new bug report. Unfortunately randomly occurring bugs are extremely hard to follow up on.
Comment 29 Daniel 2021-05-02 01:59:17 UTC Comment hidden (abusive)
Comment 30 Daniel 2021-05-02 02:52:28 UTC Comment hidden (abusive)
Comment 31 Daniel 2021-05-02 03:25:04 UTC Comment hidden (noise)
Comment 32 Aron Budea 2021-05-02 04:54:22 UTC
Daniel, that tone is not welcome here, please refrain from it in the future.
Also, this bug report does not involve FODS format, therefore what you are seeing is different (somewhat similar to bug 117671 / bug 108244, but a bit different from those as well). Let's keep this issue closed, you can open a new bug report with your steps.