Excel bug? cell comments become uneditable

[wildetudor]

Sometimes the comment of a cell becomes unusable. I can see the comment as a
tooltip if I hover above the cell, however if I select the cell and press
Shift+F2 to edit it, nothing happens (the tooltip just blinks at every press).

I get this problem periodically for various files, and I haven't been able
to link it to any cause.

I use Excel 2007 but even if I save the file as Excel 2003-compatible and
open it in Excel 2003, the problem remains.

This is most likely a bug in Excel, has anyone encountered it?
Thanks

 

[Gary''s Student]

One way cell comments can be not edit-able, is because the cells may be
protected or locked.

To test this:

1. turn off workbook protection
2. turn off worksheet protection
3. unlock all cells
4. try to edit

 

[wildetudor]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I have never used workbook/worksheet protection,
nor have I ever locked any cells. Still, I tried protecting and then
unprotecting, with no results (I still cannot edit certain comments).

I increasingly believe this is a bug, because if I lock a cell, the Edit
Comment command becomes unavailable and it's just plain clear you aren't
allowed to edit the comment. On the other hand, when nothing is
protected/locked, the Edit Comment command is available, it just doesn't
work; as I said, if I mouse over the cell, then the comment tooltip blinks at
each press of the Shift+F2 keyboard shortcut (i.e. Edit Comment).

This may be difficult to visualise - if it helps, I can upload the workbook
in question to a file sharing website so you can have a look at it. Thanks a
lot for your help.