Comments only show after adding a comment

Question

Hi,

We've encountered an odd case where all the sudden it happens to end-users that they won't see any comments posted on a page until they add a comment themselves. As soon as the end-users posts a comment and has it displayed on the page, only then will all other comments be visible to the end-user. The end-user's comment is neatly placed in the right spot among the other comments (i.e. at the bottom).

What could explain this behavior? Some details:

- Confluence 4.3.7
- RefinedWiki 3.4.5
- Chrome (always on latest version; cache cleared)
- Other things done to check: flush cache under cache statistics, stop & restart confluence service on server (and removing any cache folders on server)

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

unknown · Answer

Hi @William Zanchet [Atlassian],

Would you have any other suggestions that may help us to overcome this issue? You help is highly appreciated.

Rachel Grandia · Answer

Hi William,

Apologies for this late reply. It proved to be hard to find a moment where we could test your suggestions through in concert with our client who had to perform tests after each scenario that we took them through.

At this point in time, we have tested each of your suggestions and found that it does not affect the issue at hand: comment will still only be visible after a user posted at least 1 comment on that page him/her self. This happens when all plugins are deactivated and even in safe mode.

Additionally, we found that the issue can be worked around in one particular way: if a user cannot see any comments on a page, those comments are in fact visible in the recently updated stream on the Dashboard. Upon clicking such a comment on the Dashboard, the user is directed to the page. Then and only then, all comments are visible.

Do you have any additional thoughts based on the above description? Any help you could provide is much appreciated. Thanks in advance - Jurriaan

William Zanchet · Answer

Hi Jurriaan,

Yes, that isn't a default behavior of Confluence, you should be able see the comments regardless if you add comments there. I believe that this could be caused by third party plugins or customizations. Being that said, can you please try the approach below to rule out it?

could you please check in _Confluence Admin > Look and Feel_ and verify the following:

* Themes: See which theme you're using, switch back to the default if you're not using it already.
* Layouts: See if you have any custom layout defined, if yes then make a backup and reset to default.
* Stylesheet: See if you have custom stylesheet, if yes then make a backup and reset to default.
* Custom HTML: See if you have any custom HTML defined, if yes make a backup then reset to default.

If that doesn't work.  can you please enable safe mode -> https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/UPM/Disabling+and+Enabling+Add-ons#DisablingandEnablingAdd-ons-Disablingorenablingalladd-ons(usingSafeMode) to see if we're still having the same issue?

Cheers,

WZ