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Microsoft Working on Fix for Office Bugs in OS X El Capitan

MacRumors said:



Since OS X El Capitan was released to the public last week, Microsoft Office users have noticed some serious bugs when attempting to use the software. MacRumors has received multiple emails from people having issues with Office 2016, and there are several threads about the problem on our forums.

Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint are crashing for many Microsoft users who have installed Office 2016, and Office 2011 users are also noticing problems with Outlook.

officeformac2016-800x159.jpg

Microsoft is aware of the problems with its software and has been responding to customer complaints. In a thread on the Microsoft forums, Microsoft Program Manager Faisal Jeelani said the company is working with Apple to resolve the issues, but said there is no timeline for a fix. Microsoft also gave Computerworld a similar statement:Customers who are running Office 2016 are running into a wide variety of problems. Some are seeing only occasional crashes with the software, while others are unable to open any Office 2016 apps at all. Many who use Outlook for email are unable to access their inboxes, and this particular issue affects both Office 2016 and Office 2011.Microsoft's first support replies came shortly after OS X El Capitan was released, which means the company has been working on a fix for several days now, but it is not clear when a patch might be released. Many customers on the Microsoft forums are growing angry with the company because Microsoft had several months to work out crashing issues ahead of OS X El Capitan's release. Crashes and Office 2016 problems were first reported during the beta testing period but remain unresolved.

Article Link: Microsoft Working on Fix for Office Bugs in OS X El Capitan
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Frankly, this is a bit surprising to me that Office is still having problems with 10.11. It's been crashing and unstable for many users since the very first betas, developer and public, which were released months ago - this is not a new problem. I would have hoped that Microsoft would've had the major bugs worked out of it by now.

I have to wonder if they're been working the problem all along or are just getting started on it.
 
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mdlooker said:
Whats the use of releasing a beta if there are major hurdles to fix after the public release?
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Two things:

1. developers can't really start debugging till the GM is released as each BETA build might break a fix that someone spent all day on so it's kinda pointless. Also, I believe the GM was out for like 1.5 week so not much time to fix bugs.

2. Office 2016 was just released a few weeks ago and has it's own bugs that need fixing. I don't think the office team needed a new OS to introduce even more bugs at this point.

Please note that my views and opinions do not officially represent Microsoft. I partake in this forum as I appreciate the community.
 
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tombiscuit said:
And did you know that LibreOffice is now in the Mac App Store?

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/libreoffice-vanilla/id921923693?mt=12
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That should make it easier to keep the application up-to-date. Currently it's a 10+ step process (the order varies slightly depending on where you start, eg, do you start with LibreOffice being the active app or do you start in the Finder):
  1. Go to the application
  2. Go to Help > 'Check for Updates'
  3. Click 'Download'
  4. Get switched to your web browser and click on 'Download'
  5. Wait for download to finish or switch to another app and check back later either from the download list in the browser or the download folder in the Finder.
  6. Open DMG file (either from the browser download list or in the Finder).
  7. Close the web browser window.
  8. Click on 'Accept' for opening the disk image.
  9. Wait or switch to something else and come back later.
  10. Drag .app bundle onto the Applications folder alias.
  11. Click on 'Replace'
  12. Unmount disk image.
  13. Move DMG file to the Trash.
With the App Store version it can be as little as clicking on 'Install' in the notification you get for the update. Or (1) going manually to the App Store app, (2) click on the Updates tab, (3) click on 'Update All', (4) Go back to the application you were using before. And since those four steps can update multiple apps at a time, the number of steps per app is generally significantly lower still.
 
Microsoft's Office calendar never really played nice with my IOS devices, or even iCal on my desktops and laptops. I hope they do a "360" review (pun intended) ;)
 
It's not just El Cap that Office 2016 has issues with....it has issues - PERIOD. I'm still running 10.10.5 and I can't "Save As" a PDF from Word 2016 on a NAS share unless the share is "public" (no username/password) - but it will save a .docx file to the share with no issue. Also, Excel 2016 saves as PDF to the NAS share with no problems, as does Word 2011.
 
Count me in as someone who's having issues with Outlook 2016 version 15.14.2.

I have several IMAP mailboxes in Outlook 2016. As soon as I upgraded to 15.14.2, two of those mailboxes refused to sync. After I realized I hadn't been receiving mail in Outlook on my Mac for hours but my iPhone was pulling down mail fine from all my mailboxes, I reverted back to 15.13.1 via Time Machine. As soon as I launched 15.13.1, all the mailboxes synced immediately.

I did the upgrade one to 15.14.2 one more time in the past few days just to see if maybe the initial experience was a fluke. Nope. As soon as I launched 15.14.2, the same two IMAP mailboxes refused to sync. I downgraded to 15.13.1 again and all was well. Not sure what's causing the problem but that's a pretty glaring bug.

P.S. 15.14.2 was released on 9/24/2015, which is when I first did the upgrade and ran into the problem. I was running the latest Yosemite at the time. When I upgraded to El Cap on 9/30/2015 and re-installed 15.14.2, the problem persisted. I don't think my problem is an Apple problem since the problem existed on both Yosemite and El Cap. Looks to be a cut and dry Microsoft problem.
 
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H2SO4 said:
Or, you could switch that up.
Of all the versions of Office I use, (2011 for 10.10 and 10.11, 2016 for 10.10, 2010 and 2007 on various flavours of WIndows), El Capitan is the only one that produces crashes?
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Or you could just wonder why MS had the beta's for quite a while and couldn't address these issues. Surely they happened there.

Or, we can just call it normal issues for a new OS.

By service pack #3 MS will have it close to usable (not fixed)
 
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btrach144 said:
Two things:

1. developers can't really start debugging till the GM is released as each BETA build might break a fix that someone spent all day on so it's kinda pointless. Also, I believe the GM was out for like 1.5 week so not much time to fix bugs.

2. Office 2016 was just released a few weeks ago and has it's own bugs that need fixing. I don't think the office team needed a new OS to introduce even more bugs at this point.

Please note that my views and opinions do not officially represent Microsoft. I partake in this forum as I appreciate the community.
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I appreciate the different angles of thought also. Thanks for your point..

Mm K.. So before Apple and/or the Market can release MS Office for Mac to the public, it has to be submitted by MS right? Before MS releases the software to Apple and/or the Market they have to have the OS in their possession so they can develop it before releasing it right?

Sooo what am I missing on this? Why would MS even release something that obviously wasn't checked by anyone in their walls before sending it out?
 
My main reason for not moving to The Capitan right away was anticipation of endless app updates including Office 2016. Since iOS9 on my Phone and 2 Pad, apps, Office I must be around 10GB+ :confused:
 
Great but... come on MS. You had access to the developer versions for months. The point of those dev versions is so software developers can have test their stuff on it and have it ready to go near launch.

Of course they are going to patch Office to work with it... how could they not. But they could have had it ready much sooner.
 
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H2SO4 said:
Or, you could switch that up.
Of all the versions of Office I use, (2011 for 10.10 and 10.11, 2016 for 10.10, 2010 and 2007 on various flavours of WIndows), El Capitan is the only one that produces crashes?
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You're lucky... The work I do that crashes Office 2016 on El Cap also crashes Office 2016 on Win 10.

I am back to manually saving my work every 10 minutes.
 
I like how Microsoft, a software company, whose job it is to make software, that sells a product made for OS X, didn't actually bother testing its software on OS X...

Microsoft just now found out about El Capitan?
 
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Fuchal said:
Fancy that, of all the software I use, Office is the only one with issues.
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The bugs reported in Office running on El Cap does not surprise me. On the Redmond campus, any development that supports the Mac is the lowest pecking order in their corporate culture. Then there are the "six colors" label given to former Apple employees working at Microsoft. Yes, they do exist.
 
How typical for MicroSlop. They pulled the same stunt with Office 2011. It was released right before Mountain Lion, but....and that's one big BUT...they couldn't/wouldn't update Outlook to pull mail from ML's Mail app. There was other stuff too that took a while for the boys and girls in Redmond to fix.
 
People complaining about Microsoft: bear in mind that the same team that produces Mac office also produces iOS Office. And where do you think not only the effort is going now but also their hearts and interests lie...?

Blimey. I've just realised something. The Mac is a dying platform.
 
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I've started using Pages since Word 2011 randomly started eating my documents, and it's actually a decent alternative to Word (for research and work as a grad assistant, definitely not in an office). There's no good replacement for Excel though, I feel sorry for anyone on El C that needs it.
 
keiths29 said:
At least I'm not the only one. A couple of minor issues are expected, but a failure in Outlook and Exchange Server. How do you miss that in beta testing? We run everything off of our Exchange server, and having to use Mail and Calendar is just a pain. If no one has said it yet, perhaps El Crapitan would have been a more appropriate name. While your at it, fix the issues with HP printer/scanner drivers.
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There's problems with HP printers too? Boy, I'm glad I haven't updated yet! As a student I need Office and my printer to work with my computer.

fhall1 said:
It's not just El Cap that Office 2016 has issues with....it has issues - PERIOD. I'm still running 10.10.5 and I can't "Save As" a PDF from Word 2016 on a NAS share unless the share is "public" (no username/password) - but it will save a .docx file to the share with no issue. Also, Excel 2016 saves as PDF to the NAS share with no problems, as does Word 2011.
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I've had some trouble with PowerPoint 2016 on Yosemite! I prefer to save locally, but it would not let me "save as" the other day even trying different file names. It only worked after I saved the OneDrive first.
 
mr.bee said:
I've been using office since beta on my Mac and was lucky because I didn't had many crashes.
And yes I use it extensively, I link to a SQL and analyse data.

Lync 2011 on the other hand crashes very frequently.

I hope Microsofts reign on general office apps is soon over. But I doubt it... I mean apple could have released a good upgrade to their iwork apps a long time ago. But they never did, I bet they have some secret gentlemen's agreement going on for 'saving ' apples ass in the nineties
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I know several outfits that have been using Libre Office and Open Office for a few years just to avoid this crap. Internally, they save in ODT format and export to MS Office 95 as needed. Eventually these office suite file formats will be as standard as TCP/IP and format data exchanges more fluid.
 
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