MS List suddenly not displaying (or saving) multiple selections from column

Question

Hi. Wondering if anyone has any insight into the following problem. Hopefully I will explain this clearly.

I created a List around a year ago which uses a lookup column to pull names from a separate List of employees. The target column "Employees" is set to allow multiple selections, and at the time I created the List, if you selected two, or three, or however many names in this column, the resulting List item would show all of these names.

Today it was brought to my attention that for some reason, only the first employee selected shows up in the List now. I've tested and verified this-- you can still select multiple names, but only the first one appears in the List item once saved. Changing the view-- table, grid, calendar, Gallery, etc. has no apparent effect.

I don't know why or even when this stopped working-- could have been days or weeks ago but was just noticed. Also, not sure whether this is simply a display problem or if the new List items are now actually only saving the first of multiple entries (I suspect it's the latter but hope I'm wrong).

For what it's worth, I confirmed that the column is still configured to allow multiple selections.

If anyone has any insight on this problem or troubleshooting suggestions, I'd be grateful.

Thanks.

virendrak · Answer

It’s quite an interesting issue. I’ve never experienced this behavior myself. But here are a few troubleshooting steps you can try, in case you haven’t already explored them:

1. Confirm whether the data is actually being saved

Open the item in Edit mode (click on Edit all) and check the lookup field.

If only one value appears: the issue is with saving
If all values appear: the issue is with display/rendering

This helps narrow down the root cause.

2. Check if the source list has unique permissions

If the lookup source list or individual items have restricted permissions, SharePoint can sometimes fail to save multiple lookup values correctly.

3. Edit a property to refresh the lookup column schema: You can try updating the original lookup column (for example, add a description, save it, then remove the description and save again). This sometimes forces SharePoint to refresh the column schema and resolve the issue.

If that doesn’t help, re‑creating the column is the most reliable fix.

4. Try creating a brand‑new lookup column

This is the quickest way to confirm whether the issue is with the column itself.

Create a new test column with: