Forum Discussion
Word 2019 spontaneously corrupts all other open Word files
So, recently, my Word 2019 software has been exhibiting a serious problem: when I have files open, and am typing in one of them, all of a sudden this entire file will go corrupt. That is: all the t...
Hi kbird1950
like I wrote - the BIOS update helped me. Even though I had one occurence after that, it was that single time, and I haven't experienced the issue anymore.
Thanks, Lenka...so, I've just updated everything; I now have the most current drivers, BIOS, everything. I've scanned for malware...nothing. I have a fresh install of MS Office. So, we'll see if your theory is correct 🙂
I have to think, however, if your BIOS update was the cure, then it couldn't have happened again afterwards...even 1 time. But, some things are stranger than reality...especially with Office!
I have to think, however, if your BIOS update was the cure, then it couldn't have happened again afterwards...even 1 time. But, some things are stranger than reality...especially with Office!
- Thanks, Doug...so, that explains why I couldn't find it on my computer.
I'll see if any of this works, and will report back. It might be a while to know for sure 🙂 Here is some information provided mid-last year by the Word Product Team:
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The “Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration” UI Option has been removed for certain configurations of Office on Windows 10. This decision was motivated by changes in Office’s rendering pipeline to utilize the Windows UI Composition APIs. To ensure performance and stability, we need Office to match system-wide hardware acceleration settings.
The UI Option to “Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration” was originally introduced to help customers diagnose rendering glitches/crashes in an era when graphics hardware drivers were particularly unstable. Since then, stability of the overall rendering pipeline has increased, and we have added many mitigations to automatically disable hardware acceleration as needed. We believe the UI Option is no longer relevant to most users.
Additionally, we have found that over the years this option has been incorrectly suggested as a fix to a wide array of unrelated issues. As a result, we have found widespread side-effects hampering performance across large organizations. The option was never meant to be permanently checked, rather it was meant to serve as a trouble-shooting step.
We are committed to fixing rendering issues that customers are experiencing. Although many of these issues are now detected and fixed automatically, please do report any rendering issues you have to our customer support.
You can find specific troubleshooting steps for Rendering/Display issues here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/settings/office-display-issues
If you still need to alter Hardware Acceleration settings to diagnose a rendering issue, you can do so through the following Windows settings:
Choose which Graphics Adapter Office apps use:
- Navigate to: Settings > Display > Graphics Settings
- From here you can add a Desktop application using the "Browse" button.
- For each Desktop application clicking "Options" will allow you to override which GPU is used when there are multiple GPUs on the machine.
Disable one or more Graphics Adapters via Device Manager:
- Navigate to: Start > Device Manager
- Expand the "Display Adapters" node
- Right-click and choose "Disable device" on the Graphics Adapter you wish to disable.
- If all Graphics adapters are disabled, Windows will default to Software rendering via the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter.
Unquote
Hey kbird1950 ,
Thank you for replying. I am quite surprised that you got no support from MS so far, but I keep my fingers crossed for you that you solve the issue. No computer is the same and what worked for me may not work for you; I am sorry I could not be of more help.
Let us know, though, as this is a real problem and the experience from it will further our education.
It is under HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
See attached for a wider view.
Where else might I look?
- Okay, Doug...thanks. I read this link; I had done all the things mentioned at least twice before I posted my problem to the Community...no help at all. In fact, I still think using the on-line Repair Tool is what started all this; can't prove it, though.
So: I will go ahead and use your suggestion, about the Disable Hardware Acceleration modification. I'll work on Word files for a couple of weeks, and report back...hoping for success!
And Lenka: yes, I've reported this to MS; but, as yet, all I've gotten was a confirmation...no actual assistance. I'll try again...wish me luck! And yes, I have scanned Office and my entire computer, with both internal and external software, multiple times; absolutely no malware was ever found. Firewall is always on, and I do no work whatsoever in the Cloud. Thanks for your continuing help on this 🙂 - There should be absolutely no issue with the user updating their Office application via File>Account>Update Options>Update now, or doing an On-line repair via the Windows Control Panel>Programs as detailed n the Knowledge Base article at:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Repair-an-Office-application-7821d4b6-7c1d-4205-aa0e-a6b40c5bb88b?CorrelationId=1b0030f4-8cc5-4485-b495-810e2a7d1284&ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US Hello kbird1950 ,
since you are back to square one, how about your antivirus? That can take a lot of resources, too. I had a glitch recently again, with our malware system depleting computer's resources, with Word reacting to scattering the graphics. A MS update had to be run to fix it. BTW, is your machine up to date with Microsoft patches? Did you get in touch with them to tackle the issue? Like I wrote last time - you should not be doing trying to fix this yourself.
In earlier versions of Office, there used to be an option available to the user under File>Options>Advanced to vary the setting for "hardware graphics acceleration" and changing that setting often solved issues with display corruption.
This screenshot is from Office 2010
As that option is no longer available in the User Interface, the only way that the setting can now be changed is by editing the Registry.
- Okay...thanks for tracking this down, Doug. I'm willing to try it...but, I'd like to understand what it will do and why it might help first. And, why this will help, and un-checking other boxes won't.
Could you please explain your thinking on this? I'm not doubting your expertise; but, why might doing this help, and has doing it solved similar problems for you previously?
Thanks in advance... Go to the following Registry key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Graphics
And select the DisableHardwareAcceleration item and then click on the Edit tab and then on Modify and change the value from 1 to 0 or vice-versa
If it doesn't help, change it back to the current setting.
- Thanks...but, there doesn't seem to be that option. If I can somehow find it, what might that do...and why? Just curious...
- While there is no longer the option in Microsoft 365, I think that in Office 2019 there is still an option (under File>Options>Advanced) to "Disabled hardware graphics acceleration" and if that is the case, you might try changing that setting.
- Thanks, Doug....so: I'm not on the cloud. I bought Office 2019 so that I would NOT be on the cloud.
Word is always open. When I close the corrupted files (without saving them, of course), and later reopen the last-saved versions, they are fine. Albeit, missing all of the work that didn't get saved before the files crashed.
So, this is all on my PC. And, never a problem with it until "Online Repair" happened about 4 months ago.
Everything is 64-bit. Are the files that you are working on located in a folder on the local drive that is NOT synchronized with OneDrive, or some other cloud location. If so, if you close Word without saving those files and then re-start it, are the files still corrupted?
Check under File>Account>About Word to make sure that you are using the 64-bit application
So, everyone, bad news: the massive corruption happened again today. As before, simultaneously to all Word files open at the time...3 this time. I had thought, now almost two weeks along, that the previous repair had worked. But, sad to say, we are back at square one for this issue.
I'm thinking that assuring a 64-bit Office with a 64-bit computer helped. Updating drivers, BIOS, scanning for malware, etc. etc. surely didn't hurt. But: none of those got to the root cause of this very nasty problem.
SO: the floor is open again to your thoughts, ideas, experiences: what can we do to cure this disaster waiting to happen.
I've attached the screen shot of a corrupted file again, to refresh your memories.
- Final update on this matter [I think] 🙂
So, I've worked on Word docs all week, many of them the same ones as before, with nary an issue. No corruption, no destruction, everything just fine, as it used to be.
Doug's simple, but Genius, solution seems to have cured this very nasty problem. Now, we'll need to find a way to stop MS from downloading the incorrect "repair" version of software the next time... - I don't want to jinx anything, but, have had 2 good days using Word docs after assuring a 64-bit/64-bit reunion.
No glitches, no problems, and, especially, no massive corruption!
Hoping that this continues! We can then confer "genius" status on Doug 🙂 Hey kbird1950 ,
This got me thinking: I had some weird issues since Xmas until two days ago. I couldn't import styles, upgrade styles, create styles, save numlists, Autosave didn't work though it said "file saved", almost every day I lost 3-4 hours of work.
I asked for reinstall of Office, but each time they did was 'repair'. Until I finally got to someone who actually REINSTALLED the Office. Uninstalled previous version/fix attempts, installed a new one.
Puff, all issues gone.
I do prefer to have 64-bit on a 64-bit machine, but I have no say in my work environment. There I have the 64-bit/32-bit mix, and it works (well, until it doesn't). Whatever helps is what you need.
I will be glad for you if it helps! Lenka
I think you may have the solution here!
When I checked, I was more than surprised to find a 32-bit version of Office on my computer.
Since I bought and installed the 64-bit version of Office 2019 about four years ago for my 64-bit computer, it has worked great. When I had a few glitches in some docs late last Fall, I ran the online repair function; I was surprised to see that the proposed fix was for MS to download a fresh copy of Office. But, at no cost, and all up-to-date, I thought it would be good. Carry on...
It seems that the download then...for which I had no choices available...was a 32-bit version. After that, all of these massive doc corruption issues started, and grew. When I used the repair tool a couple more times, a couple more 32-bit versions were automatically installed. Not imagining MS would replace 64-bit with 32-bit, I never checked.
Until last night...thanks to Doug. There it was: 32-bit.
So, when I ran the automatic repair download again last night, the same thing happened. I ran it again, still 32-bit. So, I was up half the night trying to download a 64-bit version of Office 2019. I finally got it to happen, but it wasn't easy...probably because MS wants us all to install Office 365 instead.
Anyhow: I now have my 64-bit Office Suite back. We'll see how it goes, but my feeling is that the spontaneous corruption problem will now be a thing of the past. I'll try it for a while, and will report back.
Now what needs to be repaired, it seems, is the Office repair tool itself!
Hi kbird1950 ,
I think you still can raise a ticket with Microsoft. Search for MS support in your country, write them an email/call them, have them have a look at it.
This is beyond an on-line chat group, and needs fixing.
If you do that, please do come back and tell us what they did and how they'd fixed it.
Fingers crossed. L.
- If you are using a 32-bit installation of Office on a 64-bit version of Windows, changing to the 64-bit version of Office should overcome that issue.
- Thanks, Angie, for the suggestion. But, this is a desktop computer, so is always plugged in. There is no rechargeable battery, like a laptop would have. I know that some desktop computers have, or used to have, a small battery inside, but this one does not.
And, running the computer diagnostics shows that all systems are good.
I find it telling that only Word files are having this corruption problem...and then, only when open. I did have an Excel file open the other day, briefly, with no problem...but that wasn't really a fair test. It has not occurred for any .pdf files, or for any other thing or program on my computer. So, I don't know for sure if this corruption problem would affect all open Office files when it happens, or just Word docs. But, it does seem isolated to MS Office.
But: if only Word, that's still bad enough! As of now, I'm saving, saving, saving...every minute or so, sometimes. Any other thoughts out there? Have you tried a new battery or power adapter?
A few years back a very similar thing happened to me and I resisted the idea of the battery replacement...until I replaced the battery and then the corruption of files ceased.
At the time, I was told that too low power can cause all sorts of odditiies.
Good luck!
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