Confluence Comments on all pages have disappeared. How can I restore comments?
Asked by ASAP2wg:

Comments at the bottom of all web pages for all Spaces have disappeared. We would like to restore the original functionality of Confluence and have Comments enabled.

We downloaded an evaluation/trial plugin call HideElements. We used options in the PlugIn to disable comments on one web page in one Space. Then, we disabled and uninstalled the evaluation plugin. When we reviewed our Spaces, we discovered that Comments were not being shown on any web page in any Space. I contacted the developer of HideElements and was told his program was not the cause. Once the plugin is disabled and then uninstalled, the plugin can not be the cause of the problem.

I've re-booted the Confluence Server. I've tested with many different Internet Browsers. I've logged in using multiple user accounts. I've checked every Confluence module to see if any module was inadvertently disabled. I simply can't find a way to re-enable Comments on Confluence web pages. I hope there's something simple that I'm missing.

Can anyone give me some pointers or suggest something to check-out and troubleshoot? Is there a global database flag that might prevent Comments from being displayed?

Thank you.


Answers:
author: ASAP2wg
body: Thanks to both Jonathan and Ann.

* Per Jonathan's idea, global CSS is empty. We had nothing added for global CSS.
* Per Ann's idea, all users have permissions to enter Comments. Permissions were granted globally by user group, and individually by user name for all Spaces.

I discovered my Confluence Server is missing the decorator file: sharedcomments.vmd. Maybe that's the issue. Now looking at a possible solution per: <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-55394>

I'll report if this fixes the issue where Comments are not shown anywhere on any web page in any Space. If restoring the missing decorator file solves this problem, then I'll give the author of HideElements a heads-up that his add-on may have caused the problem either when it was active or when I disabled and uninstalled the program.


author: ASAP2wg
body: This issue is now closed. Thanks to the community for the help.

The Comment Layout decorator VMD file was missing. sharedcomments.vmd was removed a few days ago by our programmer when he experimenting with some custom CSS. But he didn't restore the default VMD file. Once restored, everything worked fine. We're just starting to use Confluence. I'm going to say this was our newbie mistake. The add-in HideElements worked fine and did not contribute to this issue. Thanks for the responses and for Ann who pointed us in the direction of Comment Layout decorators.

comments: author: Jonathan Smith
body: Tell your programmer that we all shake our virtual fists at him :)


author: AnnWorley
body: I found two other techniques for hiding comments on a forum post, one is via custom html and the other is by editing the decorators: [Deactivate the Comment section](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Deactivate-the-Comment-section/qaq-p/159735)

A third way to get the comment section to disappear is to remove the comment permission from Space Tools \> Permissions.

Please check whether any of these possible causes could be behind the comments disappearing on your instance.

comments: author: Jonathan Smith
body: OH! Yes, check permissions on one of the spaces to see if it is X'ed out for everyone. Nice call [@AnnWorley](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/502040). Lets hope that is the easy solution.


author: Jonathan Smith
body: Morning [@ASAP2wg](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1742825),

I would suggest emailing [HideElement's support](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211757/hideelements-for-confluence?hosting=server&tab=support)and asking about re-enabling the comments.

* This could potentially be a bug they will need to address with their product.

Does this also happen in your DEV environment or did you apply this to PROD only?

comments: author: Jonathan Smith
body: Apologies, I see you did contact their support.

Odd, if the comments went away after enabling their product, you would think their product would be the cause.


author: Jonathan Smith
body: [@ASAP2wg](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1742825) Check and see if the comments section is still hidden in the global CSS:

* #comments-section
* https://confluenceserver/admin/viewstylesheet.action

Note: You can always hide your elements without an add-on, check out this article:

<https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-to-hide-elements-in-confluence-using-css-or-javascript-313458894.html>

Example:

#comments-section{

display:none !important;  
}


Tags: confluence-server

server