Duplicate entries sometimes being appended to a multi-line text field

Question

I have a list in SharePoint 2013 that contains a multi-line text column for comments that is set to append new entries. Sometimes, when user X tries to append a comment, instead of the new comment the field posts 1-8 copies of the previous comment but under user X's name.

When I look at the version history for the list item, there are blank versions for each duplicate item created. Oddly, I have only seen this occur for this one user, and she has confirmed that she is using the list in the same way as everybody else on her team.

The list has a small customization where it pulls the item Id from the query string and displays it with some HTML in a content editor web-part above the item detail page, but other than that it is straight OOTB.

Has anybody seen behavior like this from SharePoint 2013 multi-line text boxes, and if so, were you able to correct it?

Answer 1

It may be because of attachments. See this post. I can replicate this by doing the following:

• Create a new list
• Turn on versioning
• Add a multiline text column
• Set that column to append new values
• Create a new item and put a value in the text field
• Attach a word document to the item
• Save
• Open the item in the read-only view
• Open the word document attachment
• Choose to edit the attachment
• Make a change and save

You will now have a duplicate entry in the text field. Here's the quick version:

• The list is set up to version items and to append the text field
• Any time the version of the item changes, the system appends the current value of the text field to the text field list
• Updating and saving an attached document triggers a version change.
• When this happens the current value of the text field is still whatever was entered last into the field. Thus this value, no matter who entered it, is then appended on as a new entry in the text field as of the time that the attachment was saved.

Unfortunately I don't have a good solution, just an explanation.