Error! Hyperlink Reference Not Valid. Microsoft Word

Dear kupadhyaya,

Good day! Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community. We are happy to help you.

As per your description, please don’t worry, we can work together to narrow down and resolve the situation.

As you mentioned, "I downloaded a word document from SharePoint, which have tracking change enabled for audit purpose" instead of download Word document file from SharePoint online document library, you may open you Word document in Word for web (online) first and then click on "Open in app " to open your Word document in Word desktop client app then check the outcomes.

If above doesn't work, then the specific "Error! Hyperlink reference not found" message seems to be generally we cannot really rely on a result to display correctly as long as Track Changes is activated. 

If you are not going to keep track changes in effect, if possible, please Turn off Track Changes before updating or make change to any of the hyperlink to avoid this error.

Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. I hope that you are keeping safe and well!

Sincerely,

Waqas Muhammad

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Thank you for the response, I have tried different ways trying to edit it Word for web and open in app the result is the same. Tracking cannot be disabled because of the office policy we have on place.

Thank you.

Hi kupadhyaya,

Thanks for your valuable feedback and sharing updates with us and I really appreciate your effort and your precious time doing. 

And I appreciate your kind words.

It seems you already tried but this behavior still occurs, if possible, could you please allow me some time and I need to do more test from my end and I will post back here ASAP after my test result.

Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. I hope that you are keeping safe and well!

Sincerely,

Waqas Muhammad

Hi kupadhyaya,

First, thanks for your patience and I really appreciate your effort and your precious time doing and I appreciate your kind words.

Based on my test result, I can confirm I meet the same behavior (Reproduce) as like you described above. Even I tested in Office 365 Beta channel version 2206 but got the same behavior. The hyperlink will change to "Error! Hyperlink reference not valid" after we reopened the file. Here is screenshot for your reference:

Since I also reproduce the same behavior from my side and in this situation to report this behavior to related Microsoft Word development team, I request you, please send/provided feedback to related team via go to File>Feedback so that they can get notice about it. It’s the best way to report to related team and we are sure it will speed up this process. Your advice is very important to us. Refer to this article: How do I give feedback on Microsoft Office? or via Microsoft PowerPoint feedback portal.

Workaround:

Besides, we did a test in version 2205(15225.20204) Current Channel that was released on 24 May 2022(for your reference: Update history for Microsoft 365 Apps) and confirmed that the track change function work correctly in the version 2205(15225.20204), so as a workaround, you may also consider reverting to this version of Word. About how to revert to an older version, please refer to How to revert to an earlier version of Office (microsoft.com)

Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. I hope that you are keeping safe and well!

Sincerely,

Waqas Muhammad

This is a FATAL issue with many users as the Hyperlink Name is replaced and no longer available.

As a Moderator, can you please help Microsoft to prioritize an immediate fix to this bug?

Thank you for your urgency in helping.

Seamus

Hi S McGrady,

Thanks for your valuable feedback and sharing updates with us and I really appreciate your effort and your precious time doing. 

And I appreciate your kind words.

After send feedback directly to Microsoft development teams and I think it will be fix next update version of Office 365.

Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. I hope that you are keeping safe and well!

Sincerely,

Waqas Muhammad

Thanks and I hope it is and can be posted here for all the users to see.

Hi Waqas,

We do not want to revert back to an earlier version . . . the Hyperlink Name issue has now been around for over a month . . . May I ask you to confirm when is the next update of Office 365 that will fix this issue please?

All the best

Hi John Murphy1,

If the product developers have some updates about the feedback, they will post the updated information there directly.

Sincerely,

Waqas Muhammad

Thank you for this. We are also experiencing this issue, however, it's not with Sharepoint. It's simply downloading the docs from a CRM.