Bugs, Features, Changes – June 2025
- Karl Donaubauer
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
In this monthly overview article, we inform you about (mostly minor) bugs, changes and new features for Access in recent weeks.
1. Bug: Button Captions and Images disappear
In Current Channel Preview, the first four builds of version 2506 have a bug that causes many labels and images on command buttons to disappear. I reported the problem to Microsoft and received assurance that it would be fixed by the time version 2506 is released in the Current Channel. A positive sign is that the bug no longer occurs in the latest Preview version 2506 build 18925.20092 from June 23.
Since it is a noticeable UI bug, several horrified reports were posted in the forums. So, once again the most important thing here:
The two "Insider" update channels, Beta Channel and Current Channel Preview, are for testing purposes only and are not intended for production use. They contain the latest features, but also the latest bugs, which should be found, reported, and fixed before they appear in the production channels. More information about channels can be found in this AFo article.
In the AFo blog we only document bugs that occur in production channels and mention "popular" Insider bugs here in the monthly summary at most. You can find details about the current button bug on Colin Riddington's page. He tends to document Insider bugs to inform fellow beta testers.
2. Bug: "Invalid SQL Statement" with Non-ASCII in Monaco
On June 12, we published an article about a bug in the Current Channel regarding non-ASCII characters in the Monaco SQL editor. I reported it to Microsoft and it was fixed within a week. Although it rendered the Monaco editor almost unusable for a large portion of its user base, it only occurred when editing in the SQL editor, and disabling Monaco was a simple workaround. So it had manageable consequences.
It is noteworthy that this was only our third bug article since last August, i.e. in 10 months, and the other two documented bugs also had no major impact.
3. Feature: Roadmap – Expected Delays
Two new features have been on the M365 Roadmap for Access since March and April:
The Access team at Microsoft informed us that things have been delayed by unanticipated, high priority work items impacting all of Office. This means that the release of the slider and most likely also the large monitor support will be later than originally planned.
4. Change: to Update Channels in July 2025
Microsoft has announced several changes to the M365 update channels for July 2025. Quote from the Microsoft page about channel changes:
Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview) is being deprecated. Organizations should migrate devices immediately.
Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel is shifting to focus on unattended devices. Microsoft recommends moving interactive devices to Monthly Enterprise Channel or Current Channel.
Feature releases for Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel are supported for six months (reduced from 14 months).
Monthly Enterprise Channel includes two months of rollback support (increased from one month).
It is not clear to us what "shifting to focus on unattended devices" for the Semi-Annual Enterprise channel will mean in practice.
5. Change: Answers Forums replaced by Q&A
According to a notice since late June in the Microsoft Answers forums frequented by many Access users, it will no longer be possible to start new discussions there from July 16:
Instead, participants are asked to switch to Microsoft's Q&A forums which are also available in multiple languages. The software topics there are defined/filtered by tags. Those for Access were changed again on June 26. Here are the current links for the English Q&A forums for Access:
The name "Access" traditionally leads to many questions posted in the wrong place. We will see if this improves when moderators and participants switch from Answers to Q&A.