more data points:

[psybelle]

LJ comments on my account are not visible using Safari, Firefox, or Chrome (and ohdamn my layout is seriously broken in Chrome).

Two other Another "basic" accounts (not income-generating) don't seeing comments, an account with ads and a paid account both do.

I haven't tested whether this is layout-dependent, though - another possibility...


Further edit: over at DW, I got a response from elf:

This happens occasionally to many people. You have to leave a comment, and then the other comments become visible. (On the anon memes, there are often threads with comments that just say "CTSC"--commenting to see comments.)

LJ is aware of the issue, but since the kludge-fix is simple ("just leave a comment"), it's apparently not a priority to figure out why it's happening or fix the code.

Just another aspect of how Update 88 improved LJ for everyone!

Unfortunately, the kludge doesn't work for me either. Looking at the "support issues" page shows that other folks are having this problem, but the users are not identified as to the sort of account they have...

Comments

[elf]

I could see ohnotheydidnt's comments in their community layout, but when I switched to ?style=mine, they went away. I don't use a comment page that matches my journal layout. ?format=light doesn't work either.

Apparently, it's the default comment view(s?) that's not working for Basic members.