I had an instructor ask me exactly when students can see comments if more than one instructor is working on an assignment at the same time. I was all set to prepare my usual "be sure to MUTE the assignment" email when I tried a bit of an experiment just to make sure.
I found that if even if an assignment is muted, a student CAN read any submitted comments and even (if they are savvy enough to click the VIEW FEEDBACK button) to read comments in the crocodoc submission. I double-checked the Canvas documentation, and they are careful to state that students do not receive any notifications regarding comments, etc., but I never realized that if a student got nosy and clicked on the assignment link in the gradebook they could still see both the crocodoc comments as well as general comments in the COMMENT box! Below is a screen capture from a student login of the GRADES area of a sample assignment, and even though the assignment has been muted, if the student clicks on the "comment" word balloon or clicks the VIEW FEEDBACK button, they CAN see the comments. Is this by design? I had always assumed muted meant muted.
Kenneth, I tried to reproduce this and could not; my testing indicates that muted does indeed mean muted. I tried this with a quiz, and again with an essay submission.
Steps to reproduce on a quiz:
Steps to reproduce on an essay submission:
So maybe the best course of action would be to send a help ticket to determine why the muting functionality is not working as designed in your instance?