Recently, a paper about the Nth-order rogue waves for an inhomogeneous higher-order nonlinear Schrodinger equation using the generalized Darboux transformation is published. Song et al. (Nonlinear Dyn 82(1):489-500. doi:10.1007/s11071-015-2170-6, 2015). However, the inhomogeneous equation which admits a nonisospectral linear eigenvalue problem is mistaken for having a constant spectral parameter by the authors. This basic error causes the results to be wrong, especially regarding the Darboux transformation (DT) in Sect. 2 when the inhomogeneous terms are dependent of spatial variable x. In fact, the DT for inhomogeneous equation has an essential difference from the isospectral case, and their results are correct only in the absence of inhomogeneity which was already discussed in detail before. Consequently, we firstly modify the DT based on corresponding nonisospectral linear eigenvalue problem. Then, the nonautonomous solitons are obtained from zero seed solutions. Properties of these solutions in the inhomogeneous media are discussed graphically to illustrate the influences of the variable coefficients. Finally, the failure of finding breather and rogue wave solutions from this modified DT is also discussed.