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Outlook 2013 error: The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable

Question

Thursday, September 5, 2013 11:08 PM

Environment: Windows 7 Enterprise

Setup: Fresh install of Office 2013

Issue: When I launch Outlook I get the error:

The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.

Steps to resolve:

I made sure my server name and mail address were correct but this did not have an impact.

I am at a total loss on how to resolve this issue, is there anyway to manually connect to M.E> as it is just saying the connection is unavailable.  All of the other threads dealing with this issue have been no help.  I can sign into my account at login.microsoftonline.net so i know the account is valid.  I also receive email to my iPhone with the account and server.  Any advice would be wonderful.

Now when I start up the application it tells me the same error and brings up something to alter the server and connection address.   

All replies (9)

Friday, September 6, 2013 3:53 PM ✅Answered | 1 vote

Hi,

Have you tried to recreate a new mail profile and then test the issue?

To do this, please exit Outlook, and then go to Control Panel >Mail... > Add…

Details about create a new mail profile, see:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829918/en-us

Also, you can try with this KB:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2264398

This issue occurs when the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders registry key does not contain all of the required data. Specifically, these problems occur if the AppData string value is missing from this registry key.

To resolve this issue, import the User Shell Folders registry key from a working Windows User Profile.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support


Tuesday, August 12, 2014 3:25 PM | 1 vote

Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service is most likely not running on your Exchange Server
.  Start the service and that should go away...but everything you did was a ghost in the shell, most likely your admin started the service.


Monday, July 13, 2015 11:11 AM

Hi, I am encountering the same issue on an outlook 2013 client and server, recreating the profile did not help and the registry hack did not help, what else could cause outlook to lose connection to the server?


Monday, July 20, 2015 8:29 AM

Hi, I am encountering the same issue on an outlook 2013 client and server, recreating the profile did not help and the registry hack did not help, what else could cause outlook to lose connection to the server?

Hi everyone, same problem here, cannot connect to exchange server (Outlook, One Drive), please help, I tried almost everything.

Thank you.

Martin


Tuesday, August 11, 2015 11:57 AM | 1 vote

Hi Everyone,

I was experiencing the exact same thing.  The Microsoft Office 365 Support & Recovery Assistant solved the problem.


Thursday, November 10, 2016 3:28 PM

This solved the problem for me!  I wish I had seen this before reformatting my laptop, thinking it was a workstation/registry issue!


Tuesday, March 28, 2017 6:58 AM | 2 votes

What Worked for me on Microsoft Office 2013 was the following:

1) you have to delete the default Email profile in the Windows Control Panel

go to Mail, Profiles, Show Profiles, then remove the profile named "Outlook" if it's there.

2) create a new profile, Don't forget to add the Domain using \ or @

domain\username

[email protected]

usually the domain format is the one that usually works,

hope this helps future visitors to this thread..

Amr


Tuesday, April 24, 2018 4:25 AM

This is the one people! thank you!


Friday, February 8, 2019 1:20 PM

Or the Microsoft Exchange Address Book service :-)

I know this is an old thread, but the problem still pops up from time to time!

BBBri