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Question
Wednesday, April 27, 2016 12:45 PM | 5 votes
I know this is a major ongoing problem; there are so many threads on various forums with the same issue. I have a few clients on Outlook 2010, 2013 and 2016 (all connected to Exchange 2010 SP3 via LAN) that are having problems with Outlook updating folders. Some clients with this config are working, but others are not.
Even if they click Send/Receive the Inbox folder doesn't update. They can send an email to themselves and not receive it unless the close and open Outlook or click Send/Receive menu, then Update folder.
In this image, I have sent an email at 11.35 to the user's Inbox but they haven't received it, even after clicking Send/Receive.
And as you can see from this image, the email has arrived (but only after closing and reopening Outlook):
The only other way to get the email is doing any of the following:
- Choosing the Send/Receive menu then clicking Update Folder
- Closing and re-opening Outlook (it Send/Receives on Open)
- Choosing the Properties of the Inbox, then deleting the offline items for that folder.
But Outlook still shows the folder was last updated more than 15 mins earlier. Even though the email was received 8 mins ago.
You can see the Sync Stats for the Inbox folder aren't correct (this is missing recent emails), unless you perform any of the above steps:
The Outlook Connection Status appears fine:
When Outlook is autoconfigured I noticed that the Send/Receive group is configured like this by default:
If I tick the check box for "Include the selected account for this group" Outlook still doesn't update the Inbox unless it's closed and reopened.
It only works properly when Outlook is configured with Cached mode disabled. OWA is also obviously fine.
Steps I've tried (which have all been unsuccessful):
- Clear Offline Items for the Inbox
- Disable caching, close Outlook, delete the .ost file and recreate it by enabling caching.
- Completely delete and recreate the Outlook profile
- Disable Outlook add-ins
- Start Outlook in safe mode (outlook.exe /safe)
- Checked the MTU size on the server is set to max 1500
- Disabled Antivirus
Can someone help with this please?
All replies (82)
Thursday, April 28, 2016 12:09 PM âś…Answered
Hi,
Please click File > Options > Advanced, under Send and receive, please make sure "Send immediately when connected" is checked.
If the issue persists, please confirm if your mailbox or OST file is too large in Outlook. If that is the case, please clear unwanted messages in mailbox to reduce the mailbox size. Additionally, please set the cached Sync Slider not to All in Outlook:
File > Account Settings > Account Settings > Change, set Mail to keep offline not to All.
Regards,
Winnie Liang
TechNet Community Support
Please mark the reply as an answer if you find it is helpful.
If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected].
Tuesday, July 5, 2016 2:37 PM
How do you define "too large" for an OST file?
Wednesday, November 9, 2016 3:27 AM
I think Winnie was referring to the Size of the OST. It could be happen that your exchange admin might have set max size for the MB. therefore you will not be able to receive any more email when you have reached the threshold. for ex 2010, default is 2GB
bsl
Monday, November 14, 2016 12:42 PM
Hi
I have actually the same issue with Outlook 2016 clients on Exchange 2010. It is not an ost size issue as my mailbox is only 9 weeks old.
It works fine when not in cached mode. If in cached mode the emails do not come in until you close/open outlook but they will come in on say an iPhone device.
Thursday, November 17, 2016 12:44 AM | 1 vote
How do you define "too large" for an OST file?
OST file sizes are determined by the version of Outlook you are using.
The file size limits of .pst and .ost files are larger in Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/kb/982577
If you're .ost file goes over this size, the Outlook client will be unable to receive further email.
However, you can make changes to the registry:
How to configure the size limit for both (.pst) and (.ost) files in Outlook
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/kb/832925
Thursday, November 17, 2016 12:54 AM
Hi
I have actually the same issue with Outlook 2016 clients on Exchange 2010. It is not an ost size issue as my mailbox is only 9 weeks old.
It works fine when not in cached mode. If in cached mode the emails do not come in until you close/open outlook but they will come in on say an iPhone device.
Try disabling caching for the mailbox -
Control Panel > Mail > Email Accounts > select the account and then Change > untick Use Cached Exchange Mode.
Ensure the ost file has been deleted - normally located here:
C:\Users\username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\
Open Outlook, then re-enable caching.
If that doesn't work, try creating a new Outlook profile -
- Control Panel > **Mail **> Show Profiles > Add > then follow the prompts to create a new Exchange profile.
Change the Outlook startup behaviour to Prompt for a profile to be used.
Enable caching and see if the new Outlook profile works.
Thursday, November 17, 2016 12:58 AM
You could also try this MS KB article
Synchronization problems occur in Outlook and in Outlook Web App
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2526306
Friday, January 13, 2017 6:30 PM
Same exact problem here, though I've only seen it with some Outlook 2016 clients. Never seen anything like it before and no idea what could be going on. I'm thinking of trying to install the latest CU for my server (which is 2013 CU13).
Thursday, March 9, 2017 2:45 AM
Hi,
Did installing CU13 help?
Our is on CU10 and some users are facing the same issue.
Jabez Gan [MVP] - http://www.msblog.org Contributing Author for: (Sybex) MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration Study Guide: Exam 70-643
Thursday, March 23, 2017 4:28 PM
Hi:
CU13 seems to have helped but we still have intermittent instances with this.
Any thoughts?
Wednesday, March 29, 2017 8:00 AM | 1 vote
I am having these same issues, Windows 10 1607, Outlook 2016. Tried creating multiple profiles, up to reinstalling complete notebook. This did not solve the Outlook behaviour. Mails on WebOutlook or on my Phone, differ from what Outlook tells me, but is selective, some mail WILL go through and other WON'T .
Thursday, March 30, 2017 11:46 AM
I still have this issue and I have tried all the recommended 'fixes', I have also tried Outlook 2016, Outlook 2013 and now happening with 2010. Still using Exchange 2010 which is fully patched.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017 5:45 AM
I have also tried all of the above, but the issue still persists. I use Office 365 for business.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017 12:41 PM | 1 vote
Yep, I am seeing this too. Windows 10 1703/Outlook 2016/Exchange 2010 SP3 RU17. Everything completely up-to-date and patched, only this problem. Works fine in online mode. Microsoft, please focus on fixing bugs, it will be much more appreciated than features at this point.
Monday, July 10, 2017 2:27 PM
Seeing the same issue here on a handful of users. Exchange 2013/cu15, Outlook 2016.
Monday, July 17, 2017 8:54 AM
I have the same problem with one of our Exec users. This is the 2nd Exec user where I work who has had this problem. Office 365, Office 2016. Still have not found a solution, setup their mail accounts on 3 different known working computers, same problem... have to close and open outlook for the inbox to update. Doesn't make a difference of how much offline cache in the OST is downloaded.
The 2nd user has access to her managers mailbox, her managers mailbox inbox downloads and updates fine
in the same mail profile in Outlook, it is only the user's inbox that stops downloading in Outlook. OWA reflects the inbox properly. Outlook without cache works fine as well (Online mode). We do not want to use Online mode because when the user changes to different folders it is very slow because it is not using cache, so this would not be a permanent solution but rather a workaround.
Monday, July 17, 2017 4:50 PM
I also have the same issue. It is on an exec's mailbox. He has about 23,000 items in his inbox, and about 20GB in his OST file. Not sure if the issue is related to the volume of email he has (since most other users have a lot less).
Tuesday, July 18, 2017 2:20 PM
We have just created a new mailbox for my user, her mailbox was clean, only a few mails and still the same problem so it definitely is not size related. However in your case I don't know what your bandwidth is like, here in South Africa 20GB OST would be a killer size to download especially since we have no datacenter on the continent.
Wednesday, July 19, 2017 8:47 PM
We're experiencing similar issues. However, doing a ping to our cas array (public) I can see packets being dropped and huge spikes. It's something I'm currently working on with networking. I hear that there is a problem with at&t, so if any of you have at&t as your backbone or in any way affiliated with at&t, then there is your problem.
I'm wondering if anyone has resolved their issue regarding this if it isn't networking.
Wednesday, July 19, 2017 8:55 PM
I don't think anyone has resolved this. I've seen it happen on the same LAN with no firewalls in between. Microsoft needs to acknowledge it before any progress is made I guess.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017 7:05 PM | 2 votes
Having the same issue. Windows 7, Outlook 2016-- affects a handful of my users, not sure why some and not others.
Running Exchange 2010 SP3 RU17.
Tried everything listed in the KB below, including delete/rebuild of OST, to no avail.
support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2526306/synchronization-problems-occur-in-outlook-and-in-outlook-web-app
Issue affects people connected to server via LAN or WAN.
Disabling cached mode is how I'm dealing with it right now. Don't know what else to do.
Aside from the countless examples of this issue online, I've got a couple of friends in IT experiencing the same problem with some of their users.
Considering how many people are having this issue and how long it's been going on, kinda blows my mind that there is no explanation or fix for this by now...
Thursday, July 27, 2017 5:54 AM
Having the same issue. Windows 7, Outlook 2016-- affects a handful of my users, not sure why some and not others.
Running Exchange 2010 SP3 RU17.
Tried everything listed in the KB below, including delete/rebuild of OST, to no avail.
Same here. Some 2010/2016 are affected, not all. About 3 out of 150. All procedures didn't help, upgrading from 2010 to 2016 helped one user, not the others.
Friday, July 28, 2017 8:51 AM
I Think i found a solution for that. The Reason for this behavior is that you have a corrupted mail in your Mailbox.
To Fix it i have done these steps:
1) Create a second Mailbox Database on your Exchange Server (if you havent one)
2) select your User Mailbox and move it to the other Mailbox Database. When the move dialog appears you can select skip corruped mails.
3) after the Move delete your OST File and start outlook.
This works fine in my case.
Friday, July 28, 2017 1:41 PM
Thanks for your post. I'll keep this in my back pocket, but creating an entirely new EDB for affected users seems a bit drastic, at least without more definitive information about the cause of the problem.
In addition, at least in my case, I have noticed that the issue seems to be confined to users who are opening one or more other user's mailboxes in addition to their own. Still working to confirm this, but if the theory pans out it may not have anything to do with the actual user's maibox at all.
Still, the idea of mailbox corruption is interesting. Might try doing a New-MailboxRepairRequest on an affected user's mailbox as a test.
Friday, July 28, 2017 1:46 PM
I've just done this for a user and they did apparently have a corrupt folder in there according to the move report. After deleting the profile and starting again, Outlook 2016 is re-caching the mailbox, BUT it is not displaying the remaining GB, just says "this folder is up to date" while the total items keep increasing. So I think this weird behavior is another symptom and this hasn't in fact fixed it but we'll see later today.
Monday, July 31, 2017 11:34 AM
In addition, at least in my case, I have noticed that the issue seems to be confined to users who are opening one or more other user's mailboxes in addition to their own. Still working to confirm this, but if the theory pans out it may not have anything to do with the actual user's maibox at all.
I also have a additional mailbox in my account
Friday, September 1, 2017 6:17 PM
We are seeing a similar issue as well. Running Exchange 2010 latest CU. Outlook clients 2010 through 2016. We also have noticed this issue on about 3 of 150 email accounts/users. Again, all 3 with issues seem to open other mailboxes and we have tried moving them from Outlook 2010 to 2016. Nothing seems to correct it, but if we have the user use OWA, then everything works fine as expected.
Even after removing the alternate mailboxes they open, they still have the issue. Changing from cached mode to only live, also seems to resolve or workaround the issue.
Would be interested if anyone else has found any other updates or workarounds on this issue. I'm looking at trying either the EDB migration test or the mailboxrepairrequest if no one else has anything better yet....
Tuesday, September 5, 2017 1:16 AM
Just as an update to this --
Doing the EDB migration resulted in no corrupted items being detected, and issue still persists.
Also tried New-MailboxRepairRequest and again, nothing detected, and issue still persists.
OWA and mobile devices show all mail correctly, however Outlook only shows some of the messages actually in the inbox/folder.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017 1:28 PM | 1 vote
Thank you for providing this update. I hadn't gotten round to trying the EDB migration or mailbox repair, and now based on your experience I don't think I'll bother.
I'm encountering this issue more and more in my daily work-- it affects different versions of Exchange on premises, hosted Office 365/Outlook.com mailboxes, and different versions of Outlook.
This has got to be something with Outlook, and specifically, how it caches. If there was an issue with the mailbox itself you'd expect to have a problem when accessing it via OWA, but I've seen no reports of that.
This issue is ubiquitous and you can go back many months-- years even-- to find examples of it.
Luckily this has mainly been a nuisance issue, but it sure would be nice if the company that made the software would offer an explanation and resolution.
Just sayin...
Tuesday, September 5, 2017 2:11 PM
I'd even settle for a fix that actually lasts/works longer than a day without having to remove caching from the mail profile. For some users, removing caching is fine, for other more mobile users where bandwidth may be an issue, that simply isn't a solution....
Monday, September 11, 2017 10:12 AM
Hi
I managed to solve my problem by "compacting" my ost file. Account settings-->Select Account-->More Settings-->Advanced tab-->Outlook Data File button-->Click on compact.
This might take awhile depending on the OST file. This will clear up white spaces as well.
Hope this helps
Friday, September 15, 2017 7:46 PM
Paresh,
Thank you for your post. Just curious as to whether the caching issue recurred several days after compacting the OST file? I admit to being skeptical because I've tried renaming the old OST and starting fresh with a new one but that did not solve the problem-- at least, not for very long.
But I have just tried compacting the OST and re-enabling cached mode to see whether the "fix" sticks...
Joe
Thursday, October 12, 2017 7:48 PM
We are also seeing this issue sporadically. We are running Outlook 2016 64bit in cached mode on Windows 10 v1703 pc's with Exchange 2013 on premise. We have to run in cached mode due to Dynamics CRM. We have seen emails that are delayed from internal clients and application generated emails - so it has to be something between Outlook cached mode and exchange. Hope MS can figure this out.
Monday, October 23, 2017 7:24 PM
Still seeing the issue even on new installs of Windows 10 and Outlook 2016. I am just using online mode whenever it happens. This is completely NEW install so OST is not the problem, and online mode works fine. Can an MS tech please acknowledge this and try to troubleshoot it?
Friday, December 15, 2017 10:06 AM
Hey there!
I have the same problem on one of the employees of my company, I have to set Outlook 2016 (Office365 & Windows 10) to non-cached mode in order to get the folders in inbox working, if not only the main inbox folder syncs, but not the rest of folders on the tree.
Microsoft please fix it!
Thursday, December 21, 2017 1:50 PM
I have had this issue for months. I have tried the following fixes, all to no avail:
1. Delete OST file completely and rebuild
2. Use a brand new email account
3. All of the fixes above
4. scanpst.
It's a good thing Microsoft don't make cars because they would be killing people every time someone tried to turn the steering wheel and it broke off........... C'mon Microsoft, this is one of your flagship programs.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018 1:19 PM
I too am experiencing this problem. Surely this can't be the solution, turning off a feature to provide functionality is not a way to fix problems!!
Tuesday, January 23, 2018 5:38 AM | 1 vote
Seen this issue a few times - each time, it's a user who has access to a LOT of folders. Are others seeing the same?
Wednesday, January 24, 2018 7:53 PM
I've seen it on brand new users too. I hadn't seen it in a few months and was hopeful it had been fixed. Then we installed Office 365 ProPlus (semi-annual channel) on a VIP's new Surface and we have the same syncing problem and works fine in Online mode. As a test I installed their copy of Outlook 2010 and it's syncing the whole mailbox down just fine - so it's definitely a problem with the latest Outlook.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018 9:54 PM
I finally got my Windows 10 to load the 1709 upgrade and found this bug straight away. I have Outlook 2016 upgraded from perhaps 2003, running on Windows 10 Pro, upgraded from W7 Ultimate, Host is a Dell T300 (yes server platform with just W10 software on.)
I have found that no new mail can download from Outlook IMAP/SMTP until you either , Delete last opened mail, Move last opend mail to a subfolder or as above close and restart. After deleting the last opened mail it can be restored to inbox with Ctrl/Z and dosn't cause any other issue. Once the last mail is deleted status bar shows Inbox and Deletd mail folders synchronizing and then the new mail pops up.
I have 3 OST files 400M, 400M and 150M plus a PST of about 1.2G
Monday, February 19, 2018 3:28 PM | 1 vote
if checking the "send immediately when connected" does not fix, it, click on send/receive on the right of the same screen, and when the new box opens, make sure the "schedule an automatic send/receive" is UNCHECKED. That fixed it for me.
JM
Thursday, March 1, 2018 9:33 PM | 2 votes
THERE IS NO FIX EXCEPT TURNING OFF CACHED MODE. C'MON MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!!!! HOW CAN YOU KEEP DOING THIS S%#T PRODUCT AFTER PRODUCT, YEAR AFTER YEAR. DON'T YOU HAVE ANYONE TEST THIS CRAP BEFORE YOU RELEASE IT MY GOD. TAKE AWAY ALL THE GOOD FUNCTIONALITY OF OUTLOOK 2010 AND IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE AND WORSE. I THINK YOU GUYS PEAKED WITH YOUR 2010 OFFICE AND SINCE THEN IT HAS BEEN A STRAIGHT S%#T SHOW.
ANYWAY THE ONLY FIX THAT IS GUARANTEED TO WORK IS TURNING OFF CACHED MODE. STUPPPPPPPPID.
Monday, March 5, 2018 10:33 PM
For the last few weeks we have had the same problem. Certain people in the organization in cached mode have this problem. I have been searching the forums to see if it was a recent bad patch, but i think this issue is too broad to find good info (similar to searching "my car won't start", there are many reasons for that not necessarily related...). I would also submit for all you who are frusterated, that this is why microsoft has not "fixed" it. There are too many different reasons this may occur. Usually for us, prior to one month ago, this was only happening when users had clicked the "offline" button in their outlook. Or at worst, i would have to rebuild the mail profile and redownload.
just looked at our exchange version and its 2016 CU4 so first off, we will be upgrading to the latest release as soon as possible to see if it fixes it.
anyone else have this problem start just within the last month? The resolution is to have the user restart their outlook. I have had some success with reimaging the machine (worked for one user today), however rebuilding just the profile does not work.
will post back if the issue goes away after applying the remaining cumulative updates we need.
Friday, March 9, 2018 3:23 AM
I have this issue since I upgrade office 2016 home and business to Office 2016 Pro. The Office software was downloaded from Office365.com <g class="gr_ gr_109 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling ins-del" data-gr-id="109" id="109">web site</g>.
Friday, March 9, 2018 1:02 PM
I too have this problem with one Outlook 2013 user and Exchange Online. Random mails sent from his computer are not being synced with Exchange, therefore not landing in Sent folder. This is really weird.
Tuesday, March 13, 2018 1:12 PM
Same problem as well. Got two end users who are on Windows 10 version 1709.
This is very annoying as we are deploying this version right now and it's sporadic. Difficult to explain to management who won't accept "Microsoft won't acknowledge a problem."
Tuesday, March 20, 2018 8:38 AM
I was (sort of) glad to find this thread; I am not alone with this weird but annoying issue. I too have problems with Outlook 2016 in cached mode not syncing with the Exchange server. Without caching it does function properly but performance and delays become an issue.
At first my new install (HP Probook, Win10, Office 2016) worked as it should, but the syncing issue popped up early last December. After long searching and trying I thought I found it; problems with incomplete/incorrect Windows updates. Resolved that by deleting the SoftwareDistribution folder in C:\Windows whenever the syncing issues were there again. And it seemed to have cleared the issue. As I have a slow internet uplink (8/1 Mbps) I assumed that updates could be damaged, as sometimes they are massive.
Until recently it seemed to work, then also this 'trick' didn't do it anymore... I also switched off all firewall rules to prevent from anything being filtered, switched off AV... no remedy.
I also suspected the address book downloads, but I couldn't find anything related to that or how to resolve it.
Is someone at Microsoft aware of this problem, which seems to impact more people than I expected?
Tuesday, March 20, 2018 1:33 PM
Hi,
I have the exact same issue. I ended up to post on this thread see if it helps.
The issue on our side only appear when users are not connected to our corporate network and have more than 2 mailboxes mounted.
We are running Exchange 2013 CU15 and Outlook 2010.
-CAS have been already restarted, not solving the issue. == no change
-Impacted Mailboxes have been moved to another DataStore. == no change
-"Download Shared folder" option has been unticked == no change
-Test on Outlook 2013 == Same behavior
The behavior is simple. you open Outlook connected externally, wait few hours and Outlook stops receving emails on ALL MAILBOXES mounted.
I tried set mailbox as delegation/full access or simply with mailbox credentials and same issue occurs.
The only ways to make it work is :
-restart Outlook (and mailboxes stopped updating after few minutes)
-Force Outlook reconnect (using connection status..) ==> works but can't ask user to do that.
-Reconnect to corporate network (new mails popping up immediately)
To resume The ONLY WAY to make it work properly and permanently is simply to disable cache mode which is not acceptable in our environment.
Netscaler/Firewall are not to blame neither.
I looked every logs possible in Exchange and can't find anything relevant. It just stop working without a valid reason. Don't understand why Microsoft does not communicate about this issue as it seems to be reproducable in several environment.
I also ran same tests as written in the thread :
disable AV, Set MTU Limit to 1500, recreate profile etc.. == no change
Issue is repoducable on several machines and even with a freshly created mailbox.
The only thing I can think of is an issue with the OAB, as I have the message below in the "outlook connection status" box under "local mailbox" field :
"offline address book connecting to microsoft exchange".
I saw that other clients in our company got this error as well but does not preventing them to receive emails/update their mailboxes.
Force the reconnect in "connection status" remove all attempts to download the OAB and remove the problem.
I also make sure that I have the correct permission to reach the OAB and when I browse it I successfully end up on the XML configuration page so neither a permission issue.
I honestly does not have any clue anymore and can't just disable the cache mode to solve this, we need a permanent solution here.
Upgrade to Exchange 2013 CU19 has not been tested yet as we have many other third parties application which prevent to do so.
I wonder if anyone tried that and if it solves the issue.
Thanks.
Update : I do have a log in our Cas server : [Eas] The number of outstanding requests for guard TargetBackend("server-name
") has exceeded the max limit 150. Current request will be rejected.
I checked and logs error was already there before users started to get this sync issue so dont believe this is related.
I did not tried yet to increase the limit in the Webconfig as it is something which can easily mess up Exchange.
Anyone does?
Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:33 PM
HI Folks.
FYI, I've added the registry keys indicated in this article and so far the issue seems to be gone.
I will test it for few more days to make sure but it worth givin a try on your side.
Any feedback appreciated.
Wednesday, March 21, 2018 6:53 PM
Wanted to throw my hat in the ring here. Many but not all people in my organization are having this issue. Here's the kicker for me. At work, I use Office 2016 on Windows 10 with on-prem Exchange 2013. Nothing special about my mailbox or Outlook profiles, only ~5GB with less than 50k items, cached at the default 12 months, not a lot of folders (<20), an in-place archive, no other mailboxes loaded into my profile (just a couple of shared calendars). Probably about twice a day I realize I haven't gotten email for an hour and have to restart my Outlook to get it syncing again.
Our internal IT department thinks it's a problem with the Exchange environment but here's the kicker, I use the Outlook 365 desktop app at home with a single IMAP account loaded in and I have the same exact issue. It just randomly decides not to update and a restart of the app is the only fix.
So I have this problem across Exchange and IMAP connections. No amount of manual sending/receiving will work. Everything works fine for an unspecified amount of time before it randomly stops updating. Absolutely nothing is logged in the event logs.
MORE WEIRDNESS......if I CTRL+SHIFT+right click the Outlook icon in the systray and go to the Outlook Connection Status, nothing shows amiss. I've even taken a screenshot of this screen shortly after Outlook launch, then compared it to what it looked like 6 hours later when I noticed Outlook had stopped updating, but there isn't much changed. While in this Connection Status dialog, if I click "Reconnect", then it will actually update my inbox immediately. Here's the kicker....that doesn't actually fix the problem of having your mailbox update normally, it only updates it at that very moment and then it continues not to update. Restarting Outlook is the only way to fully fix this problem, albeit temporarily.
What a crappy problem.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018 11:41 AM
Hello All
We are having this issue in our environment as well for a handful of users. Overall, just strangeness with cached mode. Outlook won't update unless it's Online, another user can't send mail unless she's online, calendars aren't updating unless they are online, etc.
First Microsoft had told me it had to do with the size of the Inbox folder. At the time it was around 6GB and they told me the folder itself had to be less than 4GB to load in cached mode. I was able to find plenty of examples where other user's mailboxes were over 4GB and loading fine. Some of those user's had 30GB of data in their mailboxes, whereas this particular person only has about 10GB.
We are running 2016 version 1705. Hosted online (no on-prem servers).
So far I have tried profile rebuilds, OFFCAT, SARA, other computers, Fiddler, connectivity analyzer (audodiscover and connectivity), reinstalls of Office, and a reimage of the PC. None of these things resolved the issue.
I saw someone in here mention corrupt mail as a possibility and that sounds plausible, though I'm not sure how I can locate and combat that. Ideas?
Also I will try WIS-GSD's regedit idea and report back, though I don't know that it will help her because she does not have other mailboxes added.
Thanks
Ry
Wednesday, April 4, 2018 7:48 AM
Hi
I am also seeing this behavior for one or two of my staff. We have tried resetting outlook profile, but problem still persists.
There are other people, not on cached mode, that access their account.
Any one got any further updates?
SW
Steven Wells
Wednesday, April 11, 2018 10:35 AM
I am with you on this, i have many users with exactly the same problem and the best microsoft have been able to offer is as follows.
"try this unrelated config change"
"silence"
so all in all...utterly worthless, congrats microsoft, no wonder apple and google are kicking your arse right now.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018 2:21 PM
I was waiting until we found a situation where it was occurring for a user we were preparing a new computer for so they could continue to use their existing PC while we opened a case with Microsoft (since we haven't done this yet despite seeing it for over a year). But you're saying MS support has been totally worthless on this? Do you know if they're even opening a backend case with engineering on this? And still no KB article?!
Sunday, April 22, 2018 10:48 PM
Check the Application Logs on your Exchange server. Look for Event ID 9646. If you're seeing that event, it's likely that user (or users) have exceeded the maximum number of MAPI connections to the Information Store. It's an easy fix by editing a registry key on the exchange server then stopping and restarting the Information Store. Here's the link to the Microsoft article with all the information you need.
Wednesday, May 9, 2018 2:32 PM
I just had to switch a user from cached mode to online mode who was experiencing this issue. I only see 2 9646 errors in my application log from days ago so I don't think this has anything to do with it unfortunately.
Monday, May 14, 2018 12:57 PM
so any permanent solution , 2 users are affected until now in my O365 tenant
and no solution found even from MS support , this is really bad
Monday, May 14, 2018 2:51 PM
Every time I see this it is too many folders in cached mode.
I believe in O365 the hard limit is 500 per session (so the user and any cached shared mailboxes).
The way I usually sort this out is to.
1) Confirm the user doesn't have more than 500 folders in their own mailbox.
If they do, they either need to delete some or run in online mode.
2) Disable caching of shared mailboxes in Outlook (under account setup settings).
This has been the case every single time I have seen it and above has always fixed it.
There are other session limits though, so it is possible one of those session limits is being hit. But with O365 / Exchange Online, I do not believe you can actually change these yourself. Exchange on-prem you can.
Tuesday, May 15, 2018 5:51 AM
unfortunately this user has very few folders, not more than 10
and also he doesn't have shared mailbox access but he have online archive
Tuesday, May 15, 2018 9:20 AM
Online archive doesn't count towards the folder limit as it's not cached, so it wont be that.
Definitely sounds like the same kind of behaviour as the MAPI session limit.
If you have a look in this link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/exchange-server-analyzer/dd159906(v=exchg.80)
There are some other reasons you could be hitting session limits, aside from actually exceeding the limits under normal operation.
-General networking issues such as intermittent client network connectivity problems
- Third party add ins to Microsoft Office Outlook creating excessive sessions
- A firewall between the client and server configured to reset RPC connections ahead of the default TCP/IP KeepAliveTime value
- High latency networks such as wireless/VPN connections dropping connections
Thinking about it, I have once seen the firewall one mentioned above, years and years ago. It was a real pain to find.
If there are 2 users, have you tried running them on a different machine on a different network? Do they still get the same issue? That would help work out if it's something with the users or the PC/Network.
Tuesday, May 15, 2018 12:13 PM
it is not network issue we install the same email in new PC and connect directly to internet without firewall
and also i tried to use oultook 2013 and 2016 same issue ,
it is something related to the mailbox itself , but the problem it is working fine in OWA and any mobile device
only outlook "inbox folder problem"
Microsoft support said move all the emails from inbox to another folder but i don't believe what they said cause they are keep saying very strange things to solve the issue
Monday, May 21, 2018 4:10 PM
Luckily for me I am having good luck reverting users to 2013 and it works in cached mode. What is 2016 or 365 doing differently than 2013?
Sunday, May 27, 2018 7:14 AM
u r lucky cause we tried the same and didn't work :(
the brilliant guys in MS support ask us to reduce the inbox folder to below 4 gb cause is the recommended size
and the user have 40 Gb in inbox , i don't believe that is the issue
but their support is very poor regarding this issue
Friday, July 6, 2018 7:04 AM
So after a few problems like this in the enterprise where I work, it was found that this solution has resolved most of our users issues with this. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3046189/you-cannot-start-outlook-in-cached-mode-or-create-a-new-cached-mode-pr
Friday, July 6, 2018 1:22 PM
how do i know if my ost file is too large?
Wednesday, July 11, 2018 12:46 AM
The reg key above makes sense CacheOthersMail to 0
I only see this issue where our staff have another user's mailbox mapped. I always as a matter of course untick the Download shared folders box in Advanced settings, when setting up a new user. If this isn't done, all I can do is create a new profile and ensure this is unticked at the time, so pushing out the reg key to the 'Policies' hive may well work as a fix.
I haven't look in Group Policy yet to see if I can turn this option off, but I'll test with the reg key targetted at anyone affected if/when the issue arises.
Monday, July 16, 2018 6:33 AM
Does this apply to Outlook 2016 also?
Monday, July 16, 2018 6:34 AM
Check this location: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Outlook
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 3:05 AM
I'm a user with multiple additional mailboxes in Exchange running Outlook 2016 and encountered this frustrating issue. After reading this article suggested by WIS-GSD.https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/982697/by-default-shared-mail-folders-are-downloaded-in-cached-mode-in-outloo - I noticed the reference to Shared Folders at the end.
This temporary workaround worked for me:
1. Edit the mail account in the Outlook client (File > Account Settings > Account Settings, select account > Change... > More Settings > Advanced
2. Untick 'Download shared folders' & Restart
Means I can't update my shared mailboxes for now, but resolves the issue while I get some of the no-longer-required mailboxes are removed. Any luck, that works given discussions above around mailbox size and folder limits.
Thursday, August 16, 2018 10:17 PM
jm100 - I spent multiple days trying to get my Outlook to work and your "make sure the 'schedule and automatic send/receive' is Unchecked" worked!!!! I do not get why it worked. That box is definitely checked on my desktop setup and works fine, but for some reason on my laptop setup that fixed the problem. If anyone reads this, I am on a Windows 10 laptop and my email is actually set up through Gmail IMAP, but was experiencing the same email sending problem / folders not syncing problem described in this thread. Thanks again!
Sean
Wednesday, September 19, 2018 9:22 AM
I too have has this similar problem with Outlook 2013 - Exchange 2010 (SBS2011) for a long time.
TO SUMMARISE - TRY THIS....
Thanks to a couple of these posts.. Thanks Techlogicnet (Sunday April 22, 2018) and Jaymz (Monday May 14, 2018) solved it for me.
I can confirm on the SBS2011 box, the application event logs did have Event ID 9646 for the affected user account on the domain.
Upon investigating the User Account login, the staff member did have access to lots of other shared mailboxes.
All were trying to update in cached mode, so upon initially starting Outlook, folders would start to update, then would stop randomly.
If I removed one of the large "Shared Mailboxes" from the Outlook view for the same login account, updates in cached mode appeared to work ok (As expected).
I then entered the reg hack for Outlook to NOT update shared mailboxes in cached mode and only list those shared mailboxes in "Online" mode.
This leaves the primary mailbox in "Cached" mode and continues to update.
Thanks Techlogicnet - Quote
"Check the Application Logs on your Exchange server. Look for Event ID 9646. If you're seeing that event, it's likely that user (or users) have exceeded the maximum number of MAPI connections to the Information Store. It's an easy fix by editing a registry key on the exchange server then stopping and restarting the Information Store. Here's the link to the Microsoft article with all the information you need.
And Also Jaymz - Quote
"Every time I see this it is too many folders in cached mode.
I believe in O365 the hard limit is 500 per session (so the user and any cached shared mailboxes).
The way I usually sort this out is to.
- Confirm the user doesn't have more than 500 folders in their own mailbox.
If they do, they either need to delete some or run in online mode.
- Disable caching of shared mailboxes in Outlook (under account setup settings).
This has been the case every single time I have seen it and above has always fixed it.
There are other session limits though, so it is possible one of those session limits is being hit. But with O365 / Exchange Online, I do not believe you can actually change these yourself. Exchange on-prem you can."
Registry Hack for Outlook ...
Method 1: Manual modification of the Windows Registry
Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
322756 How to back up and restore the registry in Windows
To change the shared folder caching behavior in Outlook 2010 or later versions to match the default behavior in Office Outlook 2007, you must add a registry value to your Outlook client. To do this, follow these steps:
Exit Outlook.
Start Registry Editor. To do this, use one of the following procedures, as appropriate for your version of Windows.
Windows 10 and Windows 8: Press Windows Key + R to open a Run dialog box. Type regedit.exe and then press OK.
Windows 7 and Windows Vista: Click Start, type regedit.exe in the search box, and then press Enter.
Locate and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\xx.0\Outlook\Cached Mode
Note The xx.0 placeholder represents your version of Office (16.0 = Office 2016, 15.0 = Office 2013, 14.0 = Office 2010).
Note If the Cached Mode key does not exist, create this key by following these steps:
Select the Outlook key.
On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click Key.
Type Cached Mode, and then press ENTER.
Select the Cached Mode key and then go to step 4.
On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
Type CacheOthersMail, and then press ENTER.
On the Edit menu, click Modify.
Type 0, and then click OK.
Exit Registry Editor.
Start Outlook.
Note This method only affects any new Outlook profiles that you create. To change the behavior for all existing Outlook profiles, add the registry value in the following registry key path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\xx.0\Outlook\Cached Mode
Note The xx.0 placeholder represents your version of Office (16.0 = Office 2016, 15.0 = Office 2013, 14.0 = Office 2010).
**
Thanks all.
Rgds Gerry
Monday, September 24, 2018 3:02 PM
One fix that worked for a user - he said Outlook cached mode work fine at home, but had this same issue at the office, but only on LAN not wireless. Why this one user? Who knows. Apparently Outlook cached mode has become very sensitive to hardware, packet sizes, TCP offload, who knows - lower levels of stuff. Our firewall allows the use of public IPs from the internal network (with the proper NAT rules) so I edited the HOSTS file to make it use the outside IP of the Exchange server instead of the inside IP and then it worked great. Crazy huh?
Friday, October 26, 2018 7:39 AM
Hi Barry,
I see you had the same issue I am experiencing now. We have Exchange 2013 on premise with some 2016 Outlook clients running cached mode. Some e-mails doesn't sync to these clients unless Outlook is restarted. Did you find the reason?
Best
Lars
Tuesday, November 13, 2018 7:09 AM
Hi
I have the same problem ,it is so tough to change every client which use cache mode.
the answer method is check in,but not solve problem.
So i just close the cache mode,it is ok for someone.
My environment were exchange 2010 sp3 include all patch, outlook 2016 (frequently have this problem) outlook 2013& 2010 just someone.
It is a bug?? @microsoft
Tuesday, December 11, 2018 8:00 PM
This is exactly what is happening to us.
Thursday, January 17, 2019 6:56 PM | 1 vote
** SUGGESTED SOLUTION **
This has been covered in another thread, when utilizing exchange server to grant permission between mailboxes for example: secretary needs access to president's mailbox so she can respond or manage calendar appointments for him, sync will stop working for her mailbox and it would seem the only option is to remove option to use mailbox in cached mode.
Try the following workaround,
- Open outlook and go to account settings,
- Select the mailbox to edit \ change setting
- At window, select "More Setting" at bottom right of dialog box
- Select "Advanced" tab
- Under "Cached Exchange Mode Settings" remove check mark from "Download Shared Folders". Our problem was solved using this solution.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019 7:35 PM | 2 votes
***FULL SOLUTION AND EXPLANATION***
I think I have identified the issue and found a way around this, the issue relates to corruption of the RoamingCache folder in AppData\Local which you simply need to delete. I've tried and tested successfully on multiple users. It definitely resolves the syncing problem completely but it seems to revert when you log out and back into the machine/TS session, so a simple .bat script on login to delete this folder would almost certainly offer a complete solution :-)
For newbies, here's some instructions on where the folder you want to delete resides and how to do this:
1. Close Outlook
2. Navigate to: C:\Users\Your-Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook (you'll need to turn hidden items)
3. Now remove the RoamCache folder from the same location
Open Outlook and mail works and synchronises - (don't worry users still have working autofills) :-)
Then write a .bat script for user login which deletes this folder when a user logs into their machine/TS session, something along these lines but running as an administrator user when the user logs in/
rd /s /q C:\userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache
Explanation of solution and the reason it works:
I identified for users that are struggling with this problem when you (as that user) try and delete their RoamCache folder if they are not an administrator, the system will ask you to put in administrator credentials to do it, and then of course as soon as you/they open Outlook it automatically creates a new folder of the same name that the user CAN delete (at least for that session)
What this suggests to me is that the permissions on RoamCache are getting messed up when a User logs out and reverting to administrator only read/write/execute and as a result (post logout/login), Outlook can no longer write to or update the folder/files within it - hence the issue with mail not updating subsequently.
So the long term solution may be as simple as altering the permissions and inheritance on the AppLocal/Outlook folder permanently, and this was probably botched by Microsoft as a 'security fix' for Outlook long ago due to I suspect potential vulnerabilities with files getting into this folder via received emails/poisoned information.
Thursday, May 16, 2019 5:25 PM
This may work for some, but not for me.. New profile, new machine, nothing changes the cached items. only 3 items cached out of 8,000!
The only time i have 'fixed' the issue was when I started outlook online (no caching) pst'd the users calendar, then I removed all SERVER calendar items. Went back into cache mode, then imported all of his calendar items.. let the sync complete to the server and all was well, for at least a year! but he went offline yesterday, and the issue has happened again!
Sunday, July 28, 2019 6:48 AM
Well unfortunately got to the bottom of reading this link ,and as of July 2019 problem still exists.
My story is tried to upgrade from Office 2013 to 2016, main reason was emails taking too long to come into my inbox and it all seemed a bit sluggish. Hence a Sunday afternoon project turned into a evening of pain.
Resolved by unistalling 2016 and reinstalling 2013. What a crazy problem to have.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019 3:15 PM
I was experiencing this same issue and it seemed to be directly related to the "Download Shared Folders" option being checked on the user's personal mailbox, even though the shared mailboxes were in Online mode. Establishing consistency across all of the settings fixed this for 2 users. I'm monitoring and will update this thread if it begins occurring again. I hope this helps someone.
Thursday, October 10, 2019 4:33 PM
We had the same issue in our office which caused a massive headache for our IT team and many users who have shared mailboxes that were syncing. We went through all the steps in various pages. A few years ago, someone created a public folder mailbox for testing purposes which was not being used. It appeared that Outlook was not loading the shared mailbox as it was waiting to get a connection to the Public Folder Mailbox. Since we were not using the public folder mailbox we removed them from the server and then deleted the C:\Users\userName]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache folder (Or instead of deleting just waiting some time for Outlook to notice the change) and the issue was resolved.
I hope this helps!
Friday, November 15, 2019 12:03 AM
During the mailbox move I noticed it mentioned that my mailbox had 538 folders. I actually see about 75 or so folders in Outlook. I know that Outlook cached mode has issues with more than 500 folders.
To get mailbox folder count including hidden folders execute in Exchange shell:
(Get-MailboxFolderStatistics -Identity [email protected] -FolderScope NonIpmRoot).Count
I went hunting for these folders using MFCMAPI. Set it to Online and No Cache mode. Found a folder called "ExchangeSyncData" with tons of folders and subfolders for mostly old and a few current ActiveSync devices. Hard deleted the entire folder and now Outlook can sync Inbox automatically.
I did have to remove and re-add my mail account on all of my iOS devices as they went haywire afterwards. But that's a small price to pay assuming it stays fixed.