Outlook error when doing a search

Copper Contributor

when doing a search "in current mailbox" or other I get an error

 

"Something went wrong and your search couldn't be completed"

It looks like there's a problem with your network connection

Lets look on your computer instead.

 

There are no connection issues and my online account is all up to date also

 

any ideas? 

49 Replies

@taurus-bis 

 

New issue for me today too.  Outlook 2019 16.0.12730.2144

Most of ours were on 12730.20250 and still had the issue.

All subversions of 16.0.12730.xxxxx are broken.
You need to roll back to the February 16.0.12624.xxxxxx version.

@taurus-bis 

Am i too naive to think that MS should fix known issues instead of requiring its users to roll back to a previous update?

@bordeauxconst 

What are you talking about?  Microsoft is perfect and infallible /s 

@taurus-bisSo I am guessing this isn't going to be fixed anytime soon

@JanShim

 

I found out the root cause for my environment.....

 

Outlook 2016/2019 resolve search via Office365 instead (gasp!!), bypassing on-premise servers.

This is due to auto-discover feature of recent version of Outlook 2016/2019, resolve office365 first prior to on-premise server.

 

I had to dns block outlook autodiscover from connecting to outlook.office365.com, forcing it to use on-prem servers instead. Worked like charm.

 

 

 

There is also a posting in M365 Admin Center so it is also affecting Exchange Online: 

burningice_0-1589265446902.png

 

You can also refer to this posting: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/outlook-global-customer-service/how-outlook-2016-utilizes-exc...

 

There are a couple of replies that indicate differing updates. Perhaps the March 10, 2020 build of 2002 (build 12527.20278) would suffice if we were to roll our clients back, but there is no automated/convenient way to accomplish this.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/update-history-office-2019

 

Here's a Reddit thread of a similar discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/gdjh97/help_some_users_experiencing_issues_after_recent/

 

Penn State University reached out to Microsoft and here are details:

https://mailservices.isc.upenn.edu/computing/email/penno365/alerts/ms-incidents.html

Search for EX212460.

 

Also Rutgers University

http://status.rutgers.edu/Connect-DEGRADED/Exchange-DEGRADED

(search for the same).

 

Maybe we'll see an update start trickling out after May 13.  That's what I'll bet on. 

 

Meantime, If users search the Entire Mailbox, it seems to work fine.  They just have to click the drop down first...Not a big deal.

 

 

 

@woonks 
hi !

What do you mean by DNS block ? Did you redirect 'outlook.office365.com' to your local server using DNS ?

Thanks a lot for your answer !

This is a good thread. 

To add to the details:

 

On-Prem 2013 and 2019 effected simultaneously behind different networks

All clients onsite and offsite are effected. OWA works fine.

Patching manually won't work across 50 businesses some without DCs and well over 1000 endpoints.

Will wait for Microsoft to fix :( 

Glad to have smart people keeping the heat on Microsoft so they can't shirk the responsibility off on "potential environmental and client side settings". 

 

Since O365 started forcing autodiscover with their servers (first) we have had a lot of trouble. Certainly isn't making on-prem life sustainable. I see a trend. Boo Microsoft. Boo. We rely on providing IT support for our jobs in the US... quit forcing everyone to the cloud.

 

 

 

@AlexRomain 

 

I blocked my internal DNS servers from resolving outlook.office365.com.

Various ways to do this, easiest is create an empty DNS authoritative zone outlook.office365.com to blackhole the dns requests.

 

Be warned, this may break some Outlook365 webmail functions. The download attachments function couldnt work due to unable to resolve attachment.outlook.live.net, which actually just a CNAME to outlook.office365.com.

 

But at least, your office outlook users will stop the persistent calls for support......

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey,
use AutoDiscovery paramter ExcludeExplicitO365Endpoint instead blocking via DNS.
Either via GPO (newest admx templates) -> User Template Outlook 2016 -> Account -> Exchange -> Disable Autodiscover (Subtype O365 Autodiscovery)
Or Registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover or
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover
DWORD:ExcludeExplicitO365Endpoint = 1

This also resolve the the acutal search problem since Version 2004 ;)

@burningice Any clue on when this patch will be released? This is the first post I've seen that acknowledges an actual problem.

@Brad_Krugler  according to M365 Admin Center, the last update states: 

 

May 14, 2020 1:45 AM

Current status: We've completed validating the fix and have started deployment to the affected environments. As the fix progresses, some users may start to see impact remediation as this process completes.

Today I was able to update my own Office installation from 12730.20250 to 12730.20270, however it did not resolve the issue, confirming comments on the following blog post: https://www.borncity.com/blog/2020/05/14/probleme-mit-der-outlook-suche-seit-update-patch-da/

However according to M365 Update history, 12730.20270 was initially released on May 12th, so I assume/hope there is still something in the pipeline... 

Hi,

Doesn't seem to work here :(
Hi,
don't know why, but some clients apply these settings fast, some other very slow.
After the gpo/registry is set, it takes some time while outlook is open until it recognize the change.
Seems there must run the autodiscover procedure once...

Hello,

 

we currently also have the problems with the outlook search.

We did not receive any update yet.

Can someone confirm that the update was released, installed and fixed the problem?

 

Best regards

Johannes

@wolfsjohannes  yes it is also not yet working at our place. Do you know how we can notice if a fix was applied? Does outlook have to be updated? 

According to Admin Status page around 60% of all affected environments should be already mitigated...