Focused Inbox keeps disappearing

[Andrew van Renen]

Hi - I gotten used to Focused Inbox and quite like it.  However, it keeps disappearing on me.

On first load in the morning, Outlook shows Focused Inbox.  After processing the first morning's set of emails, I switch focus to other apps.  When I switch back to Outlook, the Focus Inbox has disappeared.  In addition, the option in the View menu to turn it on also disappears.

If I close and restart Outlook, it comes back, but will again disappear after while. 

Has anyone else seen this behaviour?  I guess something is crashing, but I don't know how to trouble shoot this.

I am running Office Pro Plus Version 1810 (Build 11001.10060 Click-to-Run), 16.0.11001.20054.

[#2]

@deast I ran thru my homemade fix for this again and it worked a second time.  I deleted my windows mail profile in control panel, backed up my OST files and deleted those too, then uninstalled/reinstalled Office365 from the cloud.  Focused inbox is working again for now.  Last time i ran thru this,  Focused inbox was solid for a couple of months.  We'll see if it holds true for this re-installation.   

[#3]

@deast , I have an end-user with this same problem.

I'm able to do a full uninstall using the Office Uninstall Tool and the problem is fixed for a month or so, but always returns.

In its most recent return, the end user shared some information with me.

She is using Adobe Acrobat Pro to send email using its built-in email icon.  She advised that when the focused inbox breaks, so does her ability to send email using this icon as well as her access to her "full access permissions" mailboxes.

I opened a ticket with Microsoft Gold Support but their solution was to do the uninstall/re-install after a PowerShell command, but it returned just like the last times.

My question to you, do you also use Adobe Acrobat Pro to send email using the built-in email icon?

(P.S., I'm currently updating her Office 365 to the monthly release version and her Windows 10 to 1903 as we speak)

[#4]

@arickard6 I can't speak for @deast, but I have this problem and do not use Acrobat to send emails.

[#5]

Nope no Acrobat Pro here either, although I do enable plugins for quite a few other apps.

[#6]

@DPugh1000 Same. I do not use Acrobat to send emails.

[#7]

@Andrew van Renen 

This issue drove me NUTS for weeks. I think I finally found the solution and was able to fix it.

What worked for me was creating a new Outlook profile and just starting to use that instead of the existing one. Once you create a new profile, it's not that difficult to hook up your email address(es) to the new one. Takes a few minutes to an hour (depending on the size and number of your mailboxes). For me, this was Well worth the trouble to do it.

In case you need it, here are some results of how to create a new Outlook profile. Good luck!

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=new+outlook+profile

[#8]

April 2022 and it's still happening. I have not found a way to recover the focused inbox except shutdown outlook and restart. How can it take 5 years to make this feature stable?

[#9]

@Bill Pennock because of this issue, and because what was and wasn't showing up in the focused view was constantly changing, I gave up on focused inbox and turned it off long ago in Outlook for the desktop. It seems to work much better on mobile devices though.

[#10]

@Todd Walker Thanks.  Too bad it's a super useful feature and when I first started using it I didn't have the problem.  now it is all the time.  sigh.

[#11]

@Bill Pennock 

My workaround is to open a separate window for any Outlook view other than the inbox. So, for example, I open my calendar in a new window to look at it. That way my inbox window always keeps the Focused and Other choices. Shouldn't be necessary, but . . . .

[#12]

@Andrew van Renen I'm not sure what caused this to start working for us, but we haven't had this issue in probably 6 months or longer at my firm.  On outlook version 2202 Build 14931.20132 (Click to run)

Windows 10 Version 21h2 Build 19044.1586  Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4170.0

[#13]

@DPugh1000 That's a great idea. once you get the other window open you can use that to go between contacts and calendar I suppose as well. Thanks