User experiencing strange login issue with Outlook 2016 / modern authentication

Copper Contributor

Hello,

 

We recently turned on modern authentication for Outlook desktop users for our tenant and one of our users let us know that he's now unable to authenticate in Outlook 2016 for Windows. I was able to look at the issue first-hand, and it appears that when he adds the account in Outlook 2016, it tries to authenticate and then the "Work or school account" window pops up for a split second which is blank, then disappears, and it tells him there was a problem. This is what we see come up in task manager on the affected computer when it happens:

 

WOrk or school account image (003).PNG

Has anyone else seen this problem, and if so, what did you do to fix it on the machine?

26 Replies

I don't think so, as everyone would be affected.

 

But now two of us are. We have a Win7 user with Outlook 2016 that is getting the password prompt too. 

 

I realize mine started right after a Windows update for Win10 1803 Monday night, and with Tuesday being patch tuesday, I am wondering if that has caused this issue with user #2 in our office. 

Well, this has been frustrating. MS Tech Support wants to "test this" by having me disable 2 factor authentication. The problem is that will immediately cause a bunch of things to fail that will no longer be logged in, so it will take me at least an hour or so cleaning that up, and then 2-3hrs if I enable it again. So many Power BI reports using Sharepoint/OneDrive that all have to be individually authenticated, plus about 2 dozen Flow connectors, all my apps, etc.

 

So I've decided I'll disable modern authentication and call it a day. I'm not turning it back on. 

The reg change at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4025962/can-t-sign-in-after-update-to-office-2016-build-16-... seemed to finally do the trick for us. Have deployed it to all Windows 10 builds later than 15000 and haven't seen the problem since.... (after also sacrificing a chicken to the IT god).

 

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity]

"DisableADALatopWAMOverride"=dword:00000001

FWIW, I disabled Modern Authentication. The problem still existed, but I was then able to run the trouble shooter tool. Ultimately, booting Outlook in safe mode fixed it. Apparently booting in safe mode clears all credentials in addition to disabling addins.

 

However, I have zero confidence that was the underlying issue with 2FA enabled, so I'm not turning it back on since it would cause hours of reauthenticating apps, Power BI permissions, Flow connectors, etc.

This corrected our issue.  The issue occurred for users whose UPN had changed since logging into their Windows 10 workstation.  Thank you.

 

FYI, I believe this may also correct a similar issue for users who have MFA enforced but are not using modern authentication and get frequent Outlook prompts when outside of your corporate network. 

We have been Experiencing same issue with our users every time users change the password.  Solution we have is to update the password in credential manger or

Steps taken:

Close outlook

open manage credentials

choose windows credentials

remove all the old credentials cached in

lock the computer and login with the network password

open outlook and it starts working fine.

 

Trying to find out whats the beast way to fix it permanently.

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Adam O'Callaghan ‎
May 13 2018 04:11 PM
Have been running MFA for over year now and have had the same problem twice (two different Windows 10 machines) and have found that disconnecting the Office365 account from Windows fixed the issue. 

Click Start -> Manage your account -> Access work or School -> Select the 'Work or school account' (**not the AD domain account**) -> Click Disconnect Once it's complete then try and open Outlook again and you should now get the authentication window... and it will stay open. Once you've signed in it will ask you if you want to add it to Windows. You can click 'yes' and it will still continue to function.

------snip -------

 

 

This worked for me today on Win 10 with Office 365. Still not sure why this is still needed.