Intermittent errors on "Email a news digest"

[Jason Lee]

Hello,

I'm seeing intermittent errors when using the new "Email a news digest" feature in communication sites. I've seen this on two different O365 tenancies. In both cases, the communication sites are associated with a hub site.

Steps to reproduce:

1. On a site with multiple news posts, on a News web part, click See all (or go direct to /_layouts/15/news.aspx).
2. On the toolbar, click Email a news digest.
3. Under Choose posts to include in your news digest, select some posts, then click Next.

In the address bar, we're always redirected to /SitesPages/newpage.aspx?mode=edit. Sometimes the page renders properly with fields under a Name your news digest header. However, sometimes the page displays nothing but an error message:

We're sorry, we encountered an unexpected error. Please try again, if the problem persists please contact your Administrator.

PageLayoutId - NewsDigest

There's nothing that predicts whether an attempt will succeed or fail - it's not specific news stories or specific sites, and I've seen the error on multiple browsers. Less scientifically, it seems to happen more frequently on the first attempt in any browser session.

Any ideas?

[#2]

Update - now also seeing this on communication sites that are not, and never have been, associated with a hub site.

[#3]

We've also experienced this - in exactly the way you've described. 

Also, in the last two days the functionality appears to have broken completely - it will appear to send items through to users, but when 'email news digest' is selected, no email is ever received.