Outlook Known Issues/Problems

Outlook 2003 | Outlook 2007 | Outlook 2003/2007

Outlook 2003

Outlook 2007

Outlook 2003/Outlook 2007

Change Resource Meeting Location (10/25/2004) - SRZ041025003561

Outlook user creates a single instance meeting on a resources that is not set to auto-accept. When the user updates the meeting by changing the resource location, the meeting is Updated on the new resource, however, it also remains on the original resource.

Microsoft states this is a design constraint of the current release. If you want to modify a single instance meeting to change the resource, it is a two step process: 1) delete the original meeting request and 2) create a new meeting request with the new resource.

Resource does not appear on the scheduling tab (10/20/2004) - SRZ041020004869

The resource does not appear on the scheduling tab for attendees.

The Resource field of a meeting request is the same as the BCC field on a normal mail message.
Consequently, recipients of that meeting request will not be able to see the accounts in the Resource field.

Microsoft states that this is by design.

Direct Booking -- update to meeting request deletes appt. from recipients calendar (10/02/2004) - SRZ041005003055 -- Hot-Fix AVAILABLE NOW!

When a required attendee is configured for Direct Booking: (Tools | Options | Calendar Options | Resource Scheduling and selects 1) Auto accept meeting requests & process cancellations & 2) Auto decline conflicting meetings requests) an UPDATE to the meeting removes the appointment from the attendee's calendar (note:  it does leave the appointment on the originators and resource calendars).

It appears to see the updated meeting request as a CONFLICT instead of an UPDATE and takes the action of declining the update and removing the original meeting from the recipients' calendar.

Whenever a group appointment is updated for recipients that have auto accept and auto decline conflicts turned on, the appointment will just disappear from the recipient's calendar.  Therefore, meetings are being missed by our Faculty, Staff & Students.

On 12/2/04 Microsoft released a hot-fix for this problem. You must be running Outlook 2003 SP1 prior to installing this fix. To install the hot-fix, download and save the file, exit Outlook, and run the hot-fix installer (i.e., In the Open File - Secuirty Warning window, click the Open button).

Note: If you decide not to install the hot-fix at this time, it should be included in the late January/early February 2005 Office updates.

Note: This problem does not effect Resources.

Changing a Resource Meeting Location for a Repeating Meeting, Resource Displays "Cancelled" (10/02/2004) - SRZ040927003200

Outlook user creates a repeating meeting on a resources that is set to auto-accept. When the user updates the meeting by changing the resource location, the meeting is Updated on the new resource, however, it appears as Cancelled on the original resource. Note: even though it appears as Cancelled on the original resource, it does not display in the free/busy, so the resource is available. The resource owner should periodically go in and clean up those Cancelled meetings.

This is a known issue and will hopefully be released in an upcoming service pack.

Automatic booking of resources does not work through OWA or Entourage (8/18/2004) - SRX040818603423

When you try to book a resource that has been configured to automatically accept meeting requests, the meeting request is not automatically accepted. The meeting request sits in the resource Inbox and you do not receive the following confirmation message: "The resources for the meeting were successfully booked".

Microsoft states this is by design.

Why can't I specify which pages of a message to print?

When I print a message that is formatted with HTML, I can print any number of pages. However, if I print a plain text message, my options are 1) print the entire message, 2) print even pages, or 3) print odd pages.

Work around: Change your message format to HTML in order to specify any number of pages. Open the message and choose Edit | Edit Message and then choose Format | HTML

When Eudora users receive messages that are forwarded from Outlook, why do they sometimes see xml tags like the following: "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word">?

The Outlook client has the ability to forward messages in XML format, which Eudora does not support, so the tag is displayed in the message. Qualcomm states: "There are unfortunately no plans to add this ability to Eudora at this time".

Since moving to Outlook, the Text Size in Internet Explorer sometimes spontaneously changes.

If you have changed the Text Size in IE to something other than the default (medium), you may notice that the Text Size may spontaneously change. To resolve this problem:

  1. In Outlook, Select Tools | Options and click on the Mail Format tab.
  2. Under "Stationery and Fonts", click Fonts and then click International Fonts.
  3. Select the font size that you want to use in IE, click Set as Default, and then click OK 3 times.

The Text Size should no longer revert to the former default (medium) in Internet Explorer.

Why was my resource double-booked, even though it is set to not allow double-booking?

Even if a resource is set to not allow double-booking, it can be double-booked if the person who schedules the resource does not select "Resource" or uses OWA or Entourage. In other words, when you add a resource as an Attendee, by default the resource is set to "Required Attendee". You need to right-click in the box to the left of the resource and select "Resource". Otherwise, another person who schedules the resource for an overlapping time (and selects "Resource") will be able to double-book the resource.

Note: We are checking to see whether resources can be set to default to "Resource".

When people forward messages from the Hawkmail server, the actual Internet email addresses do not appear next to the names listed on the original message.

In the Microsoft world. a person's name maps to a server "account" or an Outlook "contact". Microsoft has unfortunately chosen not to include Internet email addresses with names listed in a forwarded message. This can prevent recipients of forwarded messages from knowing the email addresses of the people in the original message. There is no workaround known at this time.

All Day Events marked as FREE - get automatically declined. (12/09/2004) - SRZ041209001647

If you invite someone to an All Day Event (marked as FREE) and they are configured for Direct Booking: (Tools | Options | Calendar Options | Resource Scheduling and selects 1) Auto accept meeting requests & process cancellations & 2) Auto decline conflicting meetings requests). If the invitee already has any appointment on their calendar, it will automatically DECLINE the All Day Event (even though the All Day Event when sent was marked as FREE).

Microsoft states that this is by design, but they have submitted a request to consider it for a future release.

Why are some meetings not on my calendar? I have "Automatically accept meeting requests" turned on for my individual account.

If you preview a meeting request in your inbox by opening the message or using the reading pane then the meeting will be placed on your calendar as Tentative and the auto-accept process will not be completed. The meeting request will remain in your inbox and you must then Accept the request in order to change the status from Tentative to Busy.

If you delete the message without accepting the request it will be removed from your calendar. This would explain why some meetings may not be on your calendar that you assumed had been auto-accepted.

I have cancelled a meeting that I organized and it still appears on the calendar of the attendee.

This problem can occur if you send a new Meeting Request and also uncheck Request Responses under the Actions menu. If you schedule a large meeting or an event and you don't want to receive a response from each person you invite then turning off the Request Responses option will prevent receiving a large number of response messages.

However, it will also result in not being able to track whether attendees have accepted, tentatively accepted, or declined and the problem of not sending a cancellation message to attendees. When no cancellation message is sent the meeting remains on the attendee calendar.

Attendee is missing from the scheduling tab (5/1/07) - SRZ070402000998

This problem occurs when I open my boss' Shared Calendar  (note, my boss is the Organizer, because I'm working on his/her behalf).  I create a new appointment and invite a co-worker (1 attendee + myself).  The co-worker accepts the appointment, however when the co-worker looks at the Scheduling tab, they only see the Organizer and themselves as attendees, they do NOT see me as an attendee.   When my boss and I both open the appointment and look at the scheduling tab, we see:  The boss as the organizer, and both the co-worker and myself as attendees.

This is a known issue in Outlook 2003 & 2007.  Microsoft states that this is by design.

All Day recurring appointment causes a reminder error (5/1/07) - SRZ070313000778

Create All Day recurring appointments in Outlook 2003 the following way:

New Appt | All Day Event | Add Attendee | No reminder | Recurrence=Daily | End after 2 occurrences | Save

When the attendee accepts the invite in Outlook 2007 they get the error message "The reminder for an occurrence cannot be set to appear before the previous occurrence. Shorten the reminder time or lengthen the recurrence period".

NOTE: This problem occurs when the organizer is using Outlook 2003 and the attendee is using Outlook 2007 OR if both the organizer and attendee are using Outlook 2007.  This is not an issue in OWA.

Work-around:  set the reminder time to 'None'.

This is a known problem in Outlook 2003 & 2007.  This fix is expected to be rolled into Office 2007 SP1.

Outlook 2007

Problem deleting a single instance of a recurring meeting (5/3/07) - SRZ070501000966

This problem only occurs when one or more attendees are Calendar Only AND they have auto-accept for appointments.

An Outlook 2007 user creates a recurring meeting.   One of the attendees has set Outlook to auto accept appointment requests and cancellations.   Then, the requestor needs to cancel a single instance of the recurrence.   He deletes the single instance and sends the update.   The attendee who has auto accept... automatically sends an acceptance back to the requestor.  The single instance that had been deleted, is now back on the requestor's calendar.  Note, it is on the attendee's calendar as Cancelled.   If the requestor tries to delete it from his calendar, he cannot delete without sending an update, so he gets in a loop. 

 

There is not a problem in Outlook 2003....   In Outlook 2003, when the requestor would delete a single instance, it removed it from his calendar.  When he would get the automatic acceptance of the cancellation back, it still stayed off of his calendar.   The attendee's calendar shows the meeting as cancelled.     

 

In Outlook 2007, the requestor can no longer delete the instance without sending a cancellation notice.  In Outlook 2003, you could delete the meeting and choose not to send a notice.  This is a design change in Outlook 2007 - the calendar was redone. 

This is a known issue with Outlook 2007.  Microsoft states that the auto-accept feature is meant for resources, not people.  So, we are not using the product in a supported manner. 

Work Around:  In order for the Requestor to delete the appointment from his calendar once he has sent the cancellation notices, he should choose delete and send the update to himself and remove the other attendees names.

Delete requests sit in Attendees Inbox (5/3/07) - SRZ070501000966

When an originator deletes an appointment and one of the attendees has auto-accept of meeting requests and cancellations, the delete request gets processed (meaning the calendar is updated to say Cancelled and the time is changed to free).  However, the attendee has the delete request sitting in their Inbox – it does not get removed unless they manually delete it.   The originator does not receive an acceptance of the delete request either.

Microsoft states that it is working by design in Outlook 2007.   This is a design change in Outlook 2007 - the calendar was redone.  This is a known issue with Outlook 2007.  Microsoft states that the auto-accept feature is meant for resources, not people.  So, we are not using the product in a supported manner. 

List of shared calendars under People's Calendars disappears (5/14/07) - SRZ070403001112

Periodically, the list of shared Calendars will disappear and these Calendars will need to be reopened to rebuild the list.

There are significant differences in the architecture of Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007, and in the case of People's Calendars, Microsoft Outlook 2007 stores the shared list in the user's mailbox on the Hawkmail Server instead of locally on the client workstation thereby providing the list to multiple clients accessing the mailbox. The downside to this approach is the potential for network connectivity issues which might cause the data to be written incorrectly or corrupted and not delivered properly to the client.

Microsoft has now stated as of 6/7/07 that there is a bug regarding shared calendars disapperaing when users are in online mode.  This fix is expected to be rolled into Office 2007 SP1.  In the meantime we recommend that you run Outlook 2007 in Cached Exchange Mode if you are having this problem.

"The Messaging interface has returned an unknown error." occurs when trying to view a shared calendar

In Outlook 2007, an error may occur when trying to view a shared calendar from the People's Calendars list. The error will say "The Messaging interface has returned an unknown error.  If the problem persists, restart Outlook."  Restarting Outlook does resolve the problem.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a known bug with Outlook 2007.  We are currently waiting to hear back from Microsoft as to the decision on whether this will be resolved by a Hot Fix or included in Office 2007 Service Pack 1.

Delegate is unable to print tasks with the manager's calendar

This is a known issue with Outlook 2007. The ability to print a manager's tasks with their calendar was disabled in Outlook 2007 because Outlook can't access the manager's To-Do Bar search folder in order to print flagged messages that appear along with regular task items in the manager's To-Do Bar. The Task Pad in Outlook 2003 didn't include flagged messages so this problem didn't exist. Delegates who need to print their manager's tasks will need to go to the Task module, open the manager's task folder and then print them (flagged messages won't be printed using this method either).

Microsoft has rejected a change request on this issue.

Outlook 2003/Outlook 2007

When sending a message, you may receive the error "Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients."

The error may occur when sending to an individual who has been migrated to a new e-mail server.  The issue could be caused by the AutoComplete feature, the Global Address List (GAL), and/or Contacts.

AutoComplete

Outlook caches the previous address and needs to be cleared before the new correct  Hawkmail address will be added to the autocomplete list.  Below are a couple of methods to remedy the issue:

Options for removing an address from the AutoComplete list

  1. Options for removing an address from the AutoComplete list
    To remove a single address from the AutoComplete list, use the arrow keys to select it and press the Delete key
    OR
  2. If you wish to remove all of the addresses from the AutoComplete list:
    Exit Outlook
    Search for the file Outlook.NK2 and rename it to Outlookbkp.nk2. (NOTE: When you search for the file, you will need to search in hidden files and system folders and display file extensions). The file will automatically be recreated the next time you launch Outlook.

Global Address List (GAL)
The GAL may also contain an out-of-date entry that may cause the error. If you are using Cached Exchange Mode and never close out of Outlook, the GAL will be outdated. The Offline Address Book is updated daily, but if a e-mail client is not closed, the updates will not be applied.

  1. Options for updating the Global Address List (GAL)
    Close out of Outlook overnight
    OR
  2. Force an update to run: Tools | Send/Receive | Download Address Book
    OR
  3. Turn off Cached Exchange Mode (Tools | Account Settings | Change | deselect Use Cached Exchange Mode), close and reopen Outlook, turn on Cached Exchange Mode

Contacts
An Outlook Contact entry containing the outdated target/routing address will need to be updated. If a contact entry contains the routing/target address (e.g., jdoe@xxxx.uiowa.edu), you should update the entry to use the alias (jane-doe@uiowa.edu).