Outlook insanity

February 2, 2024 8:24 AM

I have a microsoft outlook email address which I access through office.com. All of a sudden, the search function does not work. I have tried different browsers, different computers, erasing the cache and cookies, but nothing works! Microsoft support is also baffled. Help!

For my job, I have a microsoft outlook email address. I have had the same one for many years. As of yesterday, the search function no longer works. If I try to search something, I get back the error message " Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again later."

I need to be able to search emails! This is killing me. Its making work impossible. I have tried it on three different computers and three diffferent browsers. i have logged out, rebooted, cleared the cache and cookies. All the usual steps. I have spoken with my IT tech and the Microsoft support team. Everyone is stumped. I dont know what to do.

Any suggestions? I'm desperate! Yes, search still works if I go through the microsoft app that is installed on my home base computer. But I am very very rarely on that computer, so the web version is what I use everyday, wherever I am. What I have to do right now is, every time I want to search something, I go on my phone, search and find the email, and then forward it back to myself so its back on the top of my mailbox, so then I can read and respond to it on my computer. Its ridiculous.

posted by silverstatue to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

The admins that administer your web email need to look at event logs on the system where the search runs, when you do the search. You see "Sorry, something went wrong", but somewhere in their logs there are messages such as "the process running is not authorized to read that mail file, reason code xxxxxxx" or "the search process on this server cannot reach the Exchange server over there, because of a network issue" or something like that.

They might also use a local debugger in the browser on whatever computer you are using to look for HTTP error codes that indicate something wrong in the flow between your browser and whatever the back end is.

In any event I don't _think_ this is your problem, I think it belongs to the server support teams(s). That said, it might be helpful to them to document any changes that you can think of that happened immediately before the problem started. They should, of course, be doing the same for systems under their control
posted by TimHare at 8:38 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]

The admins that administer your web email need to look at event logs on the system where the search runs

To clarify for future answerers, OP's mail is hosted on the office.com cloud, so the servers are Microsoft's. OP is one of ~500 million outlook.com users.

I would:
- keep an eye on Fixes or workarounds for recent issues on Outlook.com, which is regularly updated:
- follow @MSFT365Status on Twitter which has a lot of detail — e.g. see this thread on a widespread issue with search in April of last year
- wait a few days as there is a good chance it will sort itself out
- in the mean time investigate workarounds - you say search in the app works, so can you install Outlook on all your devices? There are apps for Android, iOS, Mac (free), Windows, etc.
posted by Klipspringer at 10:34 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]

I would ask my network team to run a trace on my request to verify that there is nothing on the corporate network stopping this specific function from working. All it takes is one URL or protocol to be blocked by a proxy server update or a VPN change, and suddenly you can't do anything even though "nothing has changed".

Agree that checking the event logs on your local machine might be helpful, and also Microsoft Exchange has event logs which your admins can access and those should be checked as well.
posted by underclocked at 10:52 AM on February 2

I have tried different browsers, different computers, erasing the cache and cookies, but nothing works!

A couple of other very simple things that you can try:

1 - if you're using any content blockers try turning them off.
2 - try using a browser in private or incognito mode.

Neither of those might help at all, but I have found when something browser based inexplicably stops working they do occasionally do the trick... even when you've done everything you've done above. Like, right now outlook.office.com refuses to load on my phone unless I turn my content blockers off... so annoying.
posted by eekernohan at 12:09 PM on February 2

My guess is that you have a malformed email somewhere (possibly in the spam folder) which is tripping up the search function.

Another approach would be to try an email client like Thunderbird, download your emails to it and see if the Thunderbird search works.
posted by Lanark at 7:04 AM on February 3

That's odd...I use Outlook for work as well and just yesterday the search function started doing the exact thing that you describe. Drove me nuts! On Monday I plan to put in a ticket to our IT folks, but now I wonder if it's a weird Outlook glitch.
posted by Molasses808 at 5:38 PM on February 3

Response by poster: Just popping back in to say my IT guy said there is a known issue at Outlook right now with some user's accounts and the search function. They're working on it. I guess I just have to sit tight :(
posted by silverstatue at 10:39 AM on February 4