Getting error: There was a problem connecting you to the shared calendar. Please ask the person who invited you to send another sharing invitation.

Question

We are getting the above response when users on Windows 10 PCs with Outlook version 2008 Build 13127.20408 click accept from an invitation to share a calendar is received.

We have tested the same share and accept on a MAC and iPhone, both work.

We have tested by accepting using Outlook on the Web and the above error does not present but the calendar does not show up in the list to view it.

Android phones do not present the option to open the xml in outlook to present the option to accept.

Our organization uses Office 365. No on-prem.

Answer 1

@Kathy Blasco , @JeffYang-MSFT -- We were experiencing the same error message when accepting shared calendar invitations and managed to trace the problem back to a confidentiality footer that was being appended onto every outbound message via a mail flow rule.

The rule was using a fallback method of wrapping the messages if it couldn't modify the original message. Consequently, the shared calendar invitations were showing up in the recipient mailboxes as attachments. You would open the attachment and have the invitation with the accept button, but the button either would generate an error (desktop client) or wouldn't work (OWA).

On the desktop client, this resulted in the same error message described in this thread.

On the OWA client it would not present an error message to the user, but the accept button would flash over to "Adding calendar..." for about a second and then revert to the "Accept" button. Normal behavior is for the "Accept" button to change to a "View Calendar" button. Regardless, neither client could add the calendar successfully.

We were also able to get it to work through the iPhone Outlook app, but clicking on the accept button spawned a browser session to OWA on the mobile, for which the user had to log in, and once there the calendar would appear everywhere. While this worked, it was not an acceptable workaround we felt good about publishing to our users.

It's notable that the iPhone app is calling a very different endpoint when you click the accept button, an absolute url to owa/processinvitation.aspx?DataType=calendar.... Compare this to the accept button in the OWA browser app itself, which calls the relative url owa/service.svc?action=AcceptSharedCalendarInvite&app=mail.... If you run Fiddler or similar to watch your outbound requests, you can see that the request OWA is making fails with an internal server error:

{"MajorVersion":15,"MinorVersion":20,"MajorBuildNumber":4734,"MinorBuildNumber":28,"Version":"V2018_01_08"}},"Body":{"NewCalendarEntryId":null,"MessageText":"An internal server error occurred. The operation failed., The object was bound to a wrong object type. ObjectClass = IPM.Note, Intended Type = Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.SharingMessageItem.","ResponseCode":"ErrorInternalServerError","ResponseClass":"Error"}})

We noticed on another tenant that the invitations were working fine and would not be coming through as attachments. The transport rule for the confidentiality footer was identified as the culprit, and we change the rule to "Ignore" instead of "Wrap" when the rule couldn't alter the original message.

After this change, the calendar invitations would come through directly (not as attachments) and the accept button worked fine, adding the shared calendar as expected. This was verified to work from both OWA and the desktop client without issue.

Hope this helps someone out there. Drove us nuts for a day.

Answer 2

@ArtixanSystems Thanks for your update on the "Transport rule". It fixed our issue.

Answer 3

@ArtixanSystems

Signed up just to say thank you! this was a really annoying issue and changing it from "Wrap" to "Ignore" on the mail flow rule did the trick.

Answer 4

Hi KathyBlasco-4579,
Is this a problem that has only recently occurred? If so, what specific operations did you do before this problem occurred?
Does this issue only happen to specific users? It is suggested to share the same calendar to other users or accept other users' shared calendar to see if the issue could also be reproduced.

using Outlook on the Web and the above error does not present but the calendar does not show up in the list to view it.

As I know, when accept using Outlook on the Web, the shared calendar will usually be added to the "People's Calendar" folder. So, please check your "People's Calendar" folder and see if there is any difference. If the issue still continues, it is suggested to remove all the existed shared calendars first, and then re-accept this shared calendar to check if you can see it normally.

There was a problem connecting you to the shared calendar. Please ask the person who invited you to send another sharing invitation

From the perspective of Outlook client, "Download shared folders" may cause issues like this. So, please uncheck this option like below, restart your Outlook and see if it works. (File > Account Settings > Account Settings > Double click your email account > More settings > Advanced)

A corrupted Outlook profile can also lead this issue, please try creating a new Outlook profile via Control Panel > Mail > Show profile and using this new Outlook profile to see if there is any difference.

Besides, to confirm if you have already granted the permission, you could also try the "Open Shared Calendar" option to see if you can successfully open the shared calendar.

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Answer 5

Hi @JeffYang-MSFT
I did create a new profile to start fresh unchecking 'Download shared folders'. This issue seems to be related to creating additional shared calendar folders and only on Windows 10, Outlook on the web, and Android phones using Outlook. I have a user that has Windows 10, a MAC, and an iPhone. She is able to accept the invite on her MAC and iPhone. She and I both were unable to accept the invite from an email on our Windows 10 PCs and I am unable to accept it on my Android phone.

I was able to add her primary calendar back to my calendar view but not the additional calendar she created and shared with me.

I then tried to add the shared calendar since she had already granted permission for me and none of the following worked:

user@keyman .com:\calendar\NewTest
user@keyman .com:\NewTest
user@keyman .com\calendar\NewTest
user@keyman .com\NewTest
user@keyman .com:/calendar/NewTest
user@keyman .com:/NewTest
user@keyman .com/calendar/NewTest
user@keyman .com/NewTest

Either way the email invitiation definately isn't working. I maybe don't have the correct syntax to manually add the calendar.
Please advise!
Thanks!