Microsoft Outlook: "The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action"

Question

I am currently running into this issue when searching for user on our GAL.

I am able to send and receive emails. If I type in the email of someone else, it can find them.
However, when I go to search in our GAL, it gives me this error.

Answer 1

Is Outlook in cache mode? Try that if not and download the Offline Address Book and use that instead

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-on-cached-exchange-mode-7885af08-9a60-4ec3-850a-e221c1ed0c1c

Answer 2

Hi @lmyale ,

Welcome to our forum!

Do other users in your organization encounter the same issue?

According to your description, i notice that you have enabled Cache mode, it's suggested that you could try to uncheck it and it will switch to online mode. Then please check if the issue still exists.

On the other hand, i found that some users mentioned that it's useful to delete the current profile and create a new Outlook profile (Control Panel>Mail>Show Profiles>add) in some threads. Please try to do this and check if the GAL can work normally.

If the above doesn't help, please refer to this article and check if it is your issue, which mentioned the similar error as yours: Connection issues between Outlook and Exchange when MAPI is disabled for a user.

Hope to help you!

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