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Outlook Not Searching Exchange Shared Mailbox

Michael Adams 366 Reputation points
2023-08-22T18:43:28.02+00:00

Outlook has stopped searching a shared mailbox, but only for some users. Outlook is connected to an on-premises Exchange Server. I ran a script to check the indexing error on the shared mailbox, and did find errors. I repaired the index on the Exchange Server, and it now has no errors. This did not fix the Outlook search issue.

Things I've tried:

  1. Setting Outlook to disable cached mode for the shared mailbox using the Windows registry. No change.
  2. Set Outlook to only use the local index through the Windows registry. No change.
  3. Reset Outlook views. No change.
  4. Removed and recreated Outlook profile. No change. In fact, it was even worse with no emails showing in the shared mailbox even when not searching. I removed the user from the shared mailbox delegation on the Exchange Server, adding the user back, and the emails reappeared. Search still did not work.
  5. Ran full Online Repair of Office Apps for Enterprise. Search now works for the shared mailbox, but only if the Inbox of the shared mailbox is selected, and the search scope is set to "All Mailboxes". If the search scope is set to "Current Folder", search does not work. It did before this issue arose. Other issue is if I select the user's personal Inbox, and run search, the "All Mailboxes" search option is missing.
  6. Ran search with the Outlook Web App. Works fine.

I have to conclude that there is some issue with Outlook. Any help would be appreciated.

Exchange | Exchange Server | Other
Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For business
Exchange | Exchange Server | Management

14 answers

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  1. Barry Watson 15 Reputation points
    2024-01-24T15:01:08.0166667+00:00

    Microsoft has just released 2312 build 17126.20132 which has resolved this issue for us. I upgraded to 2312 when it was first released and the issue continued, however Microsoft released a further build version. This version release fixed our issue without any other actions needed. I didn’t even need to restart.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
  2. Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Reputation points Moderator
    2023-08-23T03:45:58.0466667+00:00

    Hi @Michael Adams ,

    Do you have any idea about when this issue started to occur?
    What's the version of the Exchange and the affected Outlook client? To view the version information of Outlook, you can go to File > Office Account > About Outlook.

    Agree with your assumption that it looks like to be related to Outlook, but so far, I haven't seen this issue documented in Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Outlook for PC. However, noticed a similar issue is being heatedly discussed in some other threads. I'll leave the links below as well for your information:

    Meanwhile, given current situation, I'd suggest trying to disable the automapping for one affected user and let the user add the shared mailbox as an additional mailbox in the Outlook application. Details steps about how to add a shared mailbox as a separate account in Outlook, you may refer to this article.
    (Please Note: Since the web sites are not hosted by Microsoft, the links may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.)

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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    1 person found this answer helpful.
  3. Marcel H 5 Reputation points
    2023-12-05T08:49:41.24+00:00

    In germany the first day our company had this issue occurred was on the 14th Nov.
    I already opened a case at Microsoft, we had a session and tried to fix this issue by completely resetting all caches and connections of outlook. Nothing worked.
    Days after they contacted me, about the 23th Nov, they "repaired" something and I should had to test it. No success.
    After that they went silent till to this day and this bug still exist.
    We are on version 2311 (Build 17029.20068) and still getting this issue.

    The only workaround at this time is to use the advanced search function by opening it with Ctrl + Alt + Y.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  4. Shane Bennett 5 Reputation points
    2023-12-08T16:17:11.2833333+00:00

    Hi all,

    I'm having users report the same issue and I can replicate it as well. After migrating to Exchange online, users lose the ability to search on premise shared mailboxes in their Outlook client. However, on premise users have no issues searching the shared mailbox.

    Adding the reg dword that @Hannes Siitas mentioned fixed the search issue in the shared mailbox however it broke the search in the users own mailbox so, not really helpful :(

    I'm not even going to try re-enabling downloading shared folders (turning on cached mode for shared mailboxes) as this just makes Outlook performance terrible and isn't really a solution in my opinion. We had all kinds of issues when shared folders were set to cache so we turned this off.

    I'm going to open a ticket with Microsoft support and see what they say. I'm sure I'll get bounced back and forth between cloud and on premise support :/

    If anyone has any suggestions besides caching shared folders and disabling server assisted search, I'm all ears!

    Thanks,
    Shane

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  5. Michael Adams 366 Reputation points
    2023-09-22T23:28:16.1233333+00:00

    I have to say I am absolutely frustrated with this, and Microsoft does not have this fixed. Loads of people are having this issue. I have run a month's worth of tests with no positive results.

    Not all users are experiencing the problem. 80% are, and 20% aren't.

    I checked the build number of the users, and both those who have the problem and those who don't are using the same build:

    User's image

    We have users with Windows 11 and Windows 10, and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

    I tried manually adding the mailbox as an additional mailbox as suggested above, and it had no improvement.

    I tried running Outlook in Safe Mode. No change.

    I also noticed that this issue affects both Shared Mailboxes AND Delegated mailboxes. When entering a search termi, and setting the search to Current Folder, and hit Enter, there is absolutely no response. Outlook just ignores the search. THE SEARCH IS COMPLETELY DEAD for both Shared and Delegate mailboxes. It doesn't move to Results. It just sits there. Nothing happens. However, if I search the Default Mailbox, the search works. So the search works only for the Default Mailbox. Otherwise, the entire search feature is DEAD.

    Something is horribly wrong with Outlook.

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