office c2r Your automatic reply settings cannot be displayed, because the server is currently unavailable

Question

Updated solution:

after adding reg key:

"reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\officeupdate /v updatebranch /t REG_SZ /d Deferred

office will auto update (downgrade) to stable version (office app restart needed)

if it doesn't auto update after 24 hours, try with manual update

This solution still don't work for c2r office 2016 (16.0.18623.20178), it says that latest updates are applied but guess they aren't stable once

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After latest office c2r (2019-2024) update ooo settings cant be set from outlook with error "Your automatic reply settings cannot be displayed, because the server is currently unavailable"

Don't know is it related to os version, but all of pcs that had problem were 23h2 or 24h2 win11 (we have win10 pcs but don't know for any user that's working on win10 and has that problem)

After a lot of troubleshooting there are some temporary solutions and one finally but not so good if you have a lot of users in company, so i hope MS will fix this issue.

Temp solutions:

• use owa
• Turn off proxy, restart outlook, and you can open ooo settings. Funny thing mail server is on exception list and should bypass proxy, and on proxy i don't even see any traffic going to the mail server
• in cmd with current logged in user execute: RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ResetIEtoDefaults (this will reset internet options/settings), restart outlook. This only works till gpo is reapplied again (tried unlinking 1 by 1 gpo for ou where the user was located and move user to some other ou but without luck)

Final solution:

• remove outlook profile
• delete all files folder and subfolders from c:\users\user\appdata\microsoft\outlook\
• reset ie settings in cmd with current logged in user: RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ResetIEtoDefaults
• backup and delete from registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Outlook HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer (for this you need to have local admin rights for that specific user)
• restart pc

Weird thing is:

• on same pc newly logged in user(same ou as one with problem) don't have that problem and even adding mailbox of user that had problem, don't have problem with opening ooo settings
• tried to move ost to other path, but without luck

Answer 1

Hi @Ivan Bajo

Thank you for posting your valuable feedback in the Microsoft Q&A forum.    

I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your experience with us regarding the Office C2R issue. We really appreciate you taking the time to let us know what you encountered, along with the detailed solutions you provided. These will help a lot for the others facing the similar issue. 

Our dev team will look into this situation so that customers will have better experience with our products. 

Additionally, we have received several reports similar to your case. 

The root cause of this issue is when Outlook Anywhere has been enabled but AutoDiscover hasn't been configured properly for your domain or hasn't been published at all. 

You can find more information at: 

"Automatic reply settings cannot be displayed" in Office Outlook - Microsoft Q&A 

Outlook 365 Automatic Replies: Your automatic reply settings cannot be - Microsoft Community 

If there’s anything else you need or if you have more thoughts to share, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re always here to help! 

Thanks for your contribution. 

Updated solution from @Ivan Bajo

"reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\officeupdate /v updatebranch /t REG_SZ /d Deferred

After that I've tried to update to 16.0.18429.20158 with error:

"%programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun\officec2rclient.exe" /update user updatetoversion=16.0.18429.20158

And then started manual update and it updated to 16.0.18526.20416 where automatic replies work

So, I guess I only need to push that registry key to other machines and auto update should downgrade to version 16.0.18526.20416"

Once again thanks for your contribution.

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