Outlook Calendar Multiple Appointment Copy Errors

Question

Hello,

Some front-desk admin staff in my organisation have been receiving two error messages when attempting to copy multiple appointments on calendars. It primarily occurs when the admin staff copy multiple bookings on a counsellor's calendar, from 1 day to another, however can also be recreated on our own calendars . The errors that are seen are:

"The item cannot be saved because it was changed by another user or in another window. Do you want to make a copy in the default folder for the item?" (Yes / No)

"The function cannot be performed because the message has been changed."

When either error occurs, generally all but 1 appointment is successfully copied to the new target day, and a copy of the missing appointment is made at the time of the original appointment, regardless of whether Yes or No is selected for the first error message listed above.

I don't believe that any actual changes to appointments are occurring while the staff are modifying it, as they quickly copy the appointments, and I managed to recreate the errors on my own calendar, months in the future, without any details more than appointment subjects (no categories, invitees, etc).

The staff are working from Server 2012 terminal servers, using either Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2013. One of the staff who uses Server 2012 with Office 2016 also has as Microsoft Surface Laptop with Outlook 2016, where she also sees the error.

The organisation has a Hybrid Exchange 2007 & Office 365 configuration which is nearing it's complete migration to Office 365 hopefully within the next few months.

Troubleshooting steps taken so far:

1. Errors occur on both own calendars and other staff calendars
2. Errors occur on terminal servers and Microsoft Surface laptop
3. Migrated a user to an Office 365 mailbox, errors still occur regardless of where mailbox is situated
4. Errors occur regardless of editing calendars within mailboxes on Exchange 2007 or Office 365
5. Enabled cached mode for admin staff, errors still occur
6. Outlook > File > Options > Mail > Coversation Clean Up, unchecked:

• When a reply modifies a message, don't move the original

7. Tested using safe mode, using Run: Outlook /safe, errors still occur

Please let me know if there's any further details you would like.

Thank you,

Cody

Answer 1

Hello Cody,

Greetings.

Had you referred to my private message? Thanks for your time.

Regards,

Rudy

Answer 2

Hello Cody,

Seems the prompt is related with the appointments themselves. In our test, when I create some appointments on my side, the copy-paste works well, but when I copy the assigned appointments, similar prompt showed. Noted: those assigned appointments look like those copied appointments in the shared calendar.

We should need do more test. Thanks for your patience.

Regards,

Rudy

Answer 3

Hello Cody,

Thanks for your reply. And we have also received your private message.

We will check all the information immediately and then share the finding with you when we get them.

We appreciate your patience.

Regards,

Rudy

Answer 4

Hello Cody,

Greetings. From your description, can I know if this issue occurred before please? And what settings had you completed before this issue occurred?

Meanwhile, you may need to try the Outlook in Safe mode to check if any organizational side add-ins cause the issue. 

If you create some new test appointments with the contents only are typed "test" to reproduce this issue, does it occur again? If possible, please share a video about how to reproduce this issue with us for further analysis. I will send you a private message to collect that video.

Moreover, please update the Outlook client to the latest version to check it again, also let us know the detailed version, go to File > Office Account.

Regards,

Rudy

Hello Rudy,

Thank you for your quick reply!

I don't believe we had any settings changes during this time, however I'm not 100% sure, I will check with my manager. The issue was first reported on the 27th of May 2019 and has continued since. The only event that I can see within our ticket system that occurred around that time, was an incident on the 23rd May (in Australia) which was eventually resolved on the same day this issue began. The incident was EX180344 - Can't access Exchange Online, but may be unrelated.

Apologies, I had actually tested using safe mode, using Run: Outlook /safe. Unfortunately, the issue still persisted. I've edited the original post to include this now.

To re-create it myself can take quite a while of creating test appointments and copying, however it will occur eventually. For a video, I'll work with some of the admin staff to record an instance of the error/s and send it to you.

The latest versions for each of the clients:

Server 2012, Outlook 2013 (15.0.4745.1000) MSO (15.0.4737.1001) 32-bit

Server 2012, Outlook 2016 MSO (16.0.4738.1000) 32-bit

Unfortunately, I can't update these myself, but if they are not up to date, I can ask if this is able to be completed.

Thank you,

Cody

Answer 5

Hello Cody,

Greetings. From your description, can I know if this issue occurred before please? And what settings had you completed before this issue occurred?

Meanwhile, you may need to try the Outlook in Safe mode to check if any organizational side add-ins cause the issue. 

If you create some new test appointments with the contents only are typed "test" to reproduce this issue, does it occur again? If possible, please share a video about how to reproduce this issue with us for further analysis. I will send you a private message to collect that video.

Moreover, please update the Outlook client to the latest version to check it again, also let us know the detailed version, go to File > Office Account.

Regards,

Rudy