Unable some users are unable to open "shared contacts" in outlook

Kevinski 6

Hello,

So some users no longer able to open "shared contacts" in outlook.

They have a permission error ("you do not have permission to view this contacts folder. Do you want to ask XXX to share his or her Contacts folder with you?"), but the permission for "Default" is reviewer (cf screenshot).

It will fail for about 50% of new users (users who didn't need it before).

It works for a lot of users (~70) but not for several others (more and more every day). If it starts to fail for someone, adding them nominatively in the contacts folder's permissions will sometimes work.

The account used for the contacts folder sharing is a shared mailbox which is used only for that. We have ~4-5 users which are "editors" and are able to update/create contacts there and ~75 which are supposed to have access to those contacts.

My question is : why doesn't it work with the "default" permission anymore, and what can I do about it without having to add every 75 of them nominatively and hope for the best.

Thanks in advance !

Joyce Shen - MSFT 16,641 Reputation points

2022-02-28T08:52:18.17+00:00

Hi @Kevinski

I test the same operation in my environment and got the same result as yours, right folder permission doesn't work for those users to access the folder. unless I click the "yes" to ask the owner to share the folder and the owner allow the request then I will be able to access the folder.

I would recommend open a support ticket to feedback this issue with o365 backend to see if any changes have been made recently.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business-video/get-help-support?view=o365-worldwide
Nate Cohen 21 Reputation points

2022-03-04T18:20:50.78+00:00

I opened a support case with MS about a week ago and they have since told me that their internal team can replicate the issue, it is affecting other partners who have reported the issue, and that a bug has been raised to the product team. Lastly they mentioned that the bug report is not announced publicly and they don't have a workaround for me. Hopefully they get it taken care of sooner than later.
Michael Wiskman 111 Reputation points

2022-03-07T20:00:54.593+00:00

Hello,
I've had exactly the same problem. But this time on a Hybrid with effected mailboxes OnPrem. It is identical where sharing contacts suddenly stopped working. Tried most things without succees. Keeping fingers crossed that Microsoft comes up with a solution.
Will H 76 Reputation points

2022-03-15T17:18:20.127+00:00

Same issue here with a similar client environment. Hybrid w/ effected mailboxes OnPrem. Small deployment with 5 users, so there is no way this is an MAPI issue. The configuration worked for years and there had been no issues, so fumbling around blindly in settings is right out as a potential fix. This kind of thing frustrates users and erodes trust in the deployment/IT staff.
JF 1 Reputation point

2022-04-05T16:30:36.083+00:00

I ran into this problem as well. Hybrid Exchange environment.

It did work after a period of time by giving the other user "Folder visible" rights to the top folder. This isn't the cleanest solution though.

The Eureka moment was when we tried manually sharing from one to another within Outlook. We got a notice that sharing contacts was not permitted within our organization.

Sure enough, I checked our sharing policy and under individual there is a single checkbox to allow sharing calendars.

Granted, none of that may apply to your case, but maybe it sends someone else in the right direction.
RyRyKK 12 Reputation points

2022-04-12T12:38:38.637+00:00

We have the same issue with two different clients with Hybrid exchange environments. Permissions show as correctly set in PS, the delegate is set to reviewer, editor, etc., for someone's contact folder but the contacts appear intermittently or not at all for the delegate.

I've had a ticket open for 2-3 weeks with Microsoft Premier Support, they have run me through stuff from simple (manually "ask" for permission to view user's contacts from within Outlook, to slightly more advanced PS commands), only today to tell me that contact sharing in Hybrid exchange environments is not possible, directing me to a post that was made after I opened the support ticket.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/Exchange/permissions#mailbox-permissions-in-hybrid-environments
Teraleenee 1 Reputation point

2022-06-02T18:00:28.217+00:00

Hello, kevinski, you should understand that the user could change the permissions or revoke and that's why you have issues.

You should investigate whether the permission level has not changed. Here you can find a great how-to article on your case, it can be helpful.

Repairing the broken Address Book might be also helpful. As sometimes data consistency-related issues also happen. Your Office 365 data can be corrupted. I also recommend you consider this Microsoft 365 data backup solution to have the possibility to recover in the case of such unpredictable incidents.

6 answers

Ortiz, Jorge 11 Reputation points

2022-04-13T00:00:16.86+00:00

Same issue. Specifically, no user is able to access other user's shared contacts, using the Open Shared Contacts button. The user receives a message saying, "You do not have permissions to view this contacts folder. Do you want to ask <user display name> to share their contacts folder with you?"

I confirmed the user has up to Owner access on the shared contacts folder I am trying to get access to. I have reproduced the problem with several user accounts and contacts list and have the same problem.

Note: The problem only impacts shared contacts folders. Shared calendars can be shared and added without an issue.

Workaround: As hinted by the answers above, I have successfully granted access to shared Contacts by granting foldervisible permissions to the top of the information store, e.g. set-mailboxfolderpermissions targetuser@demoxyz.com -user sourceuser@demoxyz.com -accessrights foldervisible

As long as the user also had permissions set on the shared Contacts folder in addition to the Top of Information Store permissions, then you can add the target mailbox in File > Account Settings > Account Settings > Double click the email address > More Settings > Advanced Settings > Add. Once added, of course, this maps the user's mailbox to the folder list, though without granting access (it cannot be expanded). You will then see the shared contacts folder appear in the Contacts (People [groan]) list.

I am piling on with a ticket to Microsoft. I cannot tell how many are impacted, and existing shared Contacts access appears to be unaffected. In my testing, if you can successfully access an existing shared Contacts folder and delete it, you are unable to add again despite having access.
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RyRyKK 12 Reputation points

2022-04-13T16:58:43.72+00:00

Thank you! This workaround worked for me. Really appreciate it.

Thomas Sommer 1 Reputation point

2024-04-11T13:28:12.6066667+00:00

Please note that the described process of adding the mailbox only works if the shared mailbox is visible in the GAL
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Alm7301 6 Reputation points

2022-04-13T14:25:12.557+00:00

I do have a ticket open with MS on this and we've been able to isolate this to being on anything other than the Semi-Annual Channel.

The Monthly Enterprise Channel with CDNBaseUrl = http://officecdn.microsoft.com/pr/55336b82-a18d-4dd6-b5f6-9e5095c314a6 (which is what we're currently on) has the issue. It seems if we move the user back to the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel with CDNBaseUrl = http://officecdn.microsoft.com/pr/7ffbc6bf-bc32-4f92-8982-f9dd17fd3114 the user has no issues accessing shared contacts.

Obviously moving users between channel changes the build version of office. I don't know if this applies for anyone else here, but thought I'd share. Also, MS has acknowledge (at least to me) that it does seem to be tied to these channels and that they are still broken even after the updates pushed to the current and monthly channel builds today...
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Ortiz, Jorge 11 Reputation points

2022-04-13T16:47:30.427+00:00

Bingo thanks. We're on monthly.

Alm7301 6 Reputation points

2022-04-26T05:17:48.793+00:00

Just to add to this now that we've been dealing with this for a few weeks now,. Here is the response I got from Microsoft yesterday:

It has been confirmed that a recent service update designed to improve calendar sharing between shared contacts is preventing users from opening their shared contacts via the Outlook desktop client. A code fix is being developed to address the offending service change and remediate impact. We'll provide an estimate for the fix deployment timeline once our internal fix validation has completed.

Next update by: Friday, April 29, 2022, at 6:30 PM UTC

Confirmed workarounds;
• Switch Office build to the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel as an alternative method.
• Leverage a link in a Sharing message sent by their principal manager to open the Shared Contacts folder

Jan Svoboda 6 Reputation points

2022-05-02T12:39:36.94+00:00

Hello,

any updates from MS please?

Still unable to open shared contacts even though user already has permission. After sending the request we are able to add shared contacts folder, but then it randomly disappears ane we have to ask again.

Thank you.
Jan
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Gabe Bratton 6 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-05-13T16:08:57.45+00:00

Hi all,

The Outlook Team made a change from the service this week to mitigate the issue. If any of you were still seeing the issue can you please test and confirm if its now working for you? When I tested I had to put Outlook in Safe Mode and back to Normal mode for the service change to get picked up. If you don't see it fixed right away, please try that step.
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Jan Svoboda 6 Reputation points

2022-05-26T09:59:26.38+00:00

it is working now!

Thank you
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Vasil Michev 95,581 Reputation points MVP

2022-02-22T09:56:21.06+00:00

Make sure permissions on the Root/Top of information store are adjusted as well, they need to include at least FolderVisible rights. Other than that, make sure you're not hitting MAPI limits, as ~70+ users accessing a shared folder at the same time can trigger those.
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Kevinski 6 Reputation points

2022-02-22T15:05:03.6+00:00

Thanks for your answer, I tried with a colleague and it still does not work.

There are about 70 users who need to access that contact list, but not at the same time. We have a pool of about 10 pcs and those users switch with one another depending on the task they're doing.

The problem is at night for 24/7 ops, there's one of those user there at any given time at night/week ends/.... and the issue is that it did not work for one user one night and he was alone logged onto it because the others weren't there.

Vasil Michev 95,581 Reputation points MVP

2022-02-22T16:25:45.347+00:00

Is this the "main" Contacts folder or a custom one? You need to make sure that users have at least FolderVisible permissions on every folder in the path, so double-check on that. I suppose you can also try adding all users that need access to a mail-enabled security group and add a permission entry for said group.
I suppose you want to limit them from editing/removing contacts, thus granting Full access on the shared mailbox is not an option? Or adding the contacts to the GAL? Sadly, there are no other good solutions within Exchange Online for "shared contacts" scenario, as Groups don't expose contacts and Public folders are just... old.
Another option that comes to mind is to use an EWS/Graph-based script to copy the contacts to each user's own mailbox, though you'd likely need to do this periodically.

kleicht 6 Reputation points

2022-02-23T06:53:50.707+00:00

As for now 02/23/2022 we have thee same problem with all our shared contacts.

Independently from being a shared mailbox contact folder or a user mailbox contact folder.
It started nearly 2 weeks ago and also users who have had thoose shared contacts connected some time before
and disconnected them from their Outlook could NOT connect them again

btw. when thee same users connect shared contact folders under Outlook 2016, on our rdp server, it works fine.
Leaving remote session and open outlook 365 local on our client computers (WIN 10) thee shared mailbox contact folder is then in Outlook 365,
contacts could than be read, write and modified without any harm.

Disconnect shared contact folder again, try to connect - no chance in Outlook 365, always same "permission" message.

Permissions - checked - O.K.
Main contact folder
No modifications are made in right management
same behave for "new" as "old" users when try to connect
works previously like a charm for years
Error only with Outlook 365 - not with Outlook 2016, Outlook 2019
same behav if they where invited to shared folder or if they ask for

perhaps it helps for investigation

Kevinski 6 Reputation points

2022-02-23T08:38:16.527+00:00

It's the main contacts folder. I doubled checked the permissions in the path like you said and it seems good. Also it worked for years without the Foldervisible accessright on "top of information", but I added it yesterday.

I'll try creating a mail enabled security group in which i'll add our "All users" group as Reviewer, maybe it'll work. thanks.

Nate Cohen 21 Reputation points

2022-02-23T16:57:50.093+00:00

Not OP but I also seem to be running into this issue only starting recently.

I have confirmed the following:
Shared mailbox has "Default" permissions as "Folder Visible" for Top of Information Store
The user is added as a fullaccess delegate via mailboxpermission
The user is added with "Owner" permissions to the top level "Contacts" folder on this shared mailbox

I waited a while since Office 365 changes can take a minute to propagate, but the same error occurs, with and without Cached Exchange turned on.

This environment only has 30 or so users so I would not think it is a MAPI limit.

Kevinski 6 Reputation points

2022-02-25T12:33:54.95+00:00

So I tried everything and still no luck. Adding them nominativelly also does not seem to work 100% of the time

Hastreiter, Keith W 1 Reputation point

2022-03-23T21:54:26.117+00:00

We are experiencing this same issue and also with calendars. We have found that by adding the calendar in OWA it will then just "appear" in Outlook fully editable as it should be. Trying to add the calendar from inside Outlook will generate permission denied error. If we remove the calendar from outlook and try to add it back in the error is re-producible. Since there is no method to open shared contacts in OWA (?) I cant confirm the same behavior.
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MK 1 Reputation point

2022-04-19T08:13:30.743+00:00

Hi, Has anyone managed to fix this issue? i have given permission from parent and contacts but still the shared contacts doesn't appear. Would appreciate if you share clear steps to follow.
Thank you!
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Ortiz, Jorge 11 Reputation points

2022-04-19T13:59:34.14+00:00

Given that you've permissioned the top of the store, within the UI, verify the following:

On the other person's mailbox you want your user to access, Right click, Properties, at the user mailbox level. Click Folder Visible if not checked. If this is truly a Shared Mailbox, then use the PowerShell I posted above to grant folder visible.

Back on your user getting the Contacts access, Go into File > Account Settings > Account Settings > Double click the user email address > Click the More Settings button > Click the Advanced Tab > Click Add and add the shared mailbox in question from the GAL. Click OK and exit the remaining windows, including Outlook.

Verify the user has permissions on the Contact(s) folders

Launch Outlook. Within Folder View, verify the mailbox has been added. Scroll down the folder list. You should see it there even if you can't expand it. Click over to the users Contacts list. After a short wait the Shared Mailbox's Contacts folder should appear in the list. Feel free to restart Outlook again if it's not there within a few minutes. If this does not work for you, then the scope of this for you may be a bit different than it is for me or others. Keep at it and reattempt this on your own mailbox, with another Contacts list. If it works for you and not the user then you have other tools in your kit (such as temporary full mailbox permissions where you can set -Automapping to $False if necessary).

Tech House 6 Reputation points

2022-04-19T22:05:12.963+00:00

This Worked:

I added the share@xyz .com mailbox from your steps and disabled the checkbox to not sync the folders. Which then adds the mailbox + the contacts but does not bring down any emails.

Thank you. This will do the trick for now.
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