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 16,646 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

Steven Lemus 1 Reputation point

2022-10-27T16:37:42.09+00:00

We are experiencing the issue. We have a client that wants to share their personal business contacts list to to another business account. They are both in the same organization, but when we try to share it state "error while preparing to send sharing message" we have added privileges to the other mailbox but that doesn't work. Does any have any tips?
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RyRyKK 12 Reputation points

2022-10-27T23:39:52.19+00:00

Hey @Steven Lemus try this is what I did:

Connect to Exchange Online (for Office 365 clients)

add-mailboxfolderpermission -Identity amy@conseco.com -user frank@conseco.com -accessrights foldervisible
***note, if you get "The Sharing policy doesn't allow you. . ." error message running this step, run it again but don't use "@keyman .com", just the username.

Add-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity amy@conseco.com:\Contacts -User frank@conseco.com -AccessRights Editor

In steps 2 & 3 above if there were any existing permissions you would need to use "set-mailboxfolderpermission" instead of "add-. . ."

Go to Frank's Outlook and add Amy's account:
File > Account Settings > Account Settings
Change > More settings
Advanced > Add

Type in name or username of person that should have access. Delegate's name will now show up in the Outlook folder structure, but the delegate will not be able to open or view any contents other than contacts.

Misc useful commands:
• To check Amy's root mailbox folder sharing, e.g. if you wanted to see if her folder was already visible to anyone:
○ Get-MailboxFolderPermission amy@conseco.com
• To check Amy's contacts folder sharing:
○ Get-MailboxFolderPermission amy@conseco.com:\contacts | Select FolderName, user, AccessRights
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