Outlook 2016 - chinese characters appearing in messages when replying/forwarding

Anonymous
2017-04-24T13:29:42+00:00

Hello,

I am investigating an issue with Outlook 2016 and seemingly random appearances of chinese characters in email messages when replying or forwarding. I have a Exchange 365 hybrid environment and O365 pro plus office installed on workstations.

I have not been able to pinpoint a common factor why or when this happens. It is possible to reproduce the issue by sending a plain text message to a O365 group and then reply/forward the same message > header information is transformed into "chinese" (I have no idea what they actually are) characters. This does not happen with all groups or senders which is why I am looking into Outlook at the moment.

I`ve tried to change Outlook settings: use UTF8 with mailto protocol, change the encoding settings to different options etc. without success. 

I`d like to hear how would you start to troubleshoot this issue?

BR,

Sam

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For home

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

132 answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-04-27T23:10:58+00:00

    I have the same chinese text appearing whenever i forward a message from my desktop or smart phone.  I have found no fix but many people with the same issue

    Was this answer helpful?

    7 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-04-22T15:14:52+00:00

    Hi All,

    I'm glad to read that my solution works for you. As an update, I've noticed today that the same beta setting is causing other issues with Outlook as well.

     We had a couple of users complaining that when they open an Outlook message and save as on their device, only two latest emails in the thread are saved in the .msg file.

    Unchecking the same beta setting resolves the issue with saving Outlook emails as well.

    Just to reiterate:

    Go to Control Panel > Region > Administrative > Change system locale > uncheck the box next to Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide language support and restart the device.

    I hope you find this update helpful as well!

    Best,

    Marcin

    Was this answer helpful?

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-04-19T20:50:38+00:00

    Yes, it works!!!

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-04-07T06:16:31+00:00

    Wow, thank you so much! I've been looking for this for a long time now and this did the trick. Also interesting to see the answer coming from The Netherlands, my country.

    Thanks again,

    Ronald

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2020-04-02T12:17:05+00:00

    I use office 365 ProPlus and had the same issue.

    I found a solution that worked for me: disabling all add-ins in Outlook and then enabling them back.

    1. In Outlook, go to File->Options->Add-ins
    2. Click on Go (right to "COM Add-ins") and un-check all add-ins that are checked in the list.
    3. Click OK and exit from Outlook (File->Exit)
    4. Run outlook and verify that the problem is solved.
    5. I repeated stage 2 to 4 but this time checked all add-ins back and the problem seems to be solved.  

    Hope it will work for you too.

    It seems that it is not an Add-ins issue but something very annoying that will solve the problem but will make your outlook very slow.

    1. Go to File->Account Settings->Manage Profiles
    2. Choose Email Accounts
    3. Double Click on your email account
    4. Disable the Offline Settings (Un check the "Use Cached Exchange Mode")

    It solved me the problem but Outlook works like a turtule

    Was this answer helpful?

    7 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments