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
    2017-06-24T08:28:12+00:00

    If you say that this happens to O365 Pro Plus, so this should happen to all who uses O365 Pro Plus. I think this is still broad, does this happen on 'Deferred Channel' or 'Current Channel' versions? What build versions?

    I have same issue with one of our clients who gets the exact same "Chinese Character" line. Issue happens whenever someone within the organization send email using a Smartphone through any of their Office 365 groups. Members who received that email can view the emails just fine. But when one of the recipients, who SPECIFICALLY uses an Outlook client(O365 Pro Plus Current Channel), click the 'Reply' button, the issue occurs.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-05-23T14:06:32+00:00

    You say this is a solution. You have solution even bolded, but this is NOT a solution. It's more of a hostage situation.

    You're essentially saying Microsoft engineers have done this by design.  This is purposeful.

    That makes absolutely no sense. more likely these uses characters were caused by some bug they choose not to fix, because they want you to use the Group conversation view or the browser view. Basically trying to hold the users hostage from how they normally reply to messages to the other ways MS wants them to reply.

    Every day I'm finding more and more ways in which Office 365 is not the promised gold Microsoft sells it to be.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2017-05-17T11:42:47+00:00

    Hi Sam,

    Thanks for your updates. Anyway, it is glad to hear that we find the reason about this scenario. If any related assistance is needed in future, please feel free to post a new thread in our forum. We are happy to provide any assistance there.

    Best Regards,

    Vanessa

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2017-05-17T05:31:28+00:00

    Hello,

    We found a resolution of sorts to this issue from the Office 365 backend team. This issue is known to them and it is a feature at the moment:

    Solution

    The behaviour you've noticed is a characteristic of the product that, at this moment, cannot be changed.  

    Workaround

    The Chinese character issue does NOT repeat if a user replies to the email sent to the Group from the Groups view in Outlook, or from the O365 Group Conversation view in browser, or from OWA or from phone. Only when replies are sent from personal inboxes based on the O365 Group's "Subscribe" functionality.

    They said the issue could be found somewhere in here: https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/286611-office-365-groups. We will go vote on issue to be resolved hopefully soon.

    BR,

    Sam

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2017-05-15T15:46:28+00:00

    Hi Sam,

    Thanks for your updates. From your description, I speculate this issue should be likely caused by some special settings. 

    Can you share some information as I mentioned in the previous reply? Especially create a new user in pure cloud in Office 365 portal rather than sync s/he from on-premises and test this account. 

    Additionally, for more timely assistance, could you please reply to me once you get any update?

    Best Regards,

    Vanessa

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments