Birthdays Disappearing From Outlook.com Calendar

Your diligence in researching this issue is only matched by Microsoft's indifference!

The lack of compatibility and smooth integration among closely related Microsoft products is quite breathtaking.  I too see the issues you've described within Outlook.com, but imagine how much worse it gets when one is a user of Outlook on the PC.    Not only are there synchronisation issues, such as that described here:

http://forums.slipstick.com/threads/93772-contact-synchronization-outlook-to-outlook-com/

but there are also gross mismatches in data structures and functionality that make it extraordinarily difficult for an Outlook use with, say, a rich use of features on the PC based Outlook modules - say Calendar and Contacts - to ever synch their data successfully in the on-line world via Outlook.com.  Functions with the same names on Outlook and Outlook.com are different and not compatible.  Some functionality on Outlook is simply non-existent on Outlook.com.

I understand there are reports that, during 2015, Microsoft will be replacing the 'back-end' that supports Outlook.com with the same systems that support the on-line environment of the business variant of Office 365 - apparently giving us ordinary consumer users an Exchange back-end that provides improved functionality and better synchronisation.    [See:    http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/outlookcom/first-look-outlook-com-on-office-365/

 Here's hoping....

All my birthdays have disappeared also

Can some one from Microsoft figure out what is happening.

This is not the 1st time all of my birthday calendar events are gone

My birthday calendar is still checked and my main calendar seems okay

Lloyd

*** Email address is removed for privacy ***

I am sorry that your birthday calendar is giving you issues with disappearing birthdays.  This has been a longstanding problem for which I do not believe Microsoft has ever found a solution.  One of the earliest threads on this topic is "Outlook.com Calendar birthday sync issue"  where there are currently 2,177 views and 157 replies.  The thread that you replied to is my Original thread when I discovered problems with my own calendar.  I subsequently started another thread titled "Birthday Calendar Incidents". This has been changed to a discussion thread.  In it, I posted the numerous manipulations I made to my calendar to try and elucidate what was causing the problem for me.  I don't sync  my calendar to a cell phone or social media site.  After numerous manipulations I determined that the problem for me seemed to involve any change to the People Hub record which contained birthday information,.  I had a variety of people assigned to groups and if their group status changed necessitating an edit in the People Hub, then often the birthday information vanished into thin air.  Sometimes, it came back again if the person was re-assigned to a former group or something else changed in the record.  Sorry to say, there was not much rhyme or reason for the disappearance and subsequent re-appearance.  I elected not to give Microsoft access to my account as I provided them with a lot of information as to my testing of the calendar and reports from  other individuals who gave them access did not seem to get their problem resolved.   Some have noted this apparent lack of success in subsequent posts.  In the end I did two things as follows:

1.  I created a birthday list in excel which I am not able to sort by month and day.  I keep a printout of this list handy as my reference for birthdays.

2. I created a "new birthday" calendar in a second outlook.com e-mail account that I have.  In the People hub of that account I only entered the e-mail addresses and names of the people with birthdays and their birthday information.  No other entries were made in the People Hub records and no people WITHOUT birthdays appear in the People hub of that account.  There is a birthday calendar in that account and it remains stable without any loss of birthdays from the day the calendar was created.

Finally, in my main account after the numerous manipulations and then updating it again with any missing birthdays, no birthdays have subsequently gone missing.  But I have not made any subsequent adjustments to the people records which might induce disappearance.

Of course these solutions would not be helpful if you are syncing the birthday calendar to your phone or social media.  It suspect that the sync function in some way manipulates the People Hub record causing the birthdays to disappear. 

I currently have 53 individuals in my birthday calendar so its important for me to have their correct birthdays so I can acknowledge their special day.  Hence, I rely on my excel report as the definitive document and no longer rely on the outlook.com calendar.  I wish I had more promising news, but as it stands there is none.  If you want to see the actual manipulations that I did on my calendar looking for a cause to the problem please consult the discussion forum Birthday Calendar Incidents.   I hope you can resolve the issues with your calendar in some way that meets your needs.  ~~ BruceZ

All my birthdays have disappeared also

Can some one from Microsoft figure out what is happening.

This is not the 1st time all of my birthday calendar events are gone

My birthday calendar is still checked and my main calendar seems okay

Lloyd

******@msn.com

So true.

The Escalation Team or whatever they are called, who were given access to my account, never got back to me on these issues, or on any issues.

Way to go Microsoft, keep up the "good" work and then wonder why Apple are posting world record earnings.

Agreed, it is pointless.  Microsoft doesn't really care.  I've had this issue occurring intermittently for years.  The fact is that they have separate development teams working on similar products, but none of the products work well with each other and never will.  Remember the incompatibility with Tasks/To-Do lists for people who use Outlook (full version) on a PC, but also have a Windows Phone?  A similar issue happened with default appointment reminders not being respected between Windows Phone and the Outlook (desktop).   These issues went on for years, despite the numerous posts on these boards.  The Birthday glitch has always been there as well, and probably will for some time.