Did February 2017 Office 365 update break Outlook Search?

I'd like to jump in and report that my Outlook 2016 (Local PC installation with POP3 .pst's) experienced a complete ceasing of instant search functionality upon updating Office this week to Version 1702 (Build 7870.2024) on Windows 10.

I have perhaps figured out a fix... (but please let me know if this works for you as it did for me)

First off, I tried EVERYTHING to correct this problem, short of reverting to an older build.

I tried everything in terms of the search index (unchecking Outlook, rebuilding, changing indexing location, etc) and nothing worked.  I tried starting and restarting the windows search service in services.msc.... still nothing.

I ran the PST repair tool over and over... still nothing change.. search functionality did not work and always said "No Results".

Here is what actually did work for me and brought back search functionality:

Open Outlook 2016 and click....

File -->  Info -->  Account Settings... --> Data Files (Tab)

There you will see a listing of the Outlook Data Files you are using (ie. PST or OST files)

Look at the "Location" that is being used.

You'll either notice something like:

C:\Users{Your_Username}\Documents\Outlook Files\yourpstname.pst

-- or, something like.. --

\?\C:\Users{Your_Username}\Documents\Outlook Files\yourpstname.pst

(notice the preceding '\?')

Now I don't know why it might have the '\?' prepended to the filepath -- but has something to do with the search functionality working or not.

Now with that list of Outlook data files you are looking at, click each and select the 'Settings...' button above it.

You should see the filepath location listed in the popup window here.  Don't edit it, but rather, just hit OK.

Do this for each Outlook data file.

You'll notice that simply doing this, the file location for some of your PSTs/OSTs will change to include the '\?' prepended to the filepath.

I have no idea what this means, or what this does, but immediately after doing this, my search functionality returned.

After doing this, the indexing began (as I was hoping it would) and after 5-10 minutes I had all 100,000+ emails indexed are now fully searchable in Outlook using instant search.

I really hope this works for everyone -- and really hope you will tell me if it does or does not work for you.

In the meantime, I urge Microsoft to recognize that there are many people that lost Outlook search functionality on this update, and that there is likely a bug causing this.

Thank you and hope this helps someone.

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for reporting this. We have done a lot of test in our lab. However, we’re unable to reproduce this issue in the same OS version and Outlook version.  If you are pretty sure that the problem is caused by upgrading your client to Version 1702 (Build 7870.2020), you can roll back your Outlook client via https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2770432/how-to-revert-to-an-earlier-version-of-office-2013-or-office-2016-click-to-run

Further, we have sent the private message to all of you in this thread. Please feel free to let us know the feedback, you can also provide your tenant information (if you’re an Office 365 for Business user) and account type (like POP/IMAP) via private message.

Thanks,

Aaron

Hi Jfp,

If the issue persists after updating Outlook to 7967.20**35,**please post a new thread in our forum as it may be related to another root cause. Our engineer will further help.

Thanks,

Aaron

This seems to have worked for me - so far.