Did February 2017 Office 365 update break Outlook Search?

Anonymous
2017-03-14T00:36:33+00:00

I upgraded 2 computers to the Office 365 February update: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-s-new-and-improved-in-Office-2016-for-Office-365-95c8d81d-08ba-42c1-914f-bca4603e1426?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Ever since then search is broken in Outlook on both computers - any search returns no results.  Windows 10 search outside Outlook works fine.  I've rebuilt the index, used ScanPST.exe and tried other things at https://lookeen.com/blog/how-to-fix-outlook-2016-search-problems and https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Reset-indexing-by-rebuilding-your-Instant-Search-catalog-213a2728-0ef4-427a-9bb2-aed329a59b17 but the problem remains on both computers.  

Did February 2017 Office 365 update break Outlook Search?

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Anonymous
2017-03-28T14:37:06+00:00

Hello everyone,

There is an updated build that was just released. Please turn auto updates back on, install the latest build & confirm that it fixed the issue.

Gen

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-03-18T14:47:56+00:00

    Hi Pete, 

    I'm sorry it didn't work for you. 

    I mentioned earlier that I had already done an online repair and an indexing rebuild before I decided to throw up my hands and revert. It's possible those are prerequisites to the solution that worked for me.

    I should probably mention that I use ScanPST regularly because I've found it keeps Outlook running smoothly for me most of the time. Also, the only add-on I have enabled is OneNote Notes for Outlook items. I have particular trouble with the VBA add-on, and it seems to turn itself back on with every update, so I'm careful to make sure its box is unticked each time.

    I can't think of anything else that might have contributed. I'm sure all the invective I threw at Outlook had nothing to do with it.

    As to the releases...well, as part of the Insider program, I expect frequent updates and minor bugs. (Admittedly, I never expected Outlook to eat half my contacts, but that's not a problem for this thread.) The price for using new features earlier is dealing with minor annoyances, and I'm okay with that. Mostly. Now and then, though, Microsoft manages to release an update with a huge problem like this one. 

    If you want fewer updates and bugs, you might want to change your channel.

    Hope you get a fix soon.

    Rhonda

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-03-18T11:07:24+00:00

    Rhonda,

    you encoureged me to test that registry modification.

    I updated my Office 365 Home to version 1702 (Build 7870.2024) right now.

    Unfortunately, the modification did not help - search did not work.

    So I´m now back at version 1612 (Build 7668.2074) again (the last version where search function works).

    I´ll wait for new information from Aaron.

    I think, there´s no hurry, the old 1612 version works fine for me.

    In the meantime I found a page listing all the Office versions - there is a new release every 10 days in average. I´m not shure, whether all these releases were well developed and tested. I believe a new version every 20 to 30 days, which is bug free, could be more advantagious for us customers.

    See https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt592918.aspx

    Regards

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-03-18T07:08:37+00:00

    Hi All,

    Thank you all for your information.

    @Rhonda, thank you for sharing the workaround. @Jfp & Pete, we understand that the search works fine after you reverted Outlook to an earlier version. Please temporary use it till we get back with any useful information. @Mickey, please temporary consider rolling back your Outlook client.

    As what Gabriel mentioned above, we’ll investigate the issue and post back when we have more information.

    Thanks,

    Aaron

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-03-17T20:10:29+00:00

    I don´t want to make any changes in the registry because I cannot foresee whether the next update will spoil the registry modifications.

    The ForcePSTPath and ForceOSTPath registry entries go back to Outlook 2003.

    In other words, they're very safe. They're also not complicated to implement, and if you've moved your files, you need one (or both, if appropriate) anyway.

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