Hi. I have been having ongoing issues with Outlook for over 6 months, in which Outlook will become locked to the foreground. Outlook has no add-ins enabled, and has been repaired, reinstalled, updated and downgraded many times. The affected OS is a Windows Server 2016, functioning as a terminal server. The affected users have two screens, and occasionally when a window is dragged to the same screen area as Outlook, Outlook will remain the foreground focus and the application being dragged will be "under/behind" the Outlook window. This can also happen when the user is using a single screen. This is not application specific, and even happens with the Outlook "New Email" window if popped-out from the Outlook client. We have gathered numerous ETL logs and event logs and have come up with absolutely nothing. Previously, the only known way to resolve the matter was to close and re-open Outlook. However, strangely enough I have found that opening the options menu and closing it (Not changing any options, hitting either cancel or OK) will also resolve the issue. From the options menu, we have tried with the following settings both enabled and disabled, with no luck on any setting: Hardware Graphics Acceleration Live Preview Use Animations when expanding conversations and groups We have tested the Email auto-configuration XML, and the MS partner support rep I was working with has confirmed that it is all okay. I also provided him with screenshots of the connection status when Outlook is stuck, and we confirmed that all was OK there. Another potential solution that was tried was unlocking and locking the taskbar. Both when the issue occurs and pro-actively. We also recreated one of the users Outlook profile. This did not resolve the issue. The issue is confirmed to not follow the user to other devices. I'm sure there are more solutions that we have tried, that I have simply forgotten about during the length of this ticket. At long last, the technician had advised me that I need to rebuild the affected server. This is not an option for us, as the server is used literally every single day inclusive of weekends, and the customer is entirely dependent on the running of this server. I have now been advised by the technician to log a forum post here. Please let me know if any other information should be required, but I feel this is quite extensive. I do have recordings of the issue, and all ETL + Event logs.

Process monitor dumps have yielded nothing, the MS Windows Team Engineer could not find anything to cause the issue in our Procmon logs. Again, my ticket number is: Ticket #:15038381 He thinks that this is due to the logs being captured after the issue had already occurred. They want me to run Procmon on the users PC for the whole time, and stop lop capturing after the issue happens. We cant do this because it will absolutely destroy the CPU and RAM of the PC, plus its an extra headache for the user. I'm also now having issues with searching on my same remote session hosts... Luckily we're using Windows Virtual Desktop and I'm just publishing the required apps for the affected users and letting them use their Outlook on their local PC with the published apps... I doubt we'll get much traction. Truly I believe this is an issue with the actual Windows operating system, maybe in DWM or maybe in a .NET framework update or something. If anyone is comfortable sharing their installed Windows updates it may help find some common ground.

Hi Scott, Do you mean deleting the "Cached Exchange Mode" OST file? We are running Citrix XenApp 7.15 CU3 on Windows Server 2016. The servers are non-persistent so Outlook connects in "Online Mode" and the issue still happens. Currently on Office 365 Semi Annual 1908 version (16.0.119292.20562) released in January, although the issue first occurred on the 1902 Semi Annual around mid October 2019. I actually have an older version of our gold build from late September 2019 with Office 2016 (16.0.4888.1000) installed, where the issue has not been reported, so it may well have been introduced with the October patches, if anyone has time to rollback. We do have Chrome installed, but someone above said its affecting people, without. Someone else mentioned dual screens, we have had the issue on a single monitor, although it does seem more frequent with dual monitors. For us it seems to affect Excel more frequently. For example Excel already open in taskbar, open XLSX attachment, and Outlook gets stuck on top. Unable to recreate the issue on demand, which makes it tricky to resolve. We have been told by MS that its a known issue currently being investigated by the Product Engineering team. It only seems to be affecting Remote Desktop Services (RDS). Hope this info helps!

We use Chrome as default browser (v79), with Office 2016.

Hi all, one thing that seems to help a little is exiting Outlook then checking the process has closed, then delete the users Outlook cache. It only takes a few minutes to rebuild then the user seems to be working without the issue again for week or two. What is odd is it seems to come back but only to the same small set of users, all others remain unaffected . Someone mentioned Chrome as a possible cause, we have removed Internet Explorer and all staff use Chrome. Good luck everyone!

We have a lot of customers with this issue, and one of them doesn't have Chrome installed at all, so it doesn't seem like a Chrome problem.

Outlook "Stuck on top/Foreground". Issue is intermittent, and occurs usually after ~1 hour of use. Can be sooner

Anonymous

Hi.

I have been having ongoing issues with Outlook for over 6 months, in which Outlook will become locked to the foreground.

Outlook has no add-ins enabled, and has been repaired, reinstalled, updated and downgraded many times.

The affected OS is a Windows Server 2016, functioning as a terminal server.

The affected users have two screens, and occasionally when a window is dragged to the same screen area as Outlook, Outlook will remain the foreground focus and the application being dragged will be "under/behind" the Outlook window.

This can also happen when the user is using a single screen.

This is not application specific, and even happens with the Outlook "New Email" window if popped-out from the Outlook client.

We have gathered numerous ETL logs and event logs and have come up with absolutely nothing.

Previously, the only known way to resolve the matter was to close and re-open Outlook.

However, strangely enough I have found that opening the options menu and closing it (Not changing any options, hitting either cancel or OK) will also resolve the issue.

From the options menu, we have tried with the following settings both enabled and disabled, with no luck on any setting:

Hardware Graphics Acceleration
Live Preview
Use Animations when expanding conversations and groups

We have tested the Email auto-configuration XML, and the MS partner support rep I was working with has confirmed that it is all okay.

I also provided him with screenshots of the connection status when Outlook is stuck, and we confirmed that all was OK there.

Another potential solution that was tried was unlocking and locking the taskbar. Both when the issue occurs and pro-actively.

We also recreated one of the users Outlook profile. This did not resolve the issue.

The issue is confirmed to not follow the user to other devices.

I'm sure there are more solutions that we have tried, that I have simply forgotten about during the length of this ticket.

At long last, the technician had advised me that I need to rebuild the affected server. This is not an option for us, as the server is used literally every single day inclusive of weekends, and the customer is entirely dependent on the running of this server.

I have now been advised by the technician to log a forum post here.

Please let me know if any other information should be required, but I feel this is quite extensive.

I do have recordings of the issue, and all ETL + Event logs.

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.

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211 answers

Anonymous

2020-02-19T13:43:38+00:00

Process monitor dumps have yielded nothing, the MS Windows Team Engineer could not find anything to cause the issue in our Procmon logs. Again, my ticket number is: Ticket #:15038381

He thinks that this is due to the logs being captured after the issue had already occurred.

They want me to run Procmon on the users PC for the whole time, and stop lop capturing after the issue happens.

We cant do this because it will absolutely destroy the CPU and RAM of the PC, plus its an extra headache for the user.

I'm also now having issues with searching on my same remote session hosts...

Luckily we're using Windows Virtual Desktop and I'm just publishing the required apps for the affected users and letting them use their Outlook on their local PC with the published apps... I doubt we'll get much traction.

Truly I believe this is an issue with the actual Windows operating system, maybe in DWM or maybe in a .NET framework update or something.

If anyone is comfortable sharing their installed Windows updates it may help find some common ground.
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Anonymous

2020-02-19T10:22:42+00:00

Hi Scott,

Do you mean deleting the "Cached Exchange Mode" OST file?

We are running Citrix XenApp 7.15 CU3 on Windows Server 2016.

The servers are non-persistent so Outlook connects in "Online Mode" and the issue still happens.

Currently on Office 365 Semi Annual 1908 version (16.0.119292.20562) released in January, although the issue first occurred on the 1902 Semi Annual around mid October 2019.

I actually have an older version of our gold build from late September 2019 with Office 2016 (16.0.4888.1000) installed, where the issue has not been reported, so it may well have been introduced with the October patches, if anyone has time to rollback.

We do have Chrome installed, but someone above said its affecting people, without.

Someone else mentioned dual screens, we have had the issue on a single monitor, although it does seem more frequent with dual monitors.

For us it seems to affect Excel more frequently. For example Excel already open in taskbar, open XLSX attachment, and Outlook gets stuck on top. Unable to recreate the issue on demand, which makes it tricky to resolve.

We have been told by MS that its a known issue currently being investigated by the Product Engineering team. It only seems to be affecting Remote Desktop Services (RDS).

Hope this info helps!
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Anonymous

2020-02-19T07:48:05+00:00

We use Chrome as default browser (v79), with Office 2016.
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Anonymous

2020-02-18T19:34:13+00:00

Hi all, one thing that seems to help a little is exiting Outlook then checking the process has closed, then delete the users Outlook cache. It only takes a few minutes to rebuild then the user seems to be working without the issue again for week or two. What is odd is it seems to come back but only to the same small set of users, all others remain unaffected . Someone mentioned Chrome as a possible cause, we have removed Internet Explorer and all staff use Chrome. Good luck everyone!
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Anonymous

2020-02-18T14:55:52+00:00

We have a lot of customers with this issue, and one of them doesn't have Chrome installed at all, so it doesn't seem like a Chrome problem.
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