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.

DISREGARD. THIS DID NOT RESOLVE THE ISSUE. Hey Donnie, At long last I can close the book on this one 😄 In our instance it was ClickYesPro causing this behavior. We had an issue where our AV wasn't being picked up by Outlook, so we couldn't enabled "Programmatic Access" in the trust centre. While I was on annual leave some of our techs band-aided it with ClickYesPro. We've used CYP with multiple customers, but for these guys it seemed to be causing this behavior. It's such a bummer I didn't catch it earlier, we ruled out add-ins by running in safe mode and still saw the same behavior. But the gotchya there was that CYP is an external process which still meddled with Outlook regardless of safe mode/add-in configuration! Idk if it's less hassle for your end users, but for us I had them open the Outlook Options menu from File>Options, which would unlock the app from the foreground. This meant users didn't have to worry about losing drafts or anything. Sadly ClickYesPro isn't to blame in your scenario 😭 I'd target anything else that integrates with Outlook, and try removing it from the equation. Best of luck to you, I know better than anyone (except maybe the affected end users... hahaha) how much of a headache this can be. Thanks, Nick

We do not have ClickYesPro running on our servers. Below is a list of applications currently installed. For what it's worth … I haven't had any recent reports of the "stuck foreground" but that could be that people have gotten used to restarting Outlook.

Hey DRChance, Just out of curiosity, do you have the application ClickYesPro running on the affected server? If it's not a concern for you, would you mind sharing a screencap(s) of installed programs on the affected server?

We're running 2016 Standard, Version 1607 and build 14393.3242 It's a 64-bit installation of Outlook 2019. And yes, it's happening to multiple users. Actually, it was happening to 1 person for a couple of weeks and I thought it may have something to do with their individual profile ... but then a second user contacted me with the problem. That's when I started investigating and realized others had seen the same behavior. It is very inconsistent and again, I suspect others may have seen the problem ... but the workaround is to restart Outlook (which takes less time than putting in a support ticket).

Yeah I highly doubt it's an Azure issue, but out of curiosity, which build of Windows Server 2016 are you running Donnie? This could possibly be an issue with Outlook running on Windows Server 2016 issue, here's our server's build info: I'd really like to put the customer on Server 2019, but unfortunately there's no real easy option for upgrading on Azure VMs And secondly, are you running Outlook 32 or 64Bit? I'd be curious to see if there's still issues with 64Bit, but unfortunately I'm constrained by 32-bit plugins. Lastly, is this happening for multiple users in your environment? We've had other users scarcely experiencing the issue, but one user is experiencing it almost on a daily basis. Thanks, Nick

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

2019-10-28T02:20:42+00:00

DISREGARD.

THIS DID NOT RESOLVE THE ISSUE.

Hey Donnie,

At long last I can close the book on this one 😄

In our instance it was ClickYesPro causing this behavior.

We had an issue where our AV wasn't being picked up by Outlook, so we couldn't enabled "Programmatic Access" in the trust centre.

While I was on annual leave some of our techs band-aided it with ClickYesPro.

We've used CYP with multiple customers, but for these guys it seemed to be causing this behavior.

It's such a bummer I didn't catch it earlier, we ruled out add-ins by running in safe mode and still saw the same behavior.

But the gotchya there was that CYP is an external process which still meddled with Outlook regardless of safe mode/add-in configuration!

Idk if it's less hassle for your end users, but for us I had them open the Outlook Options menu from File>Options, which would unlock the app from the foreground. This meant users didn't have to worry about losing drafts or anything.

Sadly ClickYesPro isn't to blame in your scenario 😭

I'd target anything else that integrates with Outlook, and try removing it from the equation.

Best of luck to you, I know better than anyone (except maybe the affected end users... hahaha) how much of a headache this can be.

Thanks,

Nick
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Anonymous

2019-10-25T14:50:03+00:00

We do not have ClickYesPro running on our servers. Below is a list of applications currently installed. For what it's worth … I haven't had any recent reports of the "stuck foreground" but that could be that people have gotten used to restarting Outlook.
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Anonymous

2019-10-24T22:30:06+00:00

Hey DRChance,

Just out of curiosity, do you have the application ClickYesPro running on the affected server?

If it's not a concern for you, would you mind sharing a screencap(s) of installed programs on the affected server?
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Anonymous

2019-09-26T13:45:08+00:00

We're running 2016 Standard, Version 1607 and build 14393.3242

It's a 64-bit installation of Outlook 2019. And yes, it's happening to multiple users. Actually, it was happening to 1 person for a couple of weeks and I thought it may have something to do with their individual profile ... but then a second user contacted me with the problem. That's when I started investigating and realized others had seen the same behavior. It is very inconsistent and again, I suspect others may have seen the problem ... but the workaround is to restart Outlook (which takes less time than putting in a support ticket).
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Anonymous

2019-09-26T02:11:44+00:00

Yeah I highly doubt it's an Azure issue, but out of curiosity, which build of Windows Server 2016 are you running Donnie?

This could possibly be an issue with Outlook running on Windows Server 2016 issue, here's our server's build info:

I'd really like to put the customer on Server 2019, but unfortunately there's no real easy option for upgrading on Azure VMs

And secondly, are you running Outlook 32 or 64Bit?

I'd be curious to see if there's still issues with 64Bit, but unfortunately I'm constrained by 32-bit plugins.

Lastly, is this happening for multiple users in your environment?

We've had other users scarcely experiencing the issue, but one user is experiencing it almost on a daily basis.

Thanks,

Nick
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