Outlook mobile on Windows Phone 10

Anonymous
2023-07-21T16:39:35+00:00

Since last week my outlook app on Windows Phone 10 (Lumia 950) stopped working. I got message "Your hotmail account settings are out-of-date". When I hit Fix account button, new page with Your account was updated successfully appears, but nothing happens. After few seconds I got message "Your hotmail account settings are out-of-date" again and going to infinite loop.

I have checked that I have latest OS version 10.0.15254.603, not updates for outlook app, removed and added account (that deletes all my contacts so phone is now UNUSABLE!!!!!), changed password, tried server outlook.office265.com instead m.hotmail.com. Nothing worked.

Please. anyone can help me? Or shall I throw that Lumia out of window and go for apple or google?

Outlook | Outlook for mobile | Outlook for iOS | For business

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Anonymous
2023-09-22T19:13:58+00:00

Please pardon me if you've already tried these steps; here are some steps that seemed to work for me.

From reports in this thread, there are general inconsistencies as to when the problems first started occurring, why things aren't working, and what steps seem to provide resolution.

Two primary solutions have been identified thus far—one is a "non-destructive" approach (which affords the opportunity to ensure the new configuration works before removing the non-working configuration) and the other is a "destructive" approach (which require deleting the existing account [which in turn removes contacts, calendar items, and emails cached locally] before the new account can be created. You can always try the non-destructive approach first and then proceed to the destructive approach if needed.

NON-DESTRUCTIVE APPROACH

Account Reconfiguration (based on the September 19 post by Luke Williams5)

This is used with hotmail.com and outlook.com email addresses but should work for all Microsoft email accounts.

  1. On the phone, go to Settings > Accounts > Email & app accounts > Add an account > Advanced setup (at the bottom of the list) > Exchange ActiveSync
  2. Fill in all the fields
    1. Domain: The domain of your email address (e.g. hotmail.com)
    2. Server: Which server works for you seems to very by individual. So, the server that works for one person might not work for another. Below are a few specific servers that have been mentioned.
      • outlook.office365.com (this currently seems to be working the best for users)
      • outlook.live.com
      • eas.outlook.com
      • m.hotmail.com
      • NOTE: If you have previously completed the account reconfiguration but later go back and change only this server setting to point to a different server, for best results, close Outlook and reboot your device.
    3. SSL: Ensure this is checked
    4. Account Name: An arbitrary name that you can use to identify this account

NOTE: If you have issues scrolling after filling in a field in the account setup screen above—

  1. Enter the desired value in the given field
  2. Tap the back button to hide the keyboard
  3. Select the new field
  4. Repeat steps 1 - 3 until all fields are filled out
  5. You might also need to tap the back button to hide the keyboard to make buttons at the bottom accessible

Contacts Sync

  1. On the screen picture, tap the ellipses button in the lower-right corner
  2. Tap "Settings" from the pop-up menu
  3. Look for the newly-created Exchange ActiveSync account listed under the "Accounts" section
  4. Long-press on that account
  5. Tap "Sync" from the pop-up menu
  6. The account label will dim and display "Syncing…" during this process
  7. I try to allow time for the sync to complete before moving to the next step (could take a bit, especially the first time), but the app doesn't force you to wait.

Calendar Sync

  1. Tap the ellipses button in the lower-right corner
  2. Tap "Sync" from the pop-up menu
  3. For anything more than quick sync, a "Sync" text label will be shown at the bottom
  4. I try to allow time for the sync to complete before moving to the next step (could take a bit, especially the first time), but the app doesn't force you to wait.

Outlook/Email Sync

  1. Tap the "hamburger" menu in the upper-left corner
  2. In the slide-out menu, under the "Accounts" section at the top, tap-select the newly-created Exchange ActiveSync account
  3. Close the hamburger slide-out menu
  4. Tap the ellipses button in the lower-right corner
  5. Tap the "Sync" option from the button along the bottom
  6. A "Syncing…" text label will be shown at the bottom, which will change to "Up to date" when complete

Cleanup

Once synchronization completes, you might have duplicate (but linked) contacts and duplicate calendar entries. To remove those duplicate items:

  1. On the phone, go to Settings > Accounts > Email & app accounts
  2. Tap on the original account (i.e. not the Exchange ActiveSync account that we just created)
  3. Tap the "Manage" button
  4. Select the "Delete account" option

IMPORTANT NOTE: After some update several years ago, the Drafts folder in Outlook stopped synchronizing, so I had to manually take care of the draft emails that were associated with the original account prior to deleting that account. Otherwise, those draft emails associated with that account would have been lost when deleting that original (and now duplicate) account.

DESTRUCTIVE APPROACH

IMPORTANT NOTE: Before proceeding, please ensure that you have an appropriate backup of any contacts, calendar info, or emails that might be on your mobile device.

Account Deletion and Recreation (based on the September 22 post by pendragon1 at the bottom of page 2 in this thread)

  1. On the phone, go to Settings > Accounts > Email & app accounts
  2. Tap on this original account that is experiencing the issues
  3. Tap the "Manage" button
  4. Select the "Delete account" option
  5. Go back to Settings > Accounts > Email & app accounts
  6. Tap "Add an account"
  7. Select the "Exchange" option
  8. Enter your email address
  9. Acknowledge the prompt that that is not a work account, etc.
  10. [Acknowledge the prompt to connect anyway with an invalid certificate] (not certain that this will be encountered)
  11. Enter your login information when prompted
  12. Should now now be able to sync (c.f. sync steps in the non-destructive approach described above)

To Check Your Settings and Aid in Troubleshooting

  1. On the phone, go to Settings > Accounts > Email & app accounts
  2. Tap on this original account that is experiencing the issues
  3. Tap the "Manage" button
  4. Tap "Change mailbox sync settings"
  5. Make note of what the server is. Some users have reported this is showing as "eas.outlook.com" (though perhaps it could also be one of the other servers listed above).

LAST RESORT

As a very last resort for email, there are IMAP, POP3, and SMTP configuration settings that should work, but of course that wouldn't cover anything else like calendar or contacts.

OTHER NOTES

  1. OneDrive is still functional, including the auto-upload of photos to the Camera Roll on OneDrive
  2. Weather app - While the Microsoft Weather app now only seems to be good for its live tile, the AccuWeather app has been working well for me.
  3. Skype - Skype quit working for me a little over a year ago, but I am able to use Microsoft's GroupMe app that is available via the Microsoft Store app.

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86 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-02-14T18:07:41+00:00

    Hi, thanks for the quick response. My phone is a Lumia 950, running the latest (final) build of win 10 mobile.

    I found the proximity sensor issue you mentioned on the interweb, I cant find a "sweet spot" on mine.

    For anyone else seeing this post, I started a new thread at

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_10-win\_phone/lumia-950-screen-goes-blank/32748954-d911-4ffd-95a2-84f3ab7553fa

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-02-18T06:06:43+00:00

    I have a Hotmail address and I am still running a Lumia 950. Since around 1/23/24, I have had issues with my phone syncing email. This broke back in late July / August just like the original poster had. I did the manual add as an Exchange ActiveSync account and it had been pretty reliable up until recently. It broke maybe once or twice. During that time, I had not yet enabled MFA on my account. I had to switch servers several times, but I had been using m.hotmail.com primarily.

    Fast forward to 1/23/24 - I played with it for hours trying to figure out some way to make it work again. I found that enabling MFA on my account and setting an app password allowed it to sync, but then I would randomly get the "Fix Account" message. For a few days, I had to keep setting new app passwords every time it would break (it seemed to work for about 48 hours) and then it would be good for a few days again. I then switched to eas.outlook.com as the server with a fresh app password. That worked for about a week with decent stability.

    This worked until the 16th at around 2 am and I haven't been able to make it work since. This unfortunately isn't just a Lumia 950 or Windows 10 Mobile issue. I still have a copy of the old Mail and Calendar app on my Windows 11 PC - version 16005.14326.21830.0. That app, which is very similar to the one on the Windows 10 Mobile, has the exact same problem and says "Fix Account" when attempting to use Exchange ActiveSync, even with an MFA password. Now, this brings up an interesting point, you are still able to add the account on the Windows 11 version without doing "Exchange ActiveSync" - so we need to figure out how that method works and we'll likely be able to fix the accounts.

    I'm currently trying to dig a little bit deeper into how the Mail app communicates when it doesn't specifically list a "Exchange ActiveSync server". So far, all I can see is that it's HTTPS communication to 52.96.170.82.

    It is interesting on my Security log for my account, it's beeng showing:
    Protocol: Exchange ActiveSync
    Type: Unsuccessful sync

    This is a huge issue as it breaks contacts / email on my phone when this doesn't work.

    Has anyone found any successful workarounds for this problem? We need to make sure this doesn't go away from Microsoft's radar. It appears like Microsoft is sunsetting ActiveSync on our consumer accounts without telling us. I am going to try syncing with another account that has a Microsoft 365 subscription to see if it it works on there. Assuming it's broken on there, I'll open a ticket with Microsoft about it and not let them close it until this issue is resolved. I had this fear when Microsoft announced they were removing support for the classic Mail & Calendar app that it would eventually break our beloved phones. But, maybe there is still hope...

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-02-18T08:19:24+00:00

    <But, maybe there is still hope> no, I don't think there is. Microsoft would rather have us scrap our winphones and buy Appledriods than support their own product. We've seen this with the Kinect, the watch (Band), Zune audio player, Mail ,Calendar, Contacts, now Maps- I see a message like "From 2024 you cant have offline maps" So better hope you're never lost and out of mobile service.

    Angry doesn't begin to describe my mood.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-02-19T13:03:12+00:00

    I am still using the outlook.office365.com server name that I switched to recently, and I am still also finding better behavior if I manually close Outlook and reopen it versus keeping it open all the time. (For example, close by pressing and holding the back arrow to enter the {Alt-Tab}-style app switch view and then tapping the "×" for that app or swiping the app screenshot down.)

    That has led me to wonder if something has perhaps changed with a token refresh interval (or something along those lines), where launching the app perhaps might be forcing a token refresh but keeping the app open no longer refreshes things as frequently as might now be necessary.

    Of course, it could be something else, too, but just putting this out for ideas.

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