How to troubleshoot the Outlook Offline Address Book in an Office 365 environment

Article ID: 2429946 - View products that this article applies to.
Not sure what release of Office 365 you're using? Go to the following Microsoft website:
Am I using Office 365 after the service upgrade?
(http://office.microsoft.com/redir/HA103982331.aspx)
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INTRODUCTION

This article describes how to troubleshoot the following Offline Address Book issues in Microsoft Outlook in a Microsoft Office 365 environment:
  • Users can't download the Offline Address Book.
  • Synchronization errors occur in the Offline Address Book.
  • You receive nondelivery report (NDR) messages when you use the Offline Address Book to send email messages to users.
  • You receive the following error message when you run the Send/Receive command in Outlook in Cached Exchange mode:
    Task 'Microsoft Exchange Server' reported error (0x8004010F): 'The operation failed. An object could not be found.'
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PROCEDURE

To troubleshoot these issues, follow these steps. After you follow each step, test to see whether the Offline Address Book issue is resolved. If the issue is resolved, you don't have to continue to the next step. If the issue isn't resolved, go to the next step.

Step 1: Make sure that the global address list (GAL) is up to date

Check whether the GAL is up to date. To do this, make sure that you can view any changes in the GAL by using Microsoft Outlook Web App. If the expected changes aren't present in the GAL, the changes will not be replicated to the Offline Address Book.

Note If you change your on-premises Active Directory schema and the Windows Azure Active Directory Sync Tool still doesn't synchronize these changes correctly, go to the following Microsoft website for more info about how to troubleshoot this issue:
Troubleshoot directory synchronization
(http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-enterprises/ff652550.aspx)
If the Online Address Book is correct but the Offline Address Book is still incorrect, go to the next step.

Step 2: Manually download the Offline Address Book and then make sure that Cached Exchange Mode is enabled

Manually download the Offline Address Book in Outlook. This may also resolve nondelivery report issues if you're using an outdated version of the Offline Address Book. For more information about how to manually download the latest copy of the Offline Address Book, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
2427141
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2427141/ )
You can't find a user in the offline address book in Office 365
Then, make sure that Outlook is set up to use Cached Exchange Mode. To do this follow these steps:
  1. Take one of the following actions:
    • If you're running Outlook 2007, click Tools, and then click Account Settings.
    • If you're running Outlook 2010, click File on the Office ribbon, click Account Settings, and then click Account Settings.
  2. In the E-mail Settings dialog box, select the Microsoft Exchange account that you want, and then click Change.
  3. In the Microsoft Exchange Settings dialog box, make sure that the Use Cached Exchange Mode check box is selected.

Step 3: Check that the Background Intelligence Transfer Service (BITS) service is running

Check that BITS is started on the computer. Outlook uses BITS to connect to the URL that's provided by the Autodiscover service. To determine whether BITS is started, follow these steps:
  1. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
  2. In the list of services, click Background Intelligence Transfer Service, and then make sure that the status of this service is set to Started.
  3. If BITS can't be started, reinstall it. For more information about how to install BITS, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

    968929
    (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968929/ )
    Windows Management Framework (Windows PowerShell 2.0, WinRM 2.0, and BITS 4.0)

Step 4: Install the latest updates for Office and for Office 365 Desktop

  1. Make sure that the latest Microsoft Office service pack is installed.

    Note If you're using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, you must, at a minimum, have the 2007 Microsoft Office system Service Pack 1 installed on the computer.
  2. Make sure that the latest version of Office 365 Desktop Setup is installed. To install the latest version of Office 365 Desktop Setup, go to the following Microsoft website:
    https://portal.microsoftonline.com/download/default.aspx
    (https://portal.microsoftonline.com/download/default.aspx)

Step 5: Re-create the Outlook profile

If the existing Outlook profile is corrupted, this corruption could be the cause of the issue. Corruption may have occurred if Outlook stopped responding. For more information about how to create and to set up an email profile in Outlook, see the E-mail Setup Help Wizard at the following Microsoft website:
http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd936216.aspx
(http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd936216.aspx)

Step 6: Determine whether the Autodiscover service is working, and check access to the Offline Address Book

Note If the Offline Address Book issue wasn't resolved by using steps 1 through 5, follow this step for validation before you call Support.

Check whether Outlook and the computer can access the Offline Address Book file on the server. This action is typically done by Outlook in the background or when you force a download of the Offline Address Book in Outlook. To do this check, sign in to the Office 365 portal, and then follow these steps:
  1. Start Outlook.
  2. Hold down the CTRL key, right-click the Outlook icon in the notification area on the right side of the taskbar, and then click Test E-mail AutoConfiguration.
  3. Click to clear the Use Guessmart check box, and then click to clear the Secure Guessmart Authentication check box.
  4. Click to select the Use AutoDiscover check box.
  5. Type the email address and password, and then click Test.
  6. On the Results tab, note the path of OAB URL.
  7. Click the XML tab, locate the <OWAUrl> and </OABUrl> tags, and then copy the path that's displayed between the tags. Paste the path into the address box in Windows Internet Explorer, add /OAB.xml to the end of the path, and then press Enter.

    The following is an example of what the URL may resemble:
    https://autodiscover.contoso.com/OAB/93179f28-4b4d-4e58-aec1-07bb493be4f4/OAB.xml
  8. Note the information that's displayed in the webpage in Internet Explorer. The webpage should contain lots of XML data. The following is an example of the information that should be displayed in Internet Explorer:

    Collapse this imageExpand this image
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Still need help? Go to the Office 365 Community
(http://community.office365.com/)
website.
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Properties

Article ID: 2429946 - Last Review: July 17, 2013 - Revision: 41.0
Applies to
  • Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises (pre-upgrade)
  • Microsoft Office 365 for small businesses  (pre-upgrade)
  • Microsoft Office 365 for education  (pre-upgrade)
  • Microsoft Exchange Online
Keywords: 
o365 o365a o365e o365p o365062011 pre-upgrade o365m o365022013 after upgrade KB2429946
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