How to Fix Email Access Problem in Outlook

Some Outlook for Microsoft 365 users are being blocked from accessing email and calendars. Microsoft said it is already working to fix the problem, but until that happens, the company has shared a temporary solution so that everyone can use Outlook normally.

According to the support document published by Microsoft this past Thursday (13), “after upgrading to Outlook version 2303 (Build 16227.20212), users may not be able to view or access Microsoft 365 group calendars and email messages in Outlook Desktop”. According to the company, “Affected users are part of an Microsoft 365 group. Some affected users may also notice that the impact resolves automatically after some time, although the impact may also reoccur later.”

Tutorial to fix email access problem in Outlook. Source: Microsoft

Outlook users who are affected by the issue mentioned above may experience operational inconsistencies when performing the following actions in the Microsoft 365 email program:

• Add or access group mailbox.
• Add or access the group’s calendar.
• Add, remove or edit group members.
• Change email items such as marking as read, archiving, or moving email to other folders.

The version of Microsoft 365 and its productivity programs that contains the bugs was released on March 28, 2023.

How to fix Outlook problem blocking access to emails

According to Microsoft, users affected by the Outlook issue can roll back the update by going back to build 16130.20332 of the email and calendar program. The reason for this is that the previous version of Outlook does not have the above mentioned problems. To perform the update rollback procedure and fix the issues, follow the steps below:

Necessary time: 2 minutes

If you experience a problem (bug) in Outlook for Microsoft 365, go back to the previous version of the program using this tutorial.

1. Click on the start menu, type “Command Prompt” in the taskbar search bar and right-click on it to select the “Run as Administrator” option.

   
   

2. With the Command Prompt open, type or paste the following commands, pressing the “Enter” key for each one:

   cd %programfiles%Common FilesMicrosoft SharedClickToRun

   officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.16130.20332

   
   

3. Disable updates for your Microsoft 365 account by opening, for example, Word, and going to “File” > “Account” > Update Options (next to “Office Updates) > Disable updates.

   
   

Okay, after doing that, create a reminder on your calendar for May 9, 2023, to remind you to reactivate updates. The fix should be out sooner, but May 9th is the Windows May Update release date and the fix will be in this update.

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