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Outlook synced via MAPI does not save View settings
Problem reported by Ionel Aurelian Rau - 11/16/2020 at 6:16 AM
Resolved
Hi,

We have some users complaining that whatever view settings they set in Outlook, it reverts back to the default after a few minutes. This only occurs to them after we set up their Outlook (2016 or 2019, we have both the Home&Business and Pro Plus packages) to sync via MAPI.

For example:
  • Calendar – if you set it to the “week” view, in a couple of minutes it is resetting back to month
  • If you disable the reading pane in the Sent/ Drafts folders, after a few minutes it resets back to ON
  • If you disable the reading pane in Inbox, it will default back to ON after you restart Outlook
  • It is not possible to remove the Categories & Mention columns – please see print screen below. After removal it is coming back in couple of minutes.

Why is Outlook behaving differently when synced via MAPI to SmarterMail? Is this something that can be fixed?

Thank you!

26 Replies

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1
Larry Duran Replied
Employee Post
Hello,

I'm not sure where those settings are stored with MAPI.  We would have to do some digging to figure out of those are client or server side settings and figure out how to support them.  I'll submit a request to dig further into this further.
Larry Duran Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com
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Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied
OK thank you, it would be great if a solution can be found on this. People said they though they were going mad with settings they knew they`ve configured and which they would keep resetting to the defaults.

I`m also curious, is anyone else seeing this with Outlook and MAPI? As it`s quite easy to reproduce (just disable the reading pane or set the calendar to week).
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Gabriele Maoret - SERSIS Replied
+1
Gabriele Maoret - Head of SysAdmins at SERSIS Currently manages 6 SmarterMail installations (1 in the cloud for SERSIS which provides services to a few hundred third-party email domains + 5 on-premise for customers who prefer to have their mail server in-house)
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Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied
Has anything been found on this subject? It would help even just knowing that this is something fixable and which will be solved in the future.
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Larry Duran Replied
Employee Post
Nothing has been found yet.  We did take a quick look at it to see if it was something easy to fix but that doesn't seem to be the case.  We'll need to take a deeper look into the issue and it's still on our task list to investigate further.
Larry Duran Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com
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Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied
Thanks for the update. We are still looking forward to good news in the future :)
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Larry Duran Replied
Employee Post
When we do have a fix I'll make sure this post also gets updated.  This post is linked to the developers task.
Larry Duran Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com
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echoDreamz Replied
This is something a few of our users have brought up as well, it only happens with SmarterMail over MAPI.
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Seph Parshall Replied
Wow! I thought it was just me and an Outlook problem! This has been so annoying! I hope someone can find an answer for this and report back here!
I volunteer to test and/or document any possible solutions for this!
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Seph Parshall Replied

I'm not 100% convinced, but with the last Office 2019 update- my view settings are sticking/staying in Outlook [MAPI]. By the way - this update also allows for Dark view [finally].


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Seph Parshall Replied
Looks like Contacts view doesn't stick. It keeps going back to the default "People" view - I use "Card" view.
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Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied
The Calendar view does not stick as well. We use Week and Day, but it keeps going back to Month. We also use Outlook from the Office Professional Plus 2019 suite.
Any ETA on a fix?
1
Sandro Replied
Same here. For customers who work in the Day view of the calendar, this behavior is very tedious because Outlook keeps switching to the Month view and they have to switch back to Day view several times a day.

It would be great to know the current status so that we can inform customers accordingly.
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Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied
We have a lot of grief from some higher-ups due to this. One contractor that we are keen on working with almost dropped us because their main tool is Outlook and when they connect our account to their Outlook, "their whole way of working is turned upside down". Outlook causes a lot of drama.
Can this be made to just stick? Whatever view one applies, that should stick.
5
Tim Uzzanti Replied
Employee Post
We are working on this with both the Outlook and Protocol teams at Microsoft.  There is an undocumented property in MAPI affecting views and Microsoft is having a hard time figuring out what it is. This has been one of the more difficult items we have had to resolve with Microsoft.
Tim Uzzanti CEO SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com
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Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied
Wow.. sorry to hear this is such a pain to solve as well. Thank you for working on it and we hope something good will come of this eventually.
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echoDreamz Replied
"Undocumented property/method/class" Story of everyone who's ever worked with anything Microsoft related lol. Oh... Dave back in 1997 added and worked on this, no idea what it does or why it's here, but we leave it alone.... uh, ok...

Hope you guys can iron it out! Thanks Tim!
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Michael Replied
We're starting to test MAPI now in production. Views not saving is becoming an obvious issue. Looking forward to this fix.
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Michael Replied
Tim Uzzanti  the more we test / roll out and beta test MAPI internally, the more frustrating this issue is becoming. How is the progress coming with Microsoft on this? Does it look like this may get solved in the next release cycle or two? Appreciate the efforts on this. Thanks much.
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Michael Replied
Looking forward to any and all updates. Thank you.
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Larry Duran Replied
Employee Post
Hey all!  We still have our ticket open with Microsoft and we're still working on updates between each other.  We do not have a fix for this issue yet, but in my latest round of testing for Microsoft, I was able to see a folder view persist over multiple Outlook restarts over different intervals.  When I changed the view on a second folder that's when both folders views reset immediately after an Outlook restart.  Hopefully this new round of testing and information helps to shed a light on the problem.
Larry Duran Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com
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Michael Replied
Thanks Larry for the update and positive communication. Much appreciated. Look forward to this fix so we can widen our roll out of MAPI which is still in a beta test internally. 
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Andrea Free Replied
Employee Post
Hi everyone, 

I wanted to let you know that we've seen some significant improvements in this area. We're finding that the issue only persists when you close then reopen Outlook. 

We're continuing to work with Microsoft to find a resolution. Unfortunately, there are undocumented calls that exist for specific properties of the calendars, and everyone is having a hard time figuring them out (including Microsoft's Outlook and protocols teams). 

We understand this is an inconvenience and hope to get a resolution in place as soon as possible. We'll continue to provide you updates as they become available. 
Andrea Free SmarterTools Inc. 877-357-6278 www.smartertools.com
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Andrea Free Replied
Employee Post Marked As Resolution
Hi all, 

I wanted to let you know that this issue has been resolved, and the resolution is in today's release of Build 7810! You can access the new build here: https://www.smartertools.com/smartermail/downloads.

Kind regards,
Andrea Free SmarterTools Inc. 877-357-6278 www.smartertools.com
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Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied
Thank you,
We`ll update and test it out as soon as possible.
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Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied
We updated and after one day it seems that indeed, at least the calendar view setting sticks now. We`ll keep monitoring this and if users still have complaints, we`ll let you know.

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