We're seeing complaints that Outlook automatically sends meeting updates to the attendees several times a day. When users delete the responses from their inbox it triggers another update to attendees.
The good news: it’s not user error.
The bad news: it appears to be a problem only for people who sync iPhones with Exchange.
The bug appears when the user creates an appointment in Outlook and includes themselves as an attendee, often because they are the members of a distribution group or a delegate.
Scenario
The repro steps are as follows:
- The iPhone user creates a new appointment in Outlook and uses a distribution group as an attendee; the meeting organizer (iPhone user) is also part of the distribution group.
- The Meeting organizer sends the appointment from Outlook.
- An attendee accepts the appointment request.
- The organizer receives the response from the attendee and deletes it from their inbox.
- A meeting request update is sent out to all attendee’s of the meeting.
- This repeats itself and continues to send out meeting updates.
Workaround
Until Microsoft or Apple releases a fix, use this solution discovered by Derik and Mark:
When creating a new appointment in Outlook, do not include yourself as an attendee. If you are using a distribution group to invite others, expand that group and remove yourself as an attendee.
Phillip suggests setting an end date:
We are having users report a similar issue, it appears that the main issue is with repeating calendar invites that DO NOT stipulate an End-Date. The users iPhones are sending out the meeting notifications. Having the organizer cancel, then delete the original repeating meeting and then recreating the repeating meeting with a valid end-date specified, resolves the issue once the iPhone resyncs with the calendar.
Exchange 2010 SP3 RU13 iPhone iOS - (random, several versions)
Outlook's no end date option can be disabled via a registry edit or group policy. For more information, see
I am still facing this issue and unfortunately, the workaround from Derek and Mark have not helped. I am not included in the group/attendee list and there is an end time/date in the request. This issue is incredibly frustrating and now I am scared to look at my meetings because I will be seen as unprofessional for re-sending the request. Has anyone found a fix?
If you use the outlook app, the problem *shouldn't* occur.
When I send a meeting request to a group, there is one person in the group that when he accepts, it sends everyone an identical meeting request again.
Is he accepting on a smartphone? That is a fairly common problem when accepting on a phone. I believe its less of a problem if using the Outlook app over the native apps.
what about on an iPhone 8 where a user, not the organizer, can't respond to a meeting invite?
Well, you shouldn't accept from a phone if you can avoid it. i don't see this issue listed on microsoft's list of known issues: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2563324/current-issues-with-microsoft-exchange-activesync-and-third-party-devi
yes, except issue 1.2 that is somehow close.
why are you saying we shouldn't accept meeting invites from a phone? that's the purpose of having email and stuff like that on the phone for convenience.
>> why are you saying we shouldn't accept meeting invites
Many of the problems are caused by accepting invites on the phone. If the phone app uses EWS (Exchange web services) instead of EAS (Exchange Active Sync) there should be fewer problems. The outlook app uses EWS, the native apps use EAS.
Everything the author has posted here is pretty much wrong. The “work around” sure doesn’t work, and Microsoft themselves have no solution (per other web sites). The Outlook Internal Version on these forwarded meeting planners match the iPhone 6s Plus.
I have several dozen of these in my inbox, and the quantity is multiplying. None of the users where I work have touched their device calendars, including me.
Outlook integration with the iPhone has been broken pretty much from the beginning. The author of this article needs to stop parroting the wrong answer and start posting some original problem-solving answers to fix this problem.
Unfortunately, if the workarounds suggested by other users aren't working for you, you will need to wait for Microsoft to come up with a fix for this long-standing issue.
Microsoft's list of known ActiveSync issues (and fixes, when available) is here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2563324/current-issues-with-microsoft-exchange-activesync-and-third-party-devi.
I am getting a very similar issue. Every morning I am forwarding a calendar invite that I've received to everyone who is in the meeting invite. I am not the original creator of the meeting invite. My iPhone seems to randomly respond. I've read the thread.
sounds like it is this issue - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4014990 -
We are having users report a similar issue, it appears that the main issue is
with repeating calendar invites that DO NOT stipulate an End-Date. The users
iPhones are sending out the meeting notifications.
Having the organizer cancel, then delete the original repeating meeting and
then recreating the repeating meeting with a valid end-date specified, resolves
the issue once the iPhone resyncs with the calendar.
Exchange 2010 SP3 RU13
iPhone iOS - (random, several versions)
Thanks for the information - definately should always use an end date - and now Outlook supports this via group policy.
https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/calendar/encourage-users-to-set-end-date-on-recurring-appointments/
I found the answer for my issue ... log into Office 365. Go to settings (cog in right hand top corner) select calendar then on the left side options select General, Mobile Devices and check 'Don't send read receipts for messages read on devices that use Exchange Active-Sync. This immediately stopped the multiple messages I was sending and receiving every 18 minutes. I also had added my email account to an old Blackberry Playbook - just for fun and I think it was this device possibly that caused the issue - so I removed this device in the list above the read receipts check box
this worked for me. it's been 20 minutes and no new messages sent thank you!
Have been seeing this a lot lately (my org has 120,000+ mailboxes) and I'd like to confirm that if Outlook for Mobile (iOS/Android) is used EXCLUSIVELY (removing Exchange connections via the native iOS/Android mail/cal/etc. apps) that this prevents the issue?
Since reading http://www.networkworld.com/article/2904714/microsoft-subnet/microsoft-outlook-calendar-corruption-lost-meetings-duplicate-appointments-april-2015-update.html and other related sites, we have been strongly recommneding using the Outlook for Mobile app exclusively to our customers. So far it's been quite successful, but I'd like to know what others have seen.
Thanks! -Joe
the bug is in the EAS connection - the outlook app uses EWS, so it shouldn't have issues.
Diane, thanks so much for everything you do for the community! -Joe
Outlook for Mobile is certainly useful, but the prospect of having a 3rd party caching 1 month's worth of our emails does not go down well with the compliance officer. Nor with me either, so there goes that solution. As more and more orgs migrate to O365, the security argument becomes moot, so time is on our side. But still, was the issue of 3rd party access to your mailboxes never an issue? With the amount of accounts in your org, you must have had the discussion.
>> Outlook for Mobile is certainly useful, but the prospect of having a 3rd party caching 1 month's worth of our emails does not go down well with the compliance officer.
As of a few months ago, everything is pushed through Microsoft's Azure, they no longer use Amazon's AWS (which Acompli used before Microsoft purchased them).
That's correct. But from the perspective of a firm running Exchange on-prem, Azure is a 3rd party too ;-)
Just sayin ...
So can confirm on multiple sites this is an issue with iphone/android, in fact i have solved it for serveral meetings finding the "right phone" to disconnect. Thats the problem though, how can I find the offending phone? I have meetings with 250 attendees many with iPhones (personal iphones i have no control of turning off icloud ectt for them) many of the CEO level.
I have used LPS to check IIS logs for most hits, i have looked at event viewer for event id 9646 (too many connections) and get-messagetracking powershell just shows you the "mailbox attendant" as sender not a user. Anyone got a good ecp script to help locate who has these invites in a loop???
It's actually an activesync problem - which is how the phone native apps sync.