El Capitan 10.11.4 - Outlook Sync Not Working

[ITChick]

I have one user in my environment who is on an iMac 2011. After multiple issues with Outlook and Exchange on this machine, I am testing on a spare just like his to find a solution. I have been at this issue for over 2 weeks now! The test machine was wiped and I have done a clean install of El Capitan 10.11.4. When I set up his Outlook (Keep in mind we are using an archaic Exchange version - 2010 SP1). The Outlook account sets up just fine. About halfway through syncing, however, it stops and I cannot get it to complete. I have set it to push regularly and he has no problem on his iphone, tablet, or webmail. It is definitely the desktop client. Any suggestions (quickly, please!) are welcome! BTW, Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is completely up to date - 14.6.3

 

[dianeoforegon]

Exchange Basics

The Inbox syncs more frequently than any other and should be kept as clean as possible. (this is the number one cause of problems with sync). Do NOT make subfolders under the Inbox.

Make folders at the root level.

Inbox
A subfolder <- do not do this
Drafts
Trash


Inbox
Drafts
Trash
A subfolder <- do this at root
B subfolder <-this is OK

Any folder with more than a few thousand messages is going to take some time to fully come down when you first sync your account. Due to the design of Outlook's sync engine (and how exchange works), you will see the 512 newest messages in a folder at the initial start of sync then the rest of the folder's contents will be back filled before you see any mail that arrives after this point. This is why it will look like you are not getting new mail when a folder is still going through initial sync. This is also further exacerbated by an Exchange issue where it gets unnecessary change events before the newer mail arrives. If you carefully watch the progress during the sync of a folder with greater than a couple thousand messages, you will see "Updating local..." a lot before the newer mail starts arriving (newer than the initial 512 that come down).

Outlook checks the server for updates every minute, any folder that has updates will subsequently be synced. Since Outlook has a limit on how many folders can be synced at a time, there can be a queue of folders waiting. The Inbox does get high priority so it will generally sync before other folders that also need to sync.

 

[ITChick]

I had seen a few blogs about this, but was not sure if this was affecting my user. We upped the capacity for his particular account INBOX storage. I thought it could have to do with using the old Exchange version. Thank you so much for clarifying. This was incredibly helpful!

 

[ITChick]

Exchange Basics

The Inbox syncs more frequently than any other and should be kept as clean as possible. (this is the number one cause of problems with sync). Do NOT make subfolders under the Inbox.

Make folders at the root level.

Inbox
A subfolder <- do not do this
Drafts
Trash


Inbox
Drafts
Trash
A subfolder <- do this at root
B subfolder <-this is OK

Any folder with more than a few thousand messages is going to take some time to fully come down when you first sync your account. Due to the design of Outlook's sync engine (and how exchange works), you will see the 512 newest messages in a folder at the initial start of sync then the rest of the folder's contents will be back filled before you see any mail that arrives after this point. This is why it will look like you are not getting new mail when a folder is still going through initial sync. This is also further exacerbated by an Exchange issue where it gets unnecessary change events before the newer mail arrives. If you carefully watch the progress during the sync of a folder with greater than a couple thousand messages, you will see "Updating local..." a lot before the newer mail starts arriving (newer than the initial 512 that come down).

Outlook checks the server for updates every minute, any folder that has updates will subsequently be synced. Since Outlook has a limit on how many folders can be synced at a time, there can be a queue of folders waiting. The Inbox does get high priority so it will generally sync before other folders that also need to sync.

SOLVED! Thank You, DianeofOregon.