Friday, October 28, 2016

[Fix] Outlook Error: 3219. Server. An error occurred in looking up the user's information in mserv.

You've been happily using Outlook 2010 (or 2007) with a Hotmail.com, Outlook.com, MSN.com or Live.com email address for . . . well . . . forever.  It's worked mostly fine for years.

Sometime in the last few days it stopped working.  You can see that your account is fine if you log in via a browser, and it works on your phone - but Outlook on your PC suddenly decided you no longer exist.

If you click the error notification in the bottom status bar in Outlook, you see one or more of the following errors:

There is an error synchronizing your mail account. Please verify your account is configured correctly by first accessing your mail on the web.  Error: 3219. Server. An error occurred in looking up the user's information in mserv.

Error with Send/Receive.
There was an error synchronizing your folder hierarchy. Error : 80041004.

“Task ‘your email address’ reported error (0x8004102A)
‘Error with Send/Receive’ 



Several MS sources on these errors tell you to try a tricky schedule of recreating a folder you might or might not have lost, etc etc.  It fails to help.  Removing the account and adding it back in also fails.

What's probably happened is that your MSN/Hotmail/Live/Outlook email account was just migrated to the new email servers on Microsoft's side.  You may or may not have received a notification recently that this was about to happen.  I certainly did not receive any such notice.  If this is the case, you can fix it easily.

1) In Outlook, remove the account (Tab "File", select Accounts, highlight the offending account and remove it)

2) Close Outlook

3) In Control Panel, Programs and Features, find and remove the Outlook Hotmail Connector (Also called the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector)


4) Reboot your PC

5) Open Outlook and add your account - after it succeeds, it will likely tell you to close Outlook and re-open.  Do what it says.

Ta da!

Why?  Because when your account was migrated recently, the new email servers no longer need or want the old MAPI based Outlook Hotmail Connector.  They're using a slim version of Exchange for Office 365 now.  Which Outlook 2007 and 2010 support natively without the special add-on connector.  But the add-on connector won't let go when you try to create the account, so away it goes.





4 comments:

  1. Thanks Rob. I've been struggling with this problem since Sunday - your fix worked a treat. Thanks again, BobW

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Rob,
    Your steps make sense and are easy to follow, but not working for me yet.

    I have Outlook 2010 and a migrated @live.com email account (with an @outlook.com alias too). If I enter the @live.com address as a new account in Outlook on my PC, it stops and asks me to install the Outlook Hotmail Connector. If I try to enter the @outlook.com alias, it sets up the account and prompts me to restart Outlook. Upon restart, I get a login box for my @outlook.com email, which pops up again after I enter the password. To get out of the loop, I cancel, but then the account is not added to my Outlook.

    What do you think? Thanks,
    Joe

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It sounds like that account has not yet been migrated after all. That or you may need to create a new Outlook profile (wipe or disable the default profile) by using the Mail option in Control Panel. I've seen some odd cases where the original profile was bad - even after deleting email accounts from it.

      Delete
  3. I also have the login box asking for my password permanently, did anyone find the solution?

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome but moderated to prevent spam links. I usually check them at least once a day in the evenings - so please be patient with me if your comment does not appear quickly.

Thank you.