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User profile for user: truerock
truerock Author
User level: Level 1
10 points

Outlook: "Cannot get mail" "The connection to the server failed"

On April 6 at around 7:00 PM CST, my iPhone 5 running iOS 9.3.1 stopped syncing with my Microsoft Outlook account.

I haven't had any problems with my iPhone syncing with my Outlook email over the last 5 years until now.


My Outlook account is at these servers -

for web mail:
https://blu183.mail.live.com/

for Windows Live Mail 2012:
https://mail.services.live.com/DeltaSync_v2.0.0/sync.aspx


I've tried deleting my Outlook account from my iPhone and re-setting it up and the Outlook account "verifies" correctly - but, this does not solve the problem.

The iPhone keeps displaying a pop-up message:
"Cannot get mail" "The connection to the server failed"


My iPhone is syncing correctly with my Gmail and iCloud accounts.


Also, I set up my Outlook account on my daughter's iPad which is running iOS 8.1.2 and I have the same problem.


This seems to be a situation of Apple's servers not syncing with Microsoft's servers.


Thanks

Posted on Apr 6, 2016 9:33 AM

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9 replies
User profile for user: NoMrcyND
NoMrcyND
User level: Level 1
4 points

Apr 6, 2016 9:52 AM in response to truerock

Found this on the Microsoft forum:


here is what I did, I have an iPhone 6Plus with ios 9.3.1 fyi...


1. Delete the two outlook.com and one Hotmail account from my Mail, Contacts, Calendars (under settings)

2. did a full backup of my phone to my PC (for the first time ever :-) I didn't need to, but I did this just in case.

3. Go to Settings, General, Reset, Reset All Settings. It sounds scary, but other than your wallpaper, passcode and wifi password, all your other content remains intact. I checked my app data after restoring and it was fine

4. After restarting, added a new account, of type Outlook, and entered my settings. And voila, all was good.


NOTE: Mind you, for point 4 above, the apple support representative did say I should add an email account of type "other", ignored this but was lucky it was ok. So, if this doesn't work for you, do another reset and try and add an account of type "other".


I tried adding the account as type "other" but like some others, I was able to get my email, but not to my contacts and calendar (which would require tedious ldav,carddav blah blah configurations.



I just did this and my contacts are coming back now.....

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User profile for user: truerock
truerock Author
User level: Level 1
10 points

Apr 6, 2016 10:11 AM in response to NoMrcyND

NoMrcyND,


Thanks for the tip - but, resetting an iPhone is something Apple support tells customers to do when they don't know what is causing a problem. I have 6 email accounts and over 50 wifi passwords - and, it would be a huge headache to do a iPhone reset.


I have set up multiple Outlook accounts on multiple Apple devices and none of them are syncing with Outlook. I'm glad you have your Outlook syncing again - but, I doubt the reset had anything to do with it.

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User profile for user: truerock
truerock Author
User level: Level 1
10 points

Apr 6, 2016 11:01 AM in response to elcpu

elcpu,


Thanks - yes I did... and I cross-posted to that thread.


This issue has happened hundreds of thousands of times (millions?) over the last 10 years. It will continue to occur in the future. Sometimes Microsoft/Apple fix it within hours... sometimes it takes days or even weeks.


Nobody has ever documented why this occurs. I assume Microsoft changes something on their servers and Apple has to do something to reflect that change - but, who knows?


The good news is that Microsoft seems to be dedicated to making its products work on Apple platforms. The bad news is that Microsoft is in the midst of some kind of systemic overhaul and the Exchange/ActiveSync/DeltaSync situation is chaotic - and, it's probably going to get worse before it gets better.


If something changes in regard to how Apple syncs with Microsoft it seems completely reasonable that I might have to delete my Microsoft account on my iPhone and re-set it up to implement the change. I guess the problem is there is no transparency to the process and almost no one who works for Apple or Microsoft knows what is going on and this creates a huge amount of frustration to their customers.

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User profile for user: elcpu
elcpu
User level: Level 7
31,500 points

Apr 6, 2016 12:07 PM in response to truerock

Glad that it is resolved... 🙂


For whatever it is worth here is what I cut and paste for users having Mail Account issues.


Try resetting your Mail Account. First close your Mail App completely from the multitasking window by double clicking the Home button and swiping up the Mail preview pane up until it disappears from the screen. You may have to look for the Mail pane by scrawling to the left. Then go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > locate your email provider and click on the account. On the next page Delete Account. Then do a forced restart. Hold down the Home and Wake/Sleep buttons at the same time for about 15-20 seconds until the Apple logo appears. Then go back to Settings > Mail… and add the account again.

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Outlook: "Cannot get mail" "The connection to the server failed"

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