Outlook crashing across entire domain

[LeeAU]

Around 29th April, Outlook 2016 has started crashing on random machines across our entire domain. The error is "Outlook detected a COM add-in problem" as seen below:

 

 

 

As you can see it's telling me all of the add-ins are causing problems - even the Microsoft ones!

This is happening on Outlook 2016 on Windows 7 and Windows 10. What I've done so far to try and fix the issue:

 

• Created new local profile & mail profile
  
• Deleted Office and Outlook folders in %LOCALAPPDATA% and %APPDATA%
  
• Disabled Sophos anti-virus
  
• Confirm no Windows/Office updates were installed lately
  
• Disabled all add-ins in registrty by changing the "LoadBehaviour" keys to 0
  
• Ran an offline & online repair of the Office install
  
• Completley uninstalled office using the office removal tool & re-installed
  
• Ran the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant for Office 365 tool
  

I'm quickly running out of things to try and would appreciate any suggestions

[ZeroHour]

I would check event viewer although that can be a rabbit hole of irrelevant errors its worth a gander sometimes.

How do you build you machines?

[LeeAU]

I would check event viewer although that can be a rabbit hole of irrelevant errors its worth a gander sometimes.

How do you build you machines?

Event viewer just gives generic errors, such as:

 

Add-in execution error. Outlook crashed during the 'Open' callback of the 'ItemEvents_10' interface while calling into the 'Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Office' add-in.

 

Our older Windows 7 machines were built using imaging software Acronis then joined to the domain. We now use MDT to deploy Windows 10

[sdlitef]

We are in the same boat! Corporate wide, multiple versions of outlook, W7 and W10 machines all impacted. Microsoft premier support not much use so far. Disable all add-ins and turn them back on to see which one crashes outlook. It is a different add-in for different users. Only common factor I can see so far is outlook and the error of 'callback of the 'ItemEvents_10' interface while calling into the xxxxx add-in'

[LeeAU]

We are in the same boat! Corporate wide, multiple versions of outlook, W7 and W10 machines all impacted. Microsoft premier support not much use so far. Disable all add-ins and turn them back on to see which one crashes outlook. It is a different add-in for different users. Only common factor I can see so far is outlook and the error of 'callback of the 'ItemEvents_10' interface while calling into the xxxxx add-in'

 

 

Interesting, this seems to be a widespread issue and I'm convinced MS have changed something on their end. Our premier support has not been much use either. There are also more people affected, see these threads:

 

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2209165-outlook-crashing-across-entire-domain?page=1

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/outlook-2016-cashing-for-multiple-users-over/5d2a6b53-3b86-45e4-b9ef-34f95711dfcf?rtAction=1557323798491&tm=1557324341295&page=1

 

What I have done as a temporary measure is enable the following GPO and created a group called "Disable All Outlook Addins" and put any users who get the issue into it.

User Configuration > Administrative Template > Microsoft Outlook 2013 > Miscellaneous > Block all unmanaged add-ins

User Configuration > Administrative Template > Microsoft Outlook 2016 > Miscellaneous > Block all unmanaged add-ins

 

This seems to work for now while we find an actual fix for the problem.

Edited May 16, 2019 by LeeAU

[sdlitef]

What is your current web filtering product on these machines? I have traced this back to our web filtering product, got a ticket open with them just now to look into the cause. Reverted back to an older version and crashes stopped for over a week, product auto updated last night and users crashing again........

[LeeAU]

What is your current web filtering product on these machines? I have traced this back to our web filtering product, got a ticket open with them just now to look into the cause. Reverted back to an older version and crashes stopped for over a week, product auto updated last night and users crashing again........

We use ForcePoint however this has not been changed or updated. What are you using?

[free780]

Does the issue occur on a device when using a direct connection? Also are those affected using on prem exchange or exchange online?

[sdlitef]

We use ForcePoint however this has not been changed or updated. What are you using?

 

That's exactly what I was waiting for you to say. We use Forcepoint too. For us it seems to be an issue with Forcepoint One 19.03.823 - reverting back to any other version rectifies it. We do not auto update but the impacted users seem to have had this pushed out somehow again and the crashing is back. Spoke to their support yesterday and they have stated it is a known issue and have directed me to a hotfix (19.05.890) and asked me to test on the impacted users.

[free780]

I hope its not something in squid. As this is what most proxies use.

[sdlitef]

Does the issue occur on a device when using a direct connection? Also are those affected using on prem exchange or exchange online?

All users impacted have the Forcepoint proxy client. It was forcepoint direct connect client i was installing to rectify the issue though, whether it was changing to the direct connect client or the different version that fixed it is unclear.

 

I would say all the user impacted were exchange on-prem, we are currently migrating the entire company so we have a large mix.

[LeeAU]

We're rolling out the hotfix today although I've seen some people with this issue still report crashing after the upgrade. Apparently Forcepoint are aware of the issue and working on a fix.