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Recurring events with Recurrence pattern in place are not being received in Outlook 2016 as a correct invite

  • 6 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by Dave

CreepyMcNightmare
CreepyMcNightmare
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When I try to create Lightning event that contains a custom Recurrence pattern (for example, every last Wednesday for each month), and send that as an invite to Outlook 2016 users, they don't get the proper .ics invite. The received mail is basically a text representation of that invite with visible headers and no option to click Accept od Deny.

If they forward that email back to me, Thunderbird reads it just fine. And if I try to send basic event invite without custom date range, Outlook reads it with no problem. Also, if I send custom recurrence pattern to Google Calendar, it reads it just fine.

Does anybody have an idea how to solve this? I know it's Outlook problem with reading .ics files but knowing their community I'd rather try here first.

Thanks in advance

When I try to create Lightning event that contains a custom Recurrence pattern (for example, every last Wednesday for each month), and send that as an invite to Outlook 2016 users, they don't get the proper .ics invite. The received mail is basically a text representation of that invite with visible headers and no option to click Accept od Deny. If they forward that email back to me, Thunderbird reads it just fine. And if I try to send basic event invite without custom date range, Outlook reads it with no problem. Also, if I send custom recurrence pattern to Google Calendar, it reads it just fine. Does anybody have an idea how to solve this? I know it's Outlook problem with reading .ics files but knowing their community I'd rather try here first. Thanks in advance

Modified by CreepyMcNightmare

All Replies (6)

Fabián Rodríguez
Fabián Rodríguez
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Did you mean .ICS ?

CreepyMcNightmare
CreepyMcNightmare Question owner
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Hi Fabian,

Yes sorry. :( .ICS it is.

Modified by CreepyMcNightmare

Fabián Rodríguez
Fabián Rodríguez
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This seems like an issue in Outlook 2016 as other applications open it fine. I'd suggest asking on similar self-help forums or contacting your admin to get in touch with commercial support for Outlook if you have any.

A quick search turned up this thread which mentions several possible solutions:

  • Re-associating .ICS extensions to Outlook 2016 (it may still be associated to a previous version which you updated from)
  • Perform an "online repair" of Office365 which should bring your local install to a previous, working state

It may also just be a very specific bug in Outlook.

The above is my interpretation only and I haven't tested it, don't forget to backup and take appropriate precautions when testing and researching this.

CreepyMcNightmare
CreepyMcNightmare Question owner
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Unfortunately I cannot resolve this problem by changing anything regarding Office 2016/365.

The clients that are using it are in other companies and I have no authority there. I also believe that this is indeed a bug in Office because my developers tell me that Microsoft has it's own system that is processing .ics extensions which is not open to public and often not very compliant with other mail clients. It is not a file registration issue because Outlook is reading .ics extensions fine, only in the particular case with recurrent events it cannot process the file like it should.

I hoped that maybe someone here has a workaround for Lightning but I guess that is not possible.

Anyway, thank you very much for your help.

Fabián Rodríguez
Fabián Rodríguez
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Thanks for your feedback. I think at the very least you can let "their IT people" know about this and possible solutions. Who knows, maybe they'll take care of their users ;)

Dave
Dave
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I use Thumderbird and Lightning and it has no idea what to do with an ICS calendar file. Any Suggestions?