Exchange 2013 CU7 and up - Can not delete/remove tasks from List

We are encountering some strange behaviour. With Exchange 2013 CU7 and up it does not seem possible to remove a task with the 'Remove from List' button

The task/email simply stays in the list and the due date is removed. There is no possibility of removing the task except clicking the task and press delete button on keyboard or delete button in the ribbon. Please note that this ALSO deletes the email. So this is not what we want.

Steps to reproduce:

1) Right click mail and flick follow up (tomorrow for instance)

2) Find mail in task/to-do list and click button 'Remove from List'.

3) It should now remove the task completely, leaving no traces, and leave the original email unharmed

However this does not happen. Task simply stays in the list. The only thing we notice is the due date is removed, so now the task has no end date. Also the 'Remove from List' button is now greyed out for this specific task

I have tested this with Outlook 2013 fully patched on the following Exchange server versions

Exchange 2013 CU9 (not working as expected)
Exchange 2013 CU7 (not working as expected)
Exchange 2013 CU6 (working as expected)
Exchange 2013 SP1 (working as expected)
Exchange 2010 SP3 (working as expected)

What bothers me is that if I read the following documentation

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Remove-an-item-from-the-To-Do-Bar-a8b3074a-e703-4dbb-9a9e-e66f830a07c9

It seems to be working as expected?? Or am I reading this wrong:

    • You cannot clear the flag on a task. Tasks can only be marked complete or deleted.

    • If you select multiple items and want to clear their flags, use the shortcut menu option Clear Flag/Delete Task, which clears the flags on selected items, such as messages, and deletes selected tasks.

  • Delete the item     This removes the item from Microsoft Outlook. For example, if you delete an e-mail from your To-Do Bar, it is also deleted from your Outlook mailbox.

IMPORTANT  The first two options leave you with a record of the item, while the third option (deleting the item) completely removes the item from Outlook.

So how should I interpret this? Did anything change since CU7 regarding the way outlook/exchange handles tasks? The user created this ticket right after his mailbox was moved from 2010 to 2013. Is this expected behaviour or is this a bug??!










August 19th, 2015 9:48am

Hi,

Does this issue occur on all user mailboxes?

And please try to restart outlook with this switch or even restart outlook within safe mode.

Outlook.exe /cleanviews

Outlook.exe /resetnavpane

Best Regards.

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August 21st, 2015 5:05am

Hmm it did not happen on all mailboxes... There goes my theory that is has something to do with Exchange.

I thought it was related to users with Domain Admin membership, but I can also rule that one out after testing.

Resetting outlook with the switches, or starting in safe mode does not help.

Thought that it maybe only happened to mailboxes that have been moved from 2010 > 2013 but also that is not the case.

I have no clue where to look next..


August 21st, 2015 5:57am

OK looks like I found the solution. Problem is caused by a corrupt Task/To-do search folder after mailbox migration.

Download MFCmapi and connect to the mailbox. Under the rootfolder you can delete (permanent/hard-deletion) the Searchfolder for tasks.

I found the solution in this thread: 

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/68566db4-b0d1-4236-b913-fdbe53639ca5/todo-list-cannot-display-folder?forum=exchange2010


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August 21st, 2015 10:23am

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