User impact: Users may be unable to see photo thumbnails of contacts in the Outlook desktop client.

More info: Photo thumbnails may still show for users who have previously been searched.

Current status: We completed testing our proposed fix and confirmed its effectiveness in resolving impact. This testing phase also solidified our understanding of the problem’s origin, pinpointing an issue within a recent change intended to optimize our servers’ handling of requests to fetch photo thumbnails for Outlook address book contacts. Moving forward, we’re systematically disabling this change to resolve impact and, while we’re unable to provide an estimated time to resolution at this point, we’ll outline one as soon as it becomes available. 

Scope of impact: This issue may impact any user attempting to view user thumbnail photos in the OAB in the Outlook desktop client.

Start time: Monday, February 20, 2023, at 10:39 PM UTC

Root cause: An issue within a recent change intended to optimize our servers’ handling of requests to fetch photo thumbnails for Outlook address book contacts is resulting in impact. 

Next update by: Friday, April 7, 2023, at 6:00 PM UTC