"An error occurred. Please try again later." message when trying to respond to an Approval email in outlook 2019

[EthanWang]

Hi all, 

One of my users can't response to approval email in outlook 2019 recently, it worked until last week, but this approval email works on my subscription of Microsoft 365

[fandfadmin]

Experiencing the same issue, only workaround I've found is to use OWA.

[chingho1]

Same error with my colleagues.

I informed my colleagues using MS Teams to do the approval instead in outlook client.

At that moment, still finding what is the root cause.

[Anonymous]

unfortunately we have the same problem...does anyone know when it will be fixed?

[chingho1]

Confirmed with Microsoft outlook team support engineer.  Microsoft states that the version of outlook client 2019 is below minimum requirement of actionable message.  So cannot approve/reject in outlook client.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/actionable-messages/#outlook-version-requirements-for-acti...

[PeterJohnston]

We are having the same issue on the latest version of 2019 (volume licence version) January 10, 2023 Version 1808 (Build 10394.20022).

@chingho1 what was the minimum version that the support engineer stated was supported? I can't see any reference to 2019 in the page you linked to?

[PhantasmaPlumes]

We're having this issue as well now. Flow's been working fine for over a year since creation, and we're running 365 Outlook as well.

[chingho1]

Your outlook client version at least should be:

version 2003, Build 12624.20588 or version 2002, Build 12527.20194

[MRYM290]

We are experiencing the same issue. Any solutions? 

[chingho1]

1. Pay $ solution: install higher version of outlook client or using  office 365 E3 license,

2. No $ solution: approve on Outlook Web App (OWA) or using Microsoft Teams for the approval.

[MRYM290]

Thanks for the reply!

I am using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019

Isn't it high enough?

[chingho1]

Microsoft states that:

Your outlook client version at least should be:

version 2003, Build 12624.20588 or version 2002, Build 12527.20194

Your outlook version is below the minimum requirement.

[PeterJohnston]

We are on the same build, which is the latest volume licence version from Jan 10th, 2023.
All the volume licence versions appear to be Version 1808 and have different version and build numbers to the retail version.

[PeterJohnston]

Until this is resolved, we have told users to either:

• Approve via the Approvals tab in Teams - this will list all pending approvals
• Click the "Show original message" link in the email. This will show a different approval button which will open the approval in Power Automate
• Approve in Outlook on the web, or mobile

[PeterJohnston]

I have been going back and forth with Microsoft Support about this since late January. I still don't have a clear answer from them.

Are other people still having this problem?

[DB7]

Yes, is there any indication that the problem will get fixed?  

[GiL_BeSt]

Have this problem too. The olume licensing version of outlook is not fixed yet.
In addition to this problem, there is another one with the workaround: Our approval is not started by the approval app, but by a power automate workflow triggered by receving email in a sepcific account. And in this constellation the attachment of the approval process is not shown in teams approval app. So the only workaround to accept or decline approval is to go to OWA. 

@microsoft This is rediculous.

[christhevirtuos]

I am having the same issue.  We have users on 2019 and others on more recent version of Outlook.  It's very frustrating to have to direct some to OWA while others can approve directly in Outlook.

[MSmith1234]

Eagerly awaiting this update, unable to utilise Approvals without this working 100%.

Is everyone still encountering issues?

[PeterJohnston]

In short, after 4 months of back and forth, the response from Microsoft support was Office Professional Plus does not support Actionable Messages. Only Office 365 is supported now. They have now updated this page with the supported versions: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/actionable-messages/#outlook-version-requirements-for-acti....

Note, when we first experienced this issue, the highlighted section in the screenshot above said 2016 and nothing about 2019.

Microsoft support confirmed they were able to reproduce the issue, but changes have been made to the underlying infrastructure which is the cause of the problem:

MS upgraded the underlying infrastructure for Outlook Actionable Messages (AM) to make them more performant and resilient. As a part of this upgrade, the minimum supported Outlook Desktop client versions for AM will get updated as follows:

M365 ProPlus Monthly Channel: Version 2003 (Build 12624.20588) - MEC May 2020, Version 2002 (Build 12527.20194) - Monthly CC February 2020

M365 ProPlus Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted): Version 2002 (Build 12527.20194) SAC Preview March 2020

M365 ProPlus Semi-Annual Channel: Version 2002 (Build 12527.20880) SAC July 2020

So the only options are to either upgrade to Office 365, or continue to use the workarounds.