Office.context.mailbox.item.saveAsync fails during OnSend function on Outlook for web

[victorcalarasu]

I have an Add-in created for Outlook Web which adds headers to emails in order to save them securely. It operated both through Task Pane and on the OnSend functionality of Outlook Web.

Your Environment

• Platform [PC desktop, Mac, iOS, Office on the web]: Office on the web
• Host [Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.]: Outlook
• Office version number: ______
• Operating System: Windows
• Browser (if using Office on the web): Chrome/Edge/Firefox

Expected behavior

When pressing the Outlook Send Button (OnSend function), the mail is sent successfully.
What I want to do is get the draft ID in order to send the item using Microsoft Graph API

Current behavior

When pressing the Outlook Send Button the Office.context.mailbox.item.saveAsync() function fails with :

error: OSF_DDA_Error
code: 9021
message: "Connection error occurred while trying to save the item on the server."
name: "SaveError"

this wasn't happening before and we didn't do any change here.
If I save the draft manually, gets automatically saved by Outlook or do the same flow using the Task Pane (opening the add-in through the Apps button), it works correctly.

It is only happening on new emails.

Steps to reproduce

Call the saveAsync() function during the onSend process.

Link to live example(s)

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Provide additional details

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Context

Mails can no longer be sent.
What I want to do is get the draft ID in order to send the item using Microsoft Graph API

Useful logs

[github-actions]

Here are some similar issues that might help you. Please check if they can solve your problem.

• Unable to save draft from context of pinned taskpane after switching to a different draft #979
• Office.js is not working in new outlook #373
• Office.context.mailbox.item.SaveAsync throws an error in Onsend Addin if Send Later option is used on OWA #1853
• Function saveAsync does not work after removing item #1600

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Possible solution (Extracted from existing issue, might be incorrect; please verify carefully)

Solution 1:

One reason why this can happen is if your add-in does not register for the ItemChanged event. Can you add support for that to your add-in (if you haven't already) and see if that resolves this issue? If your add-in doesn't support this event, the Office.context.mailbox.item object in the add-in becomes stale, resulting in the error you are experiencing.

Reference:

• Unable to save draft from context of pinned taskpane after switching to a different draft #979 (comment)

Solution 2:

This scenario occurs when calling Office.context.mailbox.item.saveAsync on a new Calendar item that has not been sent yet. This is a known issue and we are looking into a solution to resolve this so that the API can be used as designed. The API should behave as designed in Mail and on Existing Calendar items.

Reference:

• Office.js is not working in new outlook #373 (comment)

[victorcalarasu]

These suggestions sadly do not seem to help

Also, the exact same code used to work last week with no problems (for multiple months)

[dmitriikashin-outreach]

Our telemetry indicates high amount of hanging Office.context.mailbox.item.saveAsync requests.

Internally we Timeout and Cancel them after 30 seconds, but this API is a crucial peace of our UX, and we wish we could see less of such hanging calls.

Similar situation is with the following APIs:

Office.CustomProperties.saveAsync
Office.context.mailbox.item.loadCustomPropertiesAsync
Office.context.mailbox.item.to.getAsync
Office.context.mailbox.item.cc.getAsync
Office.context.mailbox.item.bcc.getAsync

It comes together with the

"Error: [Office API error] name: Internal Error, code: 5001, message: An internal error has occurred., diagnostics: undefined"

and

"Error: [Office API error] name: GenericResponseError, code: 9020, message: An internal error has occurred., diagnostics: undefined"

errors codes.

[patilganesh-msft]

Thank you @victorcalarasu for reporting this.
While we check this from our end, could you please share the logs by following the process: https://github.com/OfficeDev/office-js/wiki/Collecting-log-files-for-Outlook-Add%E2%80%90ins-issues and give the access to exextoc?

[victorcalarasu]

@patilganesh-msft Thank you for your response, I will ask for permissions to share the logs with exextoc.
Please keep me posted if you find anything in the meantime.

[victorcalarasu]

@patilganesh-msft I've added exextoc to my private repository containing some logs. Let me know if I can help in any other way.

[victorcalarasu]

@patilganesh-msft @exextoc Any updates regarding this topic? it's important for us

[AndreasDvrs]

Hello, getting this behaviour as well - any ideas on what might be causing this or any fix or workaround that could facilitate the current situation..?

[exextoc]

Hi @victorcalarasu

Thank you for providing the logs.
I can see repeated POST requests to "https://eu-office.events.data.microsoft.com/OneCollector/1.0/?cors=true&content-type=application/x-json-stream&w=0
".
This endpoint if for Telemetry collection.
NO_AUTH also suggests that requests are unauthenticated.
Is the add-in explicitly sending excessive analytics data using Office.js APIs? You may re-try disabling them.

[victorcalarasu]

Thank you for your response @exextoc !
Regarding the sending of excessive analytics, aren't these automatic diagnostic events? From the best of my knowledge, we don't do this manually/explicitly. How do I disable them?

This still makes me wonder about this: Why did our code, between the 30th/31st of January stop working suddenly? And why is it working fine through the Task Pane or if we save the draft manually?

It's just the saveAsync function which started failing and returning the result from the picture in the issue

[victorcalarasu]

Could the release on the 30th of January impact this in any way? (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/current-channel#version-2501-january-30)

[SE-Hubert]

Having the same issue here... Saving the item from a side panel works fine but saving the item from the OnSend event causes the same issue. Error: 9021

And like @victorcalarasu said, our code was working fine earlier but it stopped working around the 30/31 of January.

Any workarounds?

[SecureExchanges]

We are facing exactly the same issue. It's quite concerning because this is not the first time we are encountering problems of this kind. It used to work, but suddenly, from one day to the next, nothing works anymore. I understand that there is a big system behind it, but are you able to guarantee stability for your product to your clients?

Without wanting to sound accusatory, are you ready to welcome millions of users, or are you still in a testing phase?

[mobisw-msft]

Hey @victorcalarasu , thanks for reporting this issue- we are able to reproduce the same. We have tracked this item in our backlog. However, we have no timelines to share at this point.

@dmitriikashin-outreach - We have only tracked the issue with item.saveAsync failing. The issue with the latency with these and other APIs seem to be a different issue- it would be great if you could open a different Github issue for the same, with some telemetry numbers that you observe and other details you think would help.

Internal Tracking ID: 5372914

[victorcalarasu]

hello @mobisw-msft , thank you for you response.
This issue has a huge impact on us and we would greatly appreciate if you could prioritize this issue.
Please keep me posted about its status and when it is fixed.

[SE-Hubert]

I concur with @victorcalarasu , this issue is impacting around 2000 of our users.
Please keep us updated. Thank you

[gauravsoni119]

@mobisw-msft We are also getting issues with saveAsync method in onSend function. In our case, we are not getting any error but the current message is not getting saved. As per description, this method should saves the current message as a draft. But nothing is saved. However, calling it via EBA or taskpane is working properly. We also changed nothing in our codebase. It was working fine previously.

[SE-Hubert]

@mobisw-msft Also forgot to mention, but like @gauravsoni119 said, when saving from a taskpane it works properly. Its only from the ItemSent event that the issue is present.