Outlook.com: "Sync Email" settings error "Unable to load these settings. Please try again later."(March 2022)

[Geman]A brief article about Microsoft's Outlook.com: There is a problem for users who want to collect mails from other email providers via Outlook.com. The feature in question has not been usable for some time now, with an error message stating that the settings cannot be loaded. And so far Microsoft does not seem to have addressed the problem.

In Microsoft's Outlook.com service it is possible to collect mails from other providers without having to set up a pop account in Outlook. But since a few weeks there is a problem that the synchronization can't be called anymore, because then immediately an error occurs. Blog reader Davide R. pointed out the problem to me by mail and wrote:

Good day Mr. Born,

I wanted to bring to your attention a problem that has existed for 2 weeks and Microsoft has so far ignored the problem. The email synchronization feature (also called linked accounts) is a useful feature, especially for users who use the M365 Family or Single package. With it you can e.g. retrieve GMX, Outlook or other accounts collectively, without having to configure a POP account in Outlook.

Since 2 weeks the function, which is located at outlook.live.com, does not work anymore. The described way via "Settings->Show all Outlook settings" and selecting the option "Synchronize e-mail" ends every time with an error message "Unable to load these settings. Please try again later."

I checked this behavior while writing this blog post with my outlook.live.com account and got also this error message:

Davide pointed me to a discussion in German Microsoft Answers forum, where more users reported the same issue. I also found an English Microsoft Answers forum thread, where users are discussion this behavior. A user wrote on February 14. März 2022:

Outlook.com "Sync Email" settings – "Unable to load these settings. Please try again later."

I am using the free version of Outlook.com and followed the forums and help how to set up a GMail sync to Outlook.com.

However since two days I got this clicking on the "Sync Email" menu.

Even the X button on the upper right corner does not operates when being in this menu.

I tried this menu in browsers like Edge, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera.

All the same results.

Going through the forum thread, several users confirm this behavior – with one user writing that his last sync was on February 17, 2022. That would be a month now since the malfunction was first noticed. User Robig 1977 outlines his problem with Office 365 in the German Microsoft Answers forum:

The problem is and remains the synchronization starting from Outlook. Outlook retrieves the mails from the other providers (GMX, Gmail, etc.), if one has deposited the access data at that time.

In 2018, Microsoft has then determined that the server load, with increasing number of customers, drastically increases and therefore requested to no longer allow the emails from Outlook to retrieve, but from the respective provider to forward them.

Thus, the server load was shifted to the other provider.

However, our problem is that we did not remove the access data for synchronization from the settings, because it was still working. But after we had to change the password or anything else changed on the mailbox at Gmail, GMX or so, we would like to delete these settings, because it can't be corrected anymore.

But not even this possibility is offered.

Instead, almost every day you get the message that the mailbox can no longer be synchronized, along with the great tutorial I had already posted, which does not work.

A user mentions in the forum thread on March 15, 2022 that Microsoft is aware of the problem, as it has been reported by various users. Blog reader Davide received a response of the following type from Microsoft.

Please note that we also see other users contacting us with similar problem. I would like to inform you that this is a known issue, it is happening at the moment. Our engineering and development team is already working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

It seems to me that Microsoft is indeed working at "warp speed" to fix the problem. But the repair team seems to have "gotten lost in the galaxy and is now considered lost". There are also hints that the function of mailbox synchronization of foreign mailboxes will be deactivated at some point. This could be the case now – but it is stupid that the user has no possibility to access the settings to cancel the synchronization for mailboxes. Anyway, there is a lot of frustration among the users at the moment.