[German]Here's an issue that is probably affecting Outlook users (from Microsoft 365 Business) since long. Incoming (html) emails from some providers are displayed with black text on a black background. It hits sporadic some accounts and some mails, sometimes it's fixed suddenly.
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The problem seems to come up from time to time, but it's quite old – but I was asked about it yesterday via a personal message from German reader Martin L. on Facebook (thanks for that).
I think this phenomenon is being "rolled out" right now. The reports from customers are piling up…..
Martin then sent me a link to German tecci's page and the article Schwarzer Text auf schwarzem Hintergrund | MS365-Business | Outlook Desktop | web.de & gmx.de, where the issue appeared on June 30, 2023.
The problem description
In Microsoft Outlook, messages from certain recipients are simply not displayed legibly because the black font appears on a black background. It only affects Microsoft Outlook (probably the subscription version of Microsoft 365, Business) and only certain senders. The article states:
The messages of certain senders at web.de & gmx.de are displayed in Outlook on the desktop with black font on black background. But it can also affect other senders!
The display in the browser and in OWA is normal. It does not affect all senders, only a few. Not reproducible it happens that also Outlook on the desktop displays the mails normally after some back and forth clicking.
On tecci is already linked to the Microsoft Answers forum post Work emails showing up with a black background, where the following screenshot as well as the following error description was already posted on April 11, 2023:
Hi,
Emails that previously had a white background have turned black, they randomly change between white and black for all the users that have access to the inbox.
They were all white up until last week and now all the ones in the inbox from the same source have turned black.
Is this an outlook issue?
Thank you
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So also there the problem that mails are suddenly displayed barely readable. Occurs sporadically and even seems to be changing states (sometimes white, sometimes black background). From the gut feeling it could be related to the dark mode that Microsoft's developers think they have to introduce everywhere. In the above MS Answers thread, several people affected chime in, but there is no solution.
In the German Microsoft Answers forum I then came across the entry Mailansicht mit schwarzem Hintergrund – Text dadurch nicht lesbar from May 28, 2023, where it is also stated that some mails are displayed with a black background, making blue text hardly readable.
As expected, gives no further answers either. In this German MS Answers forum thread, this is also addressed as of April 24, 2023, and on April 25, 2023, it said "The problem no longer occurs since this morning, for whatever reason. Curiously, one of our customers had the same problem, and there, too, it resolved overnight…". tecci also refers to this askwoody.com comment from January 14, 2023, where the problem is described for Windows 11 22H2 Home and Office 365. There is no solution there either.
What helps?
There is no fix available from Microsoft. tecci writes on his website the following:
The display in the browser and in OWA is normal. […]
Workarounds are to throw the content of the mail into the editor via copy & paste or to open the message and display it via "Move" | "Actions" | "View in browser". Both options make text visible.
I would have spontaneously also tried to mark the text of the message – sometimes it helps, because the characters are displayed with an inverse color. But a solution – besides using another email client, I don't have either. Personally, I can't test anything either, because I have never used Outlook productively (apart from using it to write my Office books), but have been using Thunderbird since 2009.
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