React-based add-ins won't sideload on Old Outlook about office-js

[millerds]

@Rick-Kirkham I believe this is because of changes you made to manifest.outlook.xml when updating the template to current react versions. There is an extra section between the two different "VersionOverrides" tag that is causing this to break. I'm not sure why that doesn't affect OWA, but if you take that sections out it will work.

[Rick-Kirkham]

Yes. The manifest.outlook.xml manifest has a <VersionOverrides> (v 1_1) element nested inside a <VersionOverrides> (v 1_0) element. Just inside the top of the outer <VersionOverrides> there is a <Hosts> element. Deleting this <Hosts> element fixes this problem and the add-in sideloads in Old Outlook.

But this issue should remain open because this is still a bug in Old Outlook. The presence of that <Hosts> element is valid. The whole point of Version Overrides is that they override settings in the parent. The settings in the <VersionOverrides> (v 1_0) element override the settings in the base manifest and the settings in the <VersionOverrides> (v 1_1) override the settings in the <VersionOverrides> (v 1_0) element. This purpose is defeated if the developer has to remove a setting from the parent. This is why sideloading in New Outlook worked even with that <Hosts> element present in the <VersionOverrides> (v 1_0) element.

[millerds]

Fair enough. I have but the issue on our backlog (internal id: 8798620)