First request to save custom properties always fails in New Outlook for Windows about office-js

[Swathy-Mothilal]

@bogdanst24 Thanks for the clarification. It has been put on our backlog. We, unfortunately, have no timelines to share at this point.
Internal tracking id: Eg: Office: 4707994

[Swathy-Mothilal]

@bogdanst24 We are unable to reproduce the issue. Could you please provide a manifest and a video of the issue so we can investigate it more effectively?

[bogdanst24]

Probably important to emphasize that it was working for a long time without issues.
I can reproduce it with this very basic add-in:

void Office.onReady(() => {});
Office.actions.associate(
  'onMessageComposeHandler',
  (event: Office.AddinCommands.Event) =>
    void onMessageComposeHandler(event),
);

export function onMessageComposeHandler(
  event: Office.AddinCommands.Event,
  contextParameters: WebAddInContextParameters,
) {
  Office.context.mailbox.item?.loadCustomPropertiesAsync((result) => {
    if (result.status === Office.AsyncResultStatus.Failed) {
      console.log('ERROR', result.error);
    }
    const allValues = result.value.get('test');
    console.log('allValues', allValues);

    result.value.set('test', 'testValue');
    result.value.saveAsync((result) => {
      console.log('saveAsync', result);
    });
  });
}

Result:

Relevant part in the manifest:

 <ExtensionPoint xsi:type="LaunchEvent">
              <LaunchEvents>
                <LaunchEvent Type="OnNewMessageCompose" FunctionName="onMessageComposeHandler" />
                ....
              </LaunchEvents>
</ExtensionPoint>

I can send the full manifest via email, but I find it useless as you won't be test with it.

Later edit:
I can reproduce it also by using the simple code from the Script Lab (moving it into an event based one)

[bogdanst24]

Again, I can only reproduce it in the New Outlook for Windows.

[Swathy-Mothilal]

@bogdanst24 Based on the details that you have provided, we are still unable to repro the issue. Could you please share your manifest and a video of the issue to understand the issue better?

[bogdanst24]

Could you please share an email address I can send to?

[Swathy-Mothilal]

@bogdanst24 Please host your manifest in a private repo, and grant access to me!

[bogdanst24]

Done. You won't be able to log in, but that shouldn't matter as the issue is reproducible before that. Triggering a new email is enough. You should be able to see 3 Post requests ending up with 400 status code

[Swathy-Mothilal]

@bogdanst24 We have been able to reproduce the issue. To better understand the problem, could you please confirm if subsequent requests after logging in or saving custom properties again are successful as this seems to be an auth problem.

[bogdanst24]

To better understand the problem, could you please confirm if subsequent requests after logging in or saving custom properties again are successful

Yes, exactly. What you are seeing now being logged, are some operations we introduced as a workaround. Exactly because, as described also in the title of the issue, only the first one seems to fail. Or, it might be all operations for the first x seconds.

this seems to be an auth problem.

No specific authentication is performed. I think we have been seeing this error in our logs for a long time for some customers (~20%), but we were never able to reproduce it. Now, since 2-3 weeks ago, it is affecting everyone.

[lmrodriguez78]

Hi.
We have been going over the same issue for the last days.

Is there any workaround we could implement to tackle the issue while it is in progress?

In our case, we have an event based add-in. We set the value of a custom property when the user clicks on a command buttom. This property is used later to implement the logic when the message is sent.

Thanks.

[bogdanst24]

We're doing a mock set and save right at the beginning. We've seen that this forces it to work in some cases, but not all. The problem is still happening and from what I can see on the logs, it got worse.

[lmrodriguez78]

Thanks @bogdanst24. We've implemented a retry mechanism with a one second delay between calls. Apparently it seems to work but let's see in the upcoming days.