Microsoft Office Tutorials: Outlook errors connecting to a sharepoint document library

Last Updated: August 14, 2019

ISSUE

After a recent change Outlook will error when connecting to a SharePoint Document Library.

This dialog appears when you select Connect to Outlook from a SharePoint list or Document Library.

Connect to a SharePoint Document Library

After you select Yes to the dialog above you see this error:

"Task 'SharePoint' reported error (0x80004005): 'The operation failed.'"

Error connecting to a SharePoint Document Library

SharePoint stssync error

Note: The errors above will also happen if you choose Update Folder for a Document Library already connected in Outlook SharePoint Lists.

STATUS: INVESTIGATING

Microsoft is investigating the issue.

This issue occurred after a recent change to deprecate the "Edit Offline" functionality for SharePoint documents synced to Outlook. Per the guidance about that change, it is recommended that you sync SharePoint libraries to your computer using the OneDrive sync app.

Although not recommended, If you need to temporarily work around the issue, you can use the steps in How to revert to an earlier version of Office 2016 Click-to-Run to revert to Monthly Channel Version 16.0.8827.2179 which is prior to the change.