Shared mailboxes do not receive live updates (Outlook + WebApp)

Maridor

Hello everyone,

after updating our production server we noticed a reproducible issue affecting shared mailboxes only.

Environment
grommunio Community
openSUSE Leap 16.0
gromox 3.7.267.m81d9f09
grommunio-web 3.18.36
Outlook 2019 (MAPI/HTTP)
Standard appliance 2026.06.1
Problem

Shared mailboxes no longer receive live updates.

Outlook

When a new mail arrives:

unread counter updates immediately
the new mail is not shown
switching folders or pressing F9 immediately displays the mail
grommunio Web

Exactly the same shared mailbox:

no unread counter
no new message appears
pressing F5 or reopening the folder immediately shows the mail
Own mailbox works correctly

This is the interesting part.

The user's own mailbox updates instantly:

unread counter
message list
preview

Everything behaves normally.

Only shared mailboxes are affected.

What we tested
Outlook Safe Mode
Hardware acceleration disabled
Exchange Cache Mode on/off
Firefox
Chromium
Browser cache cleared

No difference.

Server side

All services are healthy.

No errors in:

gromox-http
gromox-zcore
gromox-midb

The Web client continues polling successfully (HTTP 200).

The browser successfully registers hierarchy notifications.

No HTTP errors.
No authentication errors.
No JavaScript notification errors.

The problem is reproducible every time.

Older Topic discussion

I found this older topic describing a similar behaviour:

https://community.grommunio.com/d/2396-mailboxes-in-outlook-and-webapp-only-refresh-when-switching-folders

However our findings narrow the problem down further:

Own mailbox = works correctly

Shared mailboxes = no live updates

Has anyone seen this with recent Gromox / grommunio-web versions?

Any ideas for further debugging would be appreciated.

WalterH

Maridor gromox-midb

is only used for IMAP, not MAPI.

WalterH

Did you tried this: Speed up grommunio and G-Web! It might help.

Maridor

Thanks for the suggestion.

I tested the recommended tuning:

worker_processes = 10
context_num = 1800
context_average_mem = 1024
http_thread_charge_num = 40
http_thread_init_num = 10

Unfortunately, there is no change.

I also upgraded from the stable version gromox-3.7.267 to the current devel build gromox-3.7.361.x4e34d5d (Leap 16), rebooted the server, and repeated all tests. The behaviour is identical.

What I observe is:

Outlook (2019):

The unread counter is updated immediately (e.g. Inbox shows "1").
The message list is not refreshed automatically.
The reading pane/preview is not refreshed.
As soon as I switch to another folder and back, the new message appears immediately.

grommunio Web:

User-to-user delivery updates live.
External SMTP delivery does not trigger a live update.
The new message appears immediately after pressing F5 or clicking Refresh.

This makes me wonder if Outlook is only receiving a notification that changes the unread count, but not the corresponding table/view refresh event.

Could this be related to the notification/event mechanism rather than a performance issue?

WalterH

Try the current devel. build, download with wg et https://download.grommunio.com/devel/openSUSE_Leap_16.0/gromox-3.7.361.x4e34d5d-lp160.44.1.x86_64.rpm and install with rpm -Uvh gromox-3.7.361.x4e34d5d-lp160.44.1.x86_64.rpm.

Maridor

Thanks Walter.

I already tested exactly that devel build.

I upgraded from 3.7.267 to 3.7.361.x4e34d5d, rebooted the server and repeated all tests.

Unfortunately, the behaviour is unchanged.

I also applied the tuning from your "Speed up grommunio and G-Web" post:

worker_processes = 10
context_num = 1800
context_average_mem = 1024
http_thread_charge_num = 40
http_thread_init_num = 10

Again, there was no change.

Current behaviour:

Outlook 2019

unread counter updates immediately
message list does not refresh automatically
reading pane/preview does not refresh
switching to another folder and back immediately shows the new message

grommunio Web

internal user-to-user delivery updates live
external SMTP delivery does not trigger a live update
pressing F5 or clicking Refresh immediately shows the new message

Because the same behaviour exists in both Outlook and G-Web, I wonder if this could be related to the notification/event propagation rather than Outlook itself.

Does G-Web receive live notifications through the same event mechanism as MAPI, or is there a separate notification path that could explain why externally delivered messages don't trigger a live update?

WalterH

Try to repair the shared mailbox:
gromox-mbck $(gromox-mbop -u <MAILADDRESS> echo-maildir)/exmdb/exchange.sqlite3 -p

And als last step reset the ICS for the mailbox:
gromox-mbop -u <MAILADDRESS> cgkreset

The ICS is responsible for the notifications, but requires a healthy mailbox.

Replace <MAILADDRESS> with the actual email address.

WalterH

WalterH gromox-mbop -u <MAILADDRESS> cgkreset

I forgot to mention that if Outlook is in caching mode, you need to delete the .OST file after this step for this mailbox.

Maridor

I tested both steps.
gromox-mbck $(gromox-mbop -u sharedmailboxname@domain.at echo-maildir)/exmdb/exchange.sqlite3 -p
Result:
ck_allocated_eids: [0 issues]
No mailbox errors were found.
Then I executed:
gromox-mbop -u u sharedmailboxname@domain.at cgkreset
After that I restarted gromox-http and repeated all tests.
Unfortunately, the behaviour is still exactly the same:
• Outlook: unread counter updates immediately, but the message list and preview do not refresh until changing folders.
• grommunio Web: internal user-to-user delivery updates live, but external SMTP delivery still requires F5/Refresh.

The problem is independent of the target mailbox.

It affects:

personal mailboxes
shared mailboxes

The deciding factor seems to be the delivery path:

internal user-to-user messages trigger live notifications
external SMTP-delivered messages do not trigger live notifications in G-Web
Outlook only updates the unread counter but not the message list

Maridor

I tested that as well.

Instead of only deleting the OST, I created a completely new Outlook profile and configured the mailbox from scratch.

I also disabled Cached Exchange Mode, so Outlook is working in online mode without using an OST file.

Unfortunately, the behaviour is still exactly the same.

So it does not seem to be related to a stale OST or cached ICS state on the client.

WalterH

Can you open a support ticket?

Maridor

Hi Walter,

unfortunately I cannot open a support ticket because I'm using the Community Edition.

I reproduced the issue with a completely new Outlook profile, with Cached Exchange Mode disabled and after running gromox-mbop ... cgkreset.

The behaviour is still reproducible, so I've documented it here in the Thread.

If there is anything else you would like me to test, just let me know.

WalterH

Try to update to gromox 3.8.9, was released last night.

Maridor

Thanks Walter.

I'd be happy to test Gromox 3.8.9.

At the moment I'm blocked by the remaining grommunio-office-fonts package conflicts (down from about 110 to only 6 after yesterday's rebuild).

As soon as the packaging issue is resolved, I'll update to Gromox 3.8.9 and come back with the Shared Mailbox test results.

Maridor

Hi Walter,

I updated to Gromox 3.8.9 as suggested.

Unfortunately, the shared mailbox notification issue is still present.

New messages appear in the shared mailbox only after a manual refresh. No automatic notification is received.

So, unfortunately, 3.8.9 does not resolve this issue on my system.