I'm experiencing a strange problem with Outlook 2019. When viewing a message it only shows the first line. On an HTML message, it stops at the first close paragraph tag. On a plaintext message, it stops at the first newline character. This is true if viewing a message in the reading pane as well as if double-clicking the message to open in its own window.

I have the preview pane set to show 3 lines and it does show more of the message so it seems like Outlook can see more of the message than it's rendering in the reading pane. If I use View Source, the underlying data seems fine and the whole message is there.

I've tried the following:

  • Deleting and re-creating the user's mail profile
  • Uninstalling & re-installing Office
  • Creating a new Windows account & connecting Outlook to a different Exchange account than the one that originally exhibited the problem
  • Checked for Windows updates
  • Checked for Office updates

Any ideas what might be causing this? I feel like I've tried everything obvious & I'm striking out on Google.

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2 Answers

I was able to find a solution to this problem:

  1. Open an elevated command prompt (Administrator)

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  1. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun

  2. Run the following command:

    officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.13901.20462

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The process takes about 10 minutes but then fixes the problem.

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This is a Microsoft Problem. I have been working on this an and on the Problem Machine I reverted Office 2016 (365) to the prior version.

There are now answers on the internet about this.

Run the following command string (do not navigate to the location and run; run from Win+R

This is for Office 2016 64-bit Desktop version. If you are using a different version, check for that version.

Win+r , then in the box to enter data paste this line:

"c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft shared\ClicktoRun\OfficeC2RClient.exe" /update user updatetoversion=16.0.13901.20462 check and press enter

This is the prior version. Then go to Office Updates (any Office app), Updates and Disable Updates temporarily.

Please check your own version before running this. My problem computer is working fine now.

Followup: Wednesday May 12 after noon EST in North America. All fixed. So far as I can see, the Office 2016 up to date version number did not change.

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