Lumia 950 - Outlook Can't Render HTML Emails Properly

[RonnieJP]

I got my unlocked dual-sim 950 last week. All is good except for the new Outlook Mail app. It does fine with plain text emails, but cannot render HTML (web style) emails correctly at all. The formatting looks horrible and many items and images are just missing.
I read on another forum that this was due to the new Outlook app using MS Word as its rendering engine, rather than Internet Explorer, as was the case with Windows Phone 8.1 on my old Lumia 920. If the e-mail happens to contains a "view in browser" link, then it will open correctly in the Edge browser. But many HTML emails don't have such a link. A decent email client should be able to render most correctly-coded HTML emails perfectly. Funny thing is that Outlook is supposed to be a Universal Windows App and it works fine on my Windows 10 desktop, but not on my phone. I haven't seen many complaints about this in the Windows Central forums, so I wonder if anyone else has this problem? If not, I will assume that it's just my phone and return my 950 to the Microsoft Store for exchange. Anybody experiencing this?

 

[Albatross2]

I think a lot of folks have this issue with the 950, I certainly do.

 

[RonnieJP]

I think a lot of folks have this issue with the 950, I certainly do.

Wonder why it hasn't been widely reported? I see users complaining about bugs that appear to be rather trivial, but I think that being able to view emails properly would be a big deal!

 

[Albatross2]

I have full confidence this will be corrected in time.

 

[KrisYYC]

Wonder why it hasn't been widely reported? I see users complaining about bugs that appear to be rather trivial, but I think that being able to view emails properly would be a big deal!

It has been fairly widely reported. There's an active thread about it in the 950XL sub-forum. If you look in the windows feedback app on your phone you'll see it's been widely reported there. There was also a write up on this site for a fix but the fix doesn't seem to work for most people.

The only fix that seems to work for most people is a hard reset. Something I'm not willing to do.

 

[RonnieJP]

The only fix that seems to work for most people is a hard reset. Something I'm not willing to do.

Tried a hard reset when I was at at the local Microsoft Store today. Did not solve the issue either. Store personnel couldn't help either. Not one of them had a working Lumia 950 of XL that I could test with. Their demo units have a fictitious e-mail account, but they all contain only plain test messages - gee I wonder why? !!!

 

[RonnieJP]

Check out this snip of a reply post from a MS support engineer on a Microsoft forum!

 

[920Walker]

By Design. Use Feedback App. AYFKM?

 

[olivermills6]

This is driving me up the wall. Cannot get a straight answer out of MS Support, they just keep telling me to hard reset which doesn't seem like it will work. I am also struggling to find reports of this, even on the feedback app it's rare. It's a major problem with the app in my opinion.

 

[RonnieJP]

I challenge anyone who claims they have fixed this issue with a herd reset; I don't buy it. There is nothing broken, per se.
This issue will only be resolved when Microsoft changes the rendering engine of the e-mail app, which I believe they eventually will.
We just need to keep bombarding them with feedback.

 

[mariusmuntean]

There are hundred of up votes for this issue and many duplicate entries in the feedback app but it seems for nothing. How can such a problem be ignored? really...I've tried the outlook app on my iphone and on my work S6 and it does not have this problem at all, so I keep asking myself over and over again about MS's plans for their mobile platform when even a basic thing for a smartphone is not working well and they refuse to both acknowledge and fix it. And the worst thing, how was this designed to work like this??? What engineer designed it this way and even worse, what engineer left it like this for months, ever since the outlook app came to the Win10 Mobile Os?

 

[RonnieJP]

Not only does it work fine in iOS and Android, but it's pretty good on Windows 10 desktop. If it's supposedly a Universal Windows App, then why? I was wondering if it had something to do with the QHD resolution of the 950 screen, but the Galaxy S6 is also QHD. Doesn't anyone at Microsoft use these phones?

 

[mariusmuntean]

seems they don't use them. otherwise I cannot explain the lack of polish in w10 mobile, the lack of consistency in design and performance

 

[llckll]

Same experience here. Horrible.

 

[RonnieJP]

It's been several months since the Lumia 950/950XL were released, with several OS and app updates, and still no resolution to this issue. With the rumor of the Surface phone and other news, it would appear that MS has conceded the consumer smartphone market to iOS and Android and will be focusing on the enterprise.
But, come on, even (especially) in a business environment, how can MS accept this behavior in its native phone e-mail app.? Unbelievable!
:angry:

 

[fpena911]

I received an email from Microsoft this morning titled, "Microsoft Lumias do great things"

I could not view the email on my 950 without scrolling from side to side. It didn't work in portrait or landscape mode.

So tell me how can an email from Microsoft itself not even render properly on the device they are trying to brag about?!? Unbelievable. Most of the emails I receive are a mess - they look similar to how emails used to render on an old Blackberry before they began accepting the fact that HTML formatted emails are the norm.