[Solved] The connection to Microsoft exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.

When a user tries to set up an email for himself or herself in Microsoft Outlook, the process may stuck due to the following error message :

“The action cannot be completed. The connection to Microsoft exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.”.

This error message popup tells us to connect to the internet even if we already connected. This contradiction leads to confusion about what could be the source of the problem and how to get rid of it. Without fixing this problem, the outlook client won’t let users create email profiles and work on them. So better we see what could be the reason and how to fix this “the connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable” error.

Cause of : “The connection to microsoft exchange is unavailable”

Your outlook client may have already misconfigured email profile or incorrect windows DNS cache. The problem could persist even if you change the version of the Outlook client. An incorrectly configured email profile won’t let you make proper communication with Microsoft exchange. Hence shows the failed result.

Misconfigured email profiles may contain selection on wrong email delivery protocols, exchange servers, or login credentials. In some cases, it may be just corrupted data. On another hand, an incorrect or corrupted DNS cache may be an obstacle in between server query resolution. Due to this email client outlook app simply shows the error message ” The connection to Microsoft exchange is unavailable”

Solution :

1. Remove email account and reconfigure.
2. Flush DNS cache

Steps by step solution to ” The connection to Microsoft exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.”

Step-1 : Open mail settings

1. Go to the Control Panel.
2. Search For “Mail“
3. Open Mail Setting

Step-2 : Click on Email Accounts  

Step-3 : Here you can Add New or Repair your Previous Email Profile.  

Remember you can delete only if you create another profile as default. This time you must create and configure a new email profile properly.
????Refer: Manually Configure Outlook Email

Alternatively,
you have to flush the windows DNS cache using the command line. Open a command prompt with administrative rights and then enter the following command,

ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
NETSH winsock reset catalog
NETSH int ipv4 reset reset.log
NETSH int ipv6 reset reset.log

You have to make sure 1. Your internet connection is working. 2. You have created an email profile with the correct settings and credentials. 3. Your outlook data file is not corrupted and outlook has sufficient read-write permissions. 4. Your computer’s firewall is not blocking SMTP & outlook client. After all this checkup, everything should work properly. ????