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There was an error in reading the rules on the server. The format of the server rules was not recognized RRS feed

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    Hi everyone

    I am using outlook 365 with my office exchange server 2010. I had configured a lot of rules which were working fine even after upgrading to office 365. One day I was editing my rules & added few more keywords to one of the rule (Rule: Move messages with specific word in subject & body), it barred me from adding more keywords. After that I started getting the subject error message whenever I start outlook. Moreover, when I goto 'manage rules & alerts' , it shows no rules. However, the existing rules are still working but I cant edit/modify the rules bcz of subject error. In OWA , I can see only specific rules. I searched many threads on this topic but couldn't get satisfactory answer. Will be obliged if anyone can help me fix the issue

    Monday, August 1, 2016 7:06 PM

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    What is Outlook 365?  Do you mean Outlook 2016 downloaded from Office 365?

    Your "office exchange server 2010" means your on-premises Exchange Server 2010, right?  What service pack and update rollup are you running?

    There is a limit to the size of the blob in which rules are stored.

    http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/rules/exchange-server-32-kb-rules-limitation/

    Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."
    Celebrating 20 years of providing Exchange peer support!

    Monday, August 1, 2016 7:15 PM
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    Hi,

    It sounds like the rules engine may be corrupt. As Fazal mentioned above you can export the rules, but you can only do that through Outlook and if Outlook isn't showing all of the rules there is some corruption somewhere. So it may difficult to export the rules. If the rules cannot been exported out. It’s recommended to do as following option:

    The option is probably to reset the rules engine using outlook.exe /cleanrules and rebuild the rules again. Per my research, it is probably the only one that will work.

    If you have any questions, please feel free to post out. Thanks. 

    Best regards,

    Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

    Jason Chao
    TechNet Community Support

    • Proposed as answer by Jason.Chao Friday, August 12, 2016 1:31 AM
    • Marked as answer by Niko.Cheng Monday, August 15, 2016 3:09 AM
    Tuesday, August 2, 2016 9:05 AM

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    What is Outlook 365?  Do you mean Outlook 2016 downloaded from Office 365?

    Your "office exchange server 2010" means your on-premises Exchange Server 2010, right?  What service pack and update rollup are you running?

    There is a limit to the size of the blob in which rules are stored.

    http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/rules/exchange-server-32-kb-rules-limitation/

    Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."
    Celebrating 20 years of providing Exchange peer support!

    Monday, August 1, 2016 7:15 PM
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    Yes of course, outlook 2016 & Exchange Server 2010

    The exact version of office is 16.0.7070.2033

    I had the idea about the limit on rules. But now, I want to get rid of the error

    Monday, August 1, 2016 7:50 PM
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    If you have already tried increasing the Rules Quota limit & still see the error, You may want to delete the existing rules using MFCMAPI. Please take a backup of the rules & use the steps below to delete the existing rules.

    • Download MFCMAPI & double click mfcmapi.xe.
    • Click on "Session" and select "Logon and Display Store Table"
    • Choose the profile, and click 'OK'
    • Double click on the "Mailbox_alias"
    • Expand "Root Container" >>>> "IPM_SUBTREE" >> “Inbox”
    • Right click on “Inbox” and select “Display Rules Table”
    • Please delete all the rules in the window:
    • Click File>>Exit

    Regards,

    Fazal

     
    Monday, August 1, 2016 8:32 PM
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    Hi Fazal

    Yes, the software is quite helpful. But unfortunately i cant take backup as no rules are visible in outlook. I can only export the data through MFCMAPI. Can you further guide

    Monday, August 1, 2016 10:50 PM
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    Hi,

    It sounds like the rules engine may be corrupt. As Fazal mentioned above you can export the rules, but you can only do that through Outlook and if Outlook isn't showing all of the rules there is some corruption somewhere. So it may difficult to export the rules. If the rules cannot been exported out. It’s recommended to do as following option:

    The option is probably to reset the rules engine using outlook.exe /cleanrules and rebuild the rules again. Per my research, it is probably the only one that will work.

    If you have any questions, please feel free to post out. Thanks. 

    Best regards,

    Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

    Jason Chao
    TechNet Community Support

    • Proposed as answer by Jason.Chao Friday, August 12, 2016 1:31 AM
    • Marked as answer by Niko.Cheng Monday, August 15, 2016 3:09 AM
    Tuesday, August 2, 2016 9:05 AM
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    Hi,

    Would you please provide us with an update on the status of your issue? If the solution helped, if so, please help to mark as answer, it'll be helpful and easily to search for others, thanks for your time.

    Best regards,

    Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

    Jason Chao
    TechNet Community Support

    Friday, August 12, 2016 1:35 AM
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    If it can helps someone : I had the same issue. To fix it, I deleted the last rule created / modified.
    Wednesday, November 27, 2019 9:19 AM
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    I just resolved my:

    "

    There was an error in reading the rules on the server. The format of the server rules was not recognized.

    "

    ... issue using a combination of two of the solutions provided here.

    I was getting an error dialog stating my client and server rules were out of sync, and recommended me choose to keep the server rules, which I did. Then I got that server-rules-was-not-recognized error dialog.

    The resolution was using Fazal Zaidi's steps for using the MFCMAPI utility, but taking Julien-BIANCHINI's 11-27-2019 idea of only deleting the last rule I had created.

    I had just created a rule to help deal with a flood of custom application alerts coming into my inbox. I think Outlook forced me to create it as a client rule. And for the record, the "outlook.exe /cleanclientrules" command line idea did not help. That action opened up Outlook, then showed me the same server-rules-was-not-recognized error. Thank you all, and especially Fazal Zaidi and Julien-BIANCHINI!

    Monday, February 24, 2020 11:10 PM
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    I had this issue as well.  I went into O365 Outlook with the browser and deleted my last 'server side' created rule.  I then opened up the local client and it worked just fine again

    Best of luck

    Tuesday, June 30, 2020 4:17 PM
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    Cystixs answer worked perfectly for me.

    "I went into O365 Outlook with the browser and deleted my last 'server side' created rule.  I then opened up the local client and it worked just fine again"


    I think Microsoft's answer was very poor as some of my rules are complex and would be hard to rebuild.

    For other peoples reference. Server rules are not currently in the obvious place (settings), they are in "Manage Premium" , then "Email".

    Go to https://outlook.live.com/ then on the top right there is a diamond icon with text "Manage Premium", that takes you to the "Premium Features" section of what should be the settings page, which will open in a popup style windows. This page has a left menu in which you are currently on "Premium", and above this you will see "Email". Click on "Email" and a secondary menu will appear which ill have "Rules" in it. You can guess the rest from there.

    BTW, the online editor is terrible so if like me you have a large list of match-words for a rule, then there is no way to simply copy and paste them (as a backup) if you need to delete the rule. This is really annoying but in the browser, find the section where the words are displayed and right click it, choose inspect item from the context menu, then use the developer tools to copy and paste the innerHTML in to something like notepad++.

    I realize this is a massive pain in the bum, but it will prevent lots of retyping and forgetting what is in there.

    Dave

      

    Web dev and DBA



    • Edited by davidbridge Thursday, July 16, 2020 10:16 AM clarification
    Thursday, July 16, 2020 10:14 AM