Microsoft says the abrupt discontinuation of calendar subscription support on Outlook.com is the result of a bug. A fix is in preparation.
Since the end of last week, Microsoft has been trying to figure out why Outlook.com abruptly stopped supporting calendar subscriptions. The publisher has also claimed that it has no plans to remove this feature. WinFuture reported that Outlook.com has apparently stopped supporting some users’ calendar subscriptions, but this issue does not seem to affect Office 365 service subscribers. To the point that some have wondered if Microsoft is not in in the process of migrating this function to its paid services. Information refuted by the supplier.
Subscribe to a calendar allows you to add calendars to Outlook.com (or Outlook, or Google Calendar) by importing a calendar entry or file. Outlook.com and other email services offer users to subscribe to an external shared calendar, and therefore view these entries on their own calendar, with dynamic updating when the calendar is changed by its owner. Examples of shared calendars include the Major League Baseball calendar or the list of practices and matches for a football team. Typically, shared calendars use an .ICS or .iCAL file, the latter format being used by Apple’s iCalendar. It was these calendar subscriptions that stopped working, at least in some cases.
Many email clients allow you to share calendars or subscribe to a calendar. Here is an example of several calendars subscribed to in the Windows 11 Calendar app. (Credit: Mark Hachman / IDG)
No migration to paid services, a fix in preparation
Microsoft has denied, however, that it wants to change any policy regarding this feature in Outlook. “The ability to add calendars to display all of one’s life events is an important feature for our customers who we seek to continually improve,” a Microsoft representative said in an emailed statement.
“Over the past few days, reports have alerted us to subscription issues that some users are having subscribing to .ics / ical calendars and we are dealing with this issue very actively. We apologize for any disruption to this workflow. We also wanted to reiterate that we have no plans to remove support from Outlook for .ics / ical calendars, holidays, and pro sports team calendars, ”Microsoft added. The publisher did not indicate how many customers were affected by this bug, nor the date on which a fix would be available.
