Out-of-Office request times out if there are many Out-of-Office requests in Outlook 2013

Symptoms

Outlook 2013 times out HTTP requests to the Out-of-Office service after 10 seconds. Under usual conditions, this is a sufficient time for the server to respond. However, under high load, the server might take a longer time to respond.

More Information

After you apply September 8, 2015, update for Outlook 2013 (KB3085495), you can use the following instructions to create a registry key to specify the maximum number of retry attempts for any HTTP request, whether that HTTP request is for the Out-of-Office service or some other services such as the Availability service or MAPI/HTTP requests.

Important
Follow the steps in this section carefully. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before you modify it, back up the registry for restoration in case problems occur.

1. Exit all Microsoft Office applications.

2. Start Registry Editor:
   

   • In Windows 10, go to Start, enter regedit in the Search Windows box, and then select regedit.exe in the search results.

   • In Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, move your mouse to the upper-right corner, go to Search, enter regedit in the search text box, and then select regedit.exe in the search results.

   • In Windows 7, go to Start, enter regedit in the Search programs and files text box, and then select regedit.exe in the search results.

3. Locate and then select the following registry entry:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\HTTP

4. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then select DWORD Value.

5. Enter MaximumRetries, and then press the Enter key.

6. In the Details pane, press and hold (or right-click) MaximumRetries, and then select Modify.

7. In the Value data box, enter a value between 0 and 15, and then select OK.
   
   Note If a value that's higher than 15 is set, only 15 will be made.

8. Exit Registry Editor.