People page hangs on PC site [WORKAROUND FOUND!][FIXED AT LAST]

Just a FYI...in case you were unaware.

LATEST UPDATE

If you do not see a drop down arrow next to All, your People page has been updated.

There has been a recent change in the People page and part of the update was the steps in managing your Groups.

The dropdown option or filter for Groups next to the word All on top left corner of the page has been removed.
Hence, the Groups are viewable or accessible by scrolling down your contacts list as it conforms with the alphabetical arrangement of your contacts.
Furthermore, the creation of a new Group is under the dropdown button next to the option New in the command bar of your People window.

The steps in adding and deleting members in your Groups are as follows:

1. Go to your People page.
2. Locate and click the group name in your contact list.
3. Click Edit in the command bar on top of the page.
4. To delete a member of the group, click the X button at the bottom right of your contact's picture.
5. To add a member, type the contact's name in the Add member box and click the desired contact from the dropdown option.
6. Click Save.

The above update courtesy Filamer_S Forum Moderator

The above "Answer" is frankly NOT relevant to my original post which has anyway been moved from it's original place in the "I'm unable to see my contact's information because it does not show up." topic.... which seems to have been "altered" and my reply and a few others are MIA/AWOL?

Not sure why, and my statement "I can successfully access my Contacts using Outlook Mobile site link above" is now useless to anyone else as the post containing that link to the Outlook Mobile site is now no longer "above" and gone from original thread too?  Is this URL supposed to be a secret?  Surely not?

Thanks for responding BUT your off-topic answer is not much help to me or anyone else?  Thankfully I can still get into my contacts list via Outlook's Mobile Site but this seems to be a very weird unsolved problem that affects plenty of other people....

Anyone got any relevant ideas?  An explanation of how I can access People/Contacts via the Mobile site BUT NOT the PC site would seem to be the crux of the matter?


Just a FYI...in case you were unaware/misunderstand my situation.

LATEST UPDATE

I can always see the drop down arrow next to All, but the rest of the People page never, ever, ever, ever, finishes loading.

I was particularly amused by your later suggestion:

1. Go to your People page.
2. Locate and click the group name in your contact list!

If I only could!  

The above update courtesy Blacklab22 Exasperated Outlook (former Hotmail loving) User

Hi,

 

I know how frustrating it is if you are encountering this issue and I’m here to help you sort this out. I would like to make some clarifications to isolate the possible causes of your issue, please answer the following questions:

 

 - Does this happen on other browsers?

 - Does this happen on other accounts?

 - Do you update your browser?

 - Have you tried reinstalling your browser after the issue happened?

  

We recommend you to optimize your browser so that we can make sure your browser is not causing the issue.

               

Clearing the Internet Explorer cache can help improve its performance when you use it to access Outlook and other services.

 

Please refer to the link below for the steps:

http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser's-Cache

 

You can refer on the link below for the browsers that are best suited for Outlook:

Which browsers are supported by SkyDrive, People and Outlook.com?

 

If you are still encountering the issue then I would require a screenshot from you.

 

I've initiated a private message, follow the instructions provided for you there.

 

Note: Please sign-in to this website in order to see the Private Message tab where you can provide the email account. We also need you to reply back to this post if you already provided the information on the private data area. This will help facilitate our actions regarding your issue.

 

Feel free to ask if you have more questions.

Thank you

@Richard_LS:  Many thanks for your kind interest, I have posted a more detailed version of this reply, as requested, in the Private Message area with 4 screenshots attached.

To answer your questions first....

 - Does this happen on other browsers? 

Yes, all 3 installed browsers (IE8 fully updated, Firefox 21.0 & Pale Moon 20.0.1 latest Release Channel versions) are identically affected on both my Vista/SP2 laptop and Win 7/SP1 laptop.   

 - Does this happen on other accounts?

No, Do not have any other accounts!  Have run just one Hotmail account for many years.

 - Do you update your browser?

Yes, frequently, currently running Firefox 21.0 which is latest version in Mozilla's release channel.   Regret I am not a fan of the IE9 UI - so my preference is to stick with IE8, fully updated.  Also run Pale Moon 20.0.1 (See: http://www.palemoon.org/) which is the latest fully patched release version.

 - Have you tried reinstalling your browser after the issue happened?

Yes, did a reinstall of Firefox 21.0 on Vista/SP2 machine today just for you! :) - no change, no People. 

AFAICS my computers are fully updated, IE8 is fully updated and Firefox and Pale Moon are both at latest release versions too. Cleared cache and cookies several times - sadly no difference, still no People!

Hi,

 

I have replied to your private message. Please refer to the private message area, be sure that you are signed in to view my message.

 

Thanks.

Nothing particularly "private" involved here so I have put a copy of my reply posted in the Private Message area up for anyone similarly afflicted to read:

@Mary Grace A.  Hello and thank you for your interest - did Richard_LS fall under a bus? :)

Mary Grace A. wrote:

"Regarding your concern about in viewing your contacts list via mobile site, you can scroll down your mouse and at the bottom part of the page you can see a link that says "PC site", simply click that link and you would be able to view your contacts via PC site."

Sadly your suggestion above does NOT work for me - if I click the "PC site" link at bottom of the Mobile "Contacts" page all that happens is that the "People" page then tries to load and hangs/stalls exactly as it does with the Outlook PC site - screenshots would be identical.  The ONLY way I can access my Contacts list at all is by directly logging into the Mobile site!

Mary Grace A. also wrote:

"We also need to ask for permission to access your account so we can investigate further. To give us permission to access your Outlook.com account, please reply to this thread with the following information:......."

If you are suggesting that some feature of my "old" Hotmail account is causing this problem then my preferred method will be to open a brand new "clean" Outlook account and test that.

I take my on-line privacy extremely seriously and I regret that granting unknown persons (with only an unspecified "moderator" status and no verifiable security vetting, if any?) access to my Hotmail account, for an unspecified period of time, is a massive step too far IMO!

Consequently - I DO NOT grant you my permission to access my Live ID.  Sorry - but no way!

WORKAROUND FOUND! - HOORAY!  It seems the problem is a conflict with Adobe's Flash plugin.... simply disable Flash, refresh/reload the "hung" People page and it opens quite normally.

Many thanks to CWH803 for posting this information in his Address Book inaccessible in OUTLOOK.COM Hotmail thread.

Disabling Flash plugin solves the problem for me in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Pale Moon on my Win7/SP1 & Vista/SP2 laptops.  Bug is fully repeatable and Outlook "People" page hang can be toggled at will by disabling/enabling Flash and then attempting to open People page.

So now we know the cause and have a "Workaround" BUT is this Adobe's problem with recent Flash (latest Flash 11.7.700.202 in all my browsers) or a problem with Outlook's coding for Microsoft to fix?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE/FYI:  As already reported to Moderators in Private Message Area - curiously I have always had no problem with loading the OUTLOOK PC site "People" page on an old XP/SP3 machine - same 3 browsers - same configurations - but no problem with People page!  (Possible clue here as the Flash "Protected Mode" isn't implemented in XP - certainly not for Flash Firefox plugin (Pale Moon browser uses same plugin as Firefox) - see Adobe's: Inside Flash Player Protected Mode for Firefox paragraph 4.

What have you done to break the Contacts List ("People" Page) on the Outlook PC Site?

I can successfully access my Contacts using Outlook Mobile site link above BUT cannot get "People" to work on the PC Site at all?  Just the "circle of dots" throbber going round and round for ever and ever!  Reduced to copying e-mail addresses from the Mobile Site!  Now that's what I call "synced" modern technology - I might as well write my contacts list out on paper!

This ridiculous problem affects my both Vista/SP2 & Win7/SP1 laptops.  Both machines fully updated, latest browser versions, cache & cookies cleared, tried every combination of allowing cookies, but NOTHING makes "People" open.  Tried every suggestion here and on other sites but NO SOLUTION?

I have the exact same issue now as mentioned above by blacklab22.    MS Drop this Outlook garbage and go back to the way Hotmail functioned.   If you created outlook to help sync calendars, I don't know but your outlook email is bad.

Hi,

 

It seems that you encounter the same issue that of Blacklab22. Let me try to help.

 

Did you follow the troubleshooting shared by him to rectify your issue?

 

Please provide us a detailed description (including error message) of issue with regards to syncing calendars.

 

Let us know if issue persists and if you have other questions.

 

Thanks!

HOORAY! After only 5 weeks my Contacts List (People page, etc) is finally fixed on all 3 browsers running on Vista/SP2 and Win7/SP1.  Same 3 browsers always worked on XP/SP3 - no idea why the difference - no explanation forthcoming from MS. 

Just for clarity I changed nothing yesterday at my end.  All programs (3 MS OS's, IE8, Firefox & Pale Moon browsers, Adobe's Shockwave Flash, etc) have been updated as new versions appeared but until yesterday was still having to disable the Flash plugin to get People page/Contacts list to load on anything but XP.

Many thanks to whoever at MS finally pulled their finger out and sorted this ridiculous bug!  If it had been 5 hours I would be impressed - but over 5 weeks - really!!!!!  Suggests a proper sense of urgency is severely lacking somewhere in Outlook's management?

Very thankfully I didn't need my Contacts List for business - must have been crippling.

LESSON LEARNT: Keep copies of your Contacts List elsewhere!

Toss the bunting,

Blacklab22

PS.  Would still like to understand i) what the problem was, and ii) how it was fixed?