Outlook marks all as "Read" issue

[JR Ryan]

I have been scouring the internet for an answer to this issue for more than a week without luck. I really need an Outlook exchange expert to assist. Here it is:

I recently added some new pop3 accounts to a clients work computers. They have 8 all together, each receiving their own pop3 account (.co.uk domain), as well as some sharing access to a pre-existing exchange account (.org.uk domain). Both the .co.uk and org.uk mail domains are hosted within the same business hosting package through BT. All machines are working fine, recieving the pop3 and shared exchange email accounts without a hitch except one, and it had to be the company MD's didn't it!

Prior to adding in the .co.uk pop accounts, he received the .org.uk exchange mails fine. Now the issue is this, when an email arrives, either automatically or after a manual send and receive, the email is marked as unread (so far so good). If new emails are received, they too are marked unread (great). If he reads them or previews them they are marked read as expected, and he can even set them back to unread if he chooses, but at least he knows which he has seen, and which he hasn't at this point.

Then... at 22 minutes past the hour, every hour, all new emails in his inbox are marked read, regardless of whether they have been read or not, or read and remarked unread, causing my MD great confusion and anxiety as he has no idea which emails he's seen or not seen.

To make matters more complicated, once this mystery hourly update has passed, marking the entire inbox read, if you were to remark mark any email as unread, when the next mystery update occurs, those emails will not be affected. Only the new emails that have been downloaded in the time between updates occur are affected.

Here's what I have done to troubleshoot the problem so far:

• Completely disabled mobile access to email accounts from the two remote devices (iphone and macbook) the MD had set up to receive emails. (ie. no other remote access, although remote read isn't a likely cause as two other machines in the office also receive the same mailbox without messages marked as read or the same behaviour)
• Disabled and uninstalled all antivirus software on the machine
• Ran outlook in safemode with all add-ons disabled
• Rechecked the settings for automatic marking of emails and preview in the reading pane (read setting set to double-click anyway)
• Disabled all rules (none listed that would result in this behaviour anyway)

I've spoken to one 3rd line outlook support agent at BT already, and they said they'd never seen anything like this before. I haven't either and I've been supporting client PCs for almost 20 years.

It's a challenge! Any takers?

 

[JR Ryan]

UPDATE:

Ok, so despite having previously ruled out the other devices and remote access as part of the issue by disabling the account access on those devices... it appears that the culprit IS somehow the iphone! The 22 past the hour mystery update was missed when both devices were completely shut off, and when only the iPhone was turned on a few minutes later (29 minutes past) the mystery update immediately ran at 29 minutes past instead of 22, and now reoccurs at 29 minutes.

I disabled all inactive accounts on the phone and ensured all push settings were either off or set to fetch. This didn't change the mystery update. So, no I have deleted all relevant accounts (only icloud and hotmail left), and waiting for the next 29minute's past the hour update. Fingers crossed!

 

[JR Ryan]

UPDATE 2:
Have added the exchange account in question using all default settings as is to another iphone, and completely powered off the original iphone. Issue remains! Hair, not so much.