Microsoft Outlook crashes when viewing Uber receipt emails

Microsoft has identified an issue where Outlook on Windows will stop responding or crash when viewing Uber receipt emails. The issue recently started in what Microsoft calls the current channel version of Outlook available to Microsoft 365 subscribers. Microsoft is developing a fix, but it won’t be available until Patch Tuesday on August 9.

On a support note, spotted by BleepingComputer, Microsoft explains that opening, replying to, or forwarding an Uber receipt email will cause this issue. Uber uses “complex tables” in its emails, and it appears that Microsoft Word, which uses Outlook to display emails, has difficulty rendering these tables.

Image: Microsoft

“The Word team has implemented a fix that will soon be released to the Beta channel for fix verification,” Microsoft explains. “We currently estimate that the patch will go into Current Channel production on Patch Tuesday, August 9, 2022.”

IT administrators can use a workaround to fix the problem by going back to an earlier version of Office that works well with Uber emails. This suggests that the issue was introduced by an Office update rather than a change in Uber emails. In any case, the problem should be fixed by next Tuesday.