Outlook cannot sign into account - VDI pop-up

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
January 28, 2026
5 replies
176 views

Curious if anyone has found their processes being stalled by a similar Outlook sign-in/out issue? See screenshot attached. It seems every few months, our processes will encounter this sign out/ sign in issue and completely stalls on the server.

The only solution we’ve found is having a server admin delete and rebuild our bot’s account profiles and rebuild them. We’re seeking additional solutions as the current solution isn’t viable for long term use.

Best answer by Dineshkumar Muthu

Hi @raegan.smith, @Lu.Hunnicutt

We had a similar issue in our environment, and the following steps fixed it. We’re on Automation Anywhere v34.

The problem was caused by Windows loading a temporary user profile, which prevented Outlook from accessing the user’s actual settings and credentials. Because of that, Outlook kept showing the “We can’t sign into your account” pop‑up.

What we did

Checked Event Viewer and confirmed the machine was loading a temporary profile.
Fixed the profile entries in the registry under:
```
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
```
- Found the SID with .bak (the correct profile)
- Removed the .bak
- Deleted the temporary SID
Restarted the VM so the correct profile would load.
Recreated the Outlook profile (only needed for a few users).
Verified FSLogix / profile container health to make sure profiles were loading properly going forward.

After applying this, the Outlook pop‑up stopped appearing and everything worked normally again.

Lu.Hunnicutt

Pathfinder Community Team

@Shreya.Kumar or @Oli.Morris -- have you seen this issue pop up in some of your automations?

Let's Connect! www.linkedin.com/in/lu-hunnicutt-1290jan

Dineshkumar MuthuAnswer

Flight Specialist | Tier 4

Hi @raegan.smith, @Lu.Hunnicutt

We had a similar issue in our environment, and the following steps fixed it. We’re on Automation Anywhere v34.

The problem was caused by Windows loading a temporary user profile, which prevented Outlook from accessing the user’s actual settings and credentials. Because of that, Outlook kept showing the “We can’t sign into your account” pop‑up.

What we did

Checked Event Viewer and confirmed the machine was loading a temporary profile.
Fixed the profile entries in the registry under:
```
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
```
- Found the SID with .bak (the correct profile)
- Removed the .bak
- Deleted the temporary SID
Restarted the VM so the correct profile would load.
Recreated the Outlook profile (only needed for a few users).
Verified FSLogix / profile container health to make sure profiles were loading properly going forward.

After applying this, the Outlook pop‑up stopped appearing and everything worked normally again.

"Everything fails all the time, so plan for failure and nothing fails" - Werner Vogels ========== Linkedin Profile : https://www.linkedin.com/in/dineshkumar-muthu/

raegan.smithAuthor

Cadet | Tier 2

Hello there!

Thank you for sharing your experiences, I’ll get with our admins to review and troubleshoot! I appreciate it!

Lu.Hunnicutt

Pathfinder Community Team

Thanks, @Dineshkumar Muthu

@raegan.smith -- keep us posted.

Let's Connect! www.linkedin.com/in/lu-hunnicutt-1290jan

raegan.smithAuthor

Cadet | Tier 2

@Dineshkumar Muthu Thank you again for your assistance!

Our team found the issue was indeed caused by a temporary profile being created which prompted the Outlook pop-up as all processes send failure emails.

What we did

What we did

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