Troubleshoot the Sidepanel

If the Sidepanel does not load or stays empty, this guide helps you find the cause and the change needed to get it working.

For how to install the Sidepanel in the first place, see Set up the Sidepanel as an Outlook app or the "Set up the Sidepanel as a browser extension" article.

Using the Sidepanel as a browser extension?

The sections below cover the Sidepanel as an Outlook app (add-in). If you use the browser extension, check these first:

• "Looking up conversation" keeps showing. The extension reads which conversation you have open from Outlook on the web. Select an email so it is visible in the reading pane, and if the panel stays stuck, reload the Outlook tab and reopen the panel.
• "The automation is still running." The conversation was found, but no automation has finished for it yet. The panel updates automatically as soon as results arrive.
• "Nothing here." The conversation was found, but no automation produced actions for it. This is expected for conversations Tekst does not process.
• An "integration not found" message after logging in. Your mailbox is not connected to a Tekst integration. Contact your Tekst administrator.
• Login problems. Make sure you pick the right method: "Log in" for username and password, "Log in via SSO" with your organization's subdomain for single sign-on.
• Tekst unreachable. Check that api.tekst.com loads in a normal browser tab and is not blocked by a firewall, proxy, or content filter.

If none of that helps, contact support@tekst.com and mention you are using the browser extension, your browser version, and what the panel shows.

Using the Outlook app: which Outlook are you using?

Most blocked cases in the Outlook app come down to a small number of setups that classic Outlook on Windows does not fully support, and each one has a fix that also leaves your configuration in a better, more secure state.

The Sidepanel works out of the box on:

• Outlook on the web
• Outlook for Mac
• The new Outlook for Windows

Most of the edge cases in this guide are specific to Outlook desktop classic on Windows. If you have a choice, the fastest fix is to open the same mailbox in the new Outlook for Windows or in Outlook on the web, where the panel loads without any extra configuration.

One exception: a shared mailbox hidden from your organization's address list (see "The mailbox is hidden from the address list" below) blocks the panel on every Outlook client, not just classic Outlook on Windows, because it prevents the panel from getting any mailbox context at all.

If you have to stay on Outlook desktop classic on Windows, use the sections below based on what you see.

When the panel cannot load, it shows an error page

If the panel cannot start, it no longer spins forever. After a short timeout it shows an error page with a Copy diagnostics button.

Whenever you contact us about a panel that will not load, click Copy diagnostics and paste the result into your message to support@tekst.com. That report tells us exactly where the panel got stuck and usually lets us pinpoint the cause in one step.

The panel does not appear at all

Symptom: The Tekst panel stays blank and never renders any content.

Cause: The panel needs a modern rendering engine (WebGL 2) to draw its interface. Outlook desktop classic hosts add-ins inside the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime, which supports WebGL 2. On older or misconfigured machines, Outlook can fall back to the legacy Internet Explorer engine, which cannot render the panel.

Fix:

• Make sure Windows and Microsoft 365 (Outlook) are fully up to date.
• Install or update the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime.
• Restart Outlook after updating.

If the panel still does not appear after updating, click Copy diagnostics on the error page and send it to support@tekst.com.

The panel shows an error or does not finish loading

Work through these checks in order.

Open an email first. The panel only activates while you are reading a specific message. If you open it from the folder or inbox view with no email selected, it cannot get the mailbox context and times out. Open an email so it shows in the reading pane or its own window, then open the Tekst panel.

Confirm Tekst is reachable. In a browser on the same computer, check that api.tekst.com loads and is not blocked by a firewall, proxy, or content filter. If it is blocked, ask your IT team to allow it, then reopen the panel.

If Tekst is reachable and an email is open, the next step depends on whether you are working in a shared mailbox.

It is a personal mailbox

If the mailbox is your own (not a shared mailbox) and the panel still fails, click Copy diagnostics on the error page and send it to support@tekst.com. Personal-mailbox failures are usually something we need to look into directly, and the diagnostics report is what lets us do that quickly.

It is a shared mailbox

Most failures on Outlook desktop classic happen with shared mailboxes. Run the three checks below. The third one, automapping, is the cause we see most often.

1. The mailbox is hidden from the address list

If the shared mailbox is hidden from the Global Address List (GAL), the panel cannot resolve it and fails to load.

Fix (Microsoft 365 administrator):

• Open the Exchange admin center at admin.exchange.microsoft.com.
• Go to Recipients > Mailboxes and select the shared mailbox.
• Turn off Hide from my organization's address lists (also shown as "Hide from address lists") and save.
• Alternatively, run this in Exchange Online PowerShell:

Set-Mailbox -Identity "sharedmailbox@yourcompany.com" -HiddenFromAddressListsEnabled $false

• Allow a short time for the change to propagate, then restart Outlook and reopen the panel.

2. The mailbox was added by signing in with its own password

A shared mailbox should be reached through delegated access, not by adding it as a separate account and signing in with a username and password for the mailbox itself. Direct password sign-in is not a supported or secure setup, and the panel does not work reliably with it.

Fix:

• In Outlook, remove the directly added account: File > Account Settings > Account Settings, select the shared mailbox account, and click Remove.
• Have a Microsoft 365 administrator grant the user access instead (see the automapping steps below), so the mailbox is added through delegation rather than a password.
• As a best practice, the administrator should keep sign-in blocked for the shared mailbox account. Shared mailboxes do not need their own password, and blocking sign-in is more secure and keeps every action tied to the individual user who performed it.

3. The mailbox was not added through automapping

This is the most common cause. When an administrator grants a user Full Access to a shared mailbox, Outlook normally adds it automatically through automapping. Mailboxes added this way work with the panel. As a rule of thumb, if the user could open the mailbox through their normal permissions, the panel will work.

Problems appear when the mailbox was added by hand as an extra account (automapping off) instead of appearing automatically. Some teams do this deliberately to keep the local Outlook cache (OST file) from growing, but the panel does not load reliably in that setup.

Fix:

First, as a Microsoft 365 administrator, grant the user Full Access with automapping enabled. Either of these works:

• Microsoft 365 admin center (no Exchange admin role needed): go to admin.microsoft.com and open Teams & groups > Shared mailboxes. Select the mailbox, and under the members section click Edit to add the user. Adding a member this way grants Full Access and turns on automapping at the same time.
• Exchange admin center or Exchange Online PowerShell (useful for bulk changes or when you need to confirm automapping explicitly):

Add-MailboxPermission -Identity "sharedmailbox@yourcompany.com" -User "user@yourcompany.com" `
    -AccessRights FullAccess -AutoMapping $true

• If Full Access was previously granted with automapping turned off, remove it and add it again with automapping enabled:

Remove-MailboxPermission -Identity "sharedmailbox@yourcompany.com" -User "user@yourcompany.com" `
    -AccessRights FullAccess
Add-MailboxPermission -Identity "sharedmailbox@yourcompany.com" -User "user@yourcompany.com" `
    -AccessRights FullAccess -AutoMapping $true

• If Full Access was granted through membership in a security group rather than to the user directly, automapping never happens, no matter how long you wait or how often Outlook is restarted. Grant Full Access to the individual user's mailbox instead of the group.

Then, the user needs to make Outlook pick up the change:

• If the shared mailbox is currently added by hand (as its own account, or listed under the account's advanced "additional mailboxes" settings), remove that copy first so it does not conflict with the copy added through automapping.
• Fully close Outlook (exit completely, not just close the window) and reopen it. Outlook only rebuilds its mailbox list on startup, so a permission change granted while Outlook is running will not appear until it restarts.
• Permission changes can take a while to reach Outlook. If the mailbox still does not appear after a restart, wait and restart Outlook again.
• If it still does not appear, ask IT to recreate the Outlook profile (Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles). This forces Outlook to run Autodiscover again and pick up the newly granted access.

Once the mailbox appears under the user's own account, select an email in it and open the Tekst panel to confirm it loads.

If you turned automapping off to control the size of the OST cache, see Slow shared mailboxes - cause and solution for other ways to keep the cache under control while keeping automapping on.

Using the new Outlook for Windows? A shared mailbox added through automapping shows up under Settings > Accounts > Shared with me rather than as a full account, with a Convert option to promote it. You do not need to convert it for the panel: reading email in it works either way. Converting is only needed if the user wants to manage the shared mailbox's own account settings.

Still stuck?

If you have worked through the checks above and the panel still does not load, click Copy diagnostics on the error page and send it to support@tekst.com. Let us know which Outlook version you are using and whether it is a personal or shared mailbox. We are happy to join a short call to confirm the cause and walk through the change needed.