After adding a new domain to your Axigen mail server and configuring all the required parameters, Outlook may fail to complete the Autodiscover process. Instead of automatically detecting the server settings, the mail client prompts the user to enter them manually — even though Axigen is already providing the correct Autodiscover response.
This issue affects Outlook 2016 and later, including Microsoft 365 (Office 365) versions that rely on Microsoft’s cloud-based Autodiscover service.
Issue cause
Outlook does not send Autodiscover requests directly to the Axigen server. Instead, the request passes through a Microsoft online endpoint (prod-autodetect.outlookmobile.com), which caches domain configuration values and forwards them to the Outlook client.
When a domain is newly added — or when its configuration has recently changed — the cached values at the Microsoft endpoint may be outdated. As a result, Outlook receives stale or empty configuration data, and the Autodiscover process fails.
Note: This behavior is specific to Outlook clients using Microsoft’s Autodiscover service. Clients that make direct Autodiscover queries, bypassing the Microsoft endpoint, are not affected by this caching issue.
Solution
You can force the Microsoft cloud cache to refresh by sending a detection request with the correct email header. Run the appropriate command for your operating system, replacing your_domain.tld with your actual domain name.
Linux / macOS
curl -s -D - -H "x-email: postmaster@your_domain.tld" "https://prod-autodetect.outlookmobile.com/detect?services=office365,outlook,google,icloud,yahoo&protocols=rest-cloud,rest-outlook,rest-office365,eas,imap,smtp" -o /dev/null
Windows (PowerShell)
(Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://prod-autodetect.outlookmobile.com/detect?services=office365,outlook,google,icloud,yahoo&protocols=rest-cloud,rest-outlook,rest-office365,eas,imap,smtp' -Headers @{'x-email'="postmaster@your_domain.tld"} -UseBasicParsing).Headers
After running the command, retry the Autodiscover setup in Outlook. The client should now receive the correct server configuration from Axigen.