Hydration Error Page

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In Microsoft datacenters, certain objects in your organization are consolidated to save space. When you modify one of these objects for the first time, all of the consolidated objects in your organization are expanded. This expansion is known as hydration. Here are some examples of common actions that cause hydration for your organization:

  • Creating a new role group or a new management role assignment.

  • Creating a new role assignment policy or modifying a built-in role assignment policy.

  • Creating a new Outlook Web App mailbox policy or modifying a built-in Outlook Web App mailbox policy.

  • Creating a new sharing policy or modifying a built-in sharing policy.

  • Creating a new retention policy or modifying a built-in retention policy.

When you do something in the Exchange admin center (EAC) that requires hydration, you see a status message that looks like this:

Updating Organization Settings
Please wait a moment while we update your organization settings...

When hydration fails, you receive the error that brought you here:

Error
Sorry! We couldn't update your organization settings. Please try again.

How do I fix the problem?

There are some things you can try, but you might not be able to fix the problem yourself.

  • Wait a while   The error may be caused by a temporary issue in Exchange Online that affects everyone or just your specific organization. Close the error window, log out of the EAC, and try again in a few minutes or a few hours.

  • Try PowerShell   For connection instructions, see Connect to Exchange Online using remote PowerShell. After you are connected, run the following command:

    Enable-OrganizationCustomization -Verbose

    If the command runs without error, you can return to the EAC and try the original task again. It should work now.

If neither of these steps work, it's very likely that the problem is beyond your control. You can contact support (Microsoft customer support or the support forums) and use the information from the Enable-OrganizationCustomization -Verbose command to help diagnose the problem.