Hey everyone,
I'm trying to troubleshoot a rather persistent Microsoft Edge Sync issue with my personal Microsoft account (@outlook.de). I've been struggling with this for a while and would appreciate some input from anyone familiar with Edge Sync internals, MSA authentication or Microsoft's sync backend. Persists for multiple months now.
Environment
Windows 11
Microsoft Edge Stable 157.x (originally affected)
Microsoft Edge Beta 158.0.4370.16 (installed for troubleshooting, same issue)
Microsoft Edge on iOS (same issue)
Personal Microsoft Account (MSA / u/outlook.de)
Important: The issue already existed on Stable 157. I only installed Edge Beta 158 after troubleshooting suggestions, to check whether this might be a version-specific issue. It made no difference.
Symptoms
Signing into Edge works without any issues.
Sync is enabled and consent is granted.
However, synchronization never actually starts.
The transport state remains permanently stuck at Initializing.
No bookmarks, passwords or other data are synchronized.
The exact same problem occurs on iOS: signing in works, but synchronization does not.
Signing out and back in on iOS did not resolve the issue.
Edge Sync Internals
Here are the relevant diagnostic results from edge://sync-internals:
Summary
Property |Value
|
Transport State |Initializing
User Actionable Error |None
Disable Reasons |None
Sync Feature Enabled |true
Setup In Progress |false
Auth Error |OK since browser startup
Sync Account Type |MSA Authentication
Both authentication tokens are successfully requested and received:
MainSyncToken
KeyDataToken
MSA Account Key Status
This is particularly interesting:
Download Key Result: Success
HTTP Response Code: 200
Process Key Result: success
Set Key Result: Success
Key Count: 10
So downloading and processing the MSA account keys appears to work perfectly.
Encryption
Cryptographer Ready To Encrypt: false
Cryptographer Has Pending Keys: false
Encrypted Types: Uninitialized
Has Keystore Key: false
Passphrase Required: false
Explicit Passphrase: false
Sync Engine
Sync Service:
Last initial state: FeatureCanStart
Sync Engine:
Backend Status: Initializing
BlockReason: Stop
Syncer: ServerReturnTransientError
DataType Manager:
State: Stopped
Network / Server Errors
The sync log repeatedly reports:
HTTP error (503)
and:
Protocol error (TRANSIENT_ERROR)
The configured sync endpoint is:
https://edge.microsoft.com/sync/v1/feeds/me/syncEntities
The server environment reported by Edge is:
Prod_germanywestcentral_prod-s01-010-eur-germanywestcentral
Network Troubleshooting
I also checked basic network connectivity:
Test-NetConnection edge.microsoft.com -Port 443
Result:
TcpTestSucceeded: True
HTTPS connectivity works as well, although a generic HEAD request to the endpoint returns HTTP 400, which isn't necessarily meaningful.
No obvious connectivity issues have been identified.
Additional observation: Microsoft iOS client
I tested Edge on my iPhone using the exact same Microsoft account.
This makes a Windows-specific profile or installation issue considerably less likely.
Microsoft Support is also having issues
I attempted to contact Microsoft Support through Copilot, but even the support chat failed to initialize:
Chat init request failed: 504
The service behind this page isn't responding to Azure Front Door.
OriginTimeout
Obviously, this is a separate service and I cannot conclude that both failures share the same root cause. Still, it hasn't exactly made troubleshooting easier.
What I've tried / ruled out
Edge Stable 157 → issue present.
Edge Beta 158 → same issue.
Windows network connectivity checked.
MSA authentication confirmed working.
MSA account keys successfully downloaded and processed.
iOS Edge tested with the same account → same sync issue.
Signing out and back in on iOS → no improvement.
I have deliberately NOT deleted my existing Edge profile or performed another server-side sync reset because I don't want to risk losing existing synchronization data without understanding the underlying issue.
My questions
Has anyone encountered this exact combination of successful MSA authentication, successful account key download (HTTP 200), but a permanently stuck sync engine?
Could this indicate an inconsistent server-side Nigori / Keystore state associated with my Microsoft account?
Is there a way to inspect or repair the server-side MSA Sync state without wiping existing synchronized data?
Are there any additional diagnostic logs or endpoints worth investigating?
Could someone familiar with Chromium's Sync Engine explain why the cryptographer remains uninitialized even though the MSA account keys are successfully downloaded and processed?
At this point, I'm leaning towards an account-specific or server-side Edge Sync issue rather than a local client or network problem.
Any ideas from Edge insiders, Chromium developers or Microsoft engineers would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!