Folks are getting frustrated with Unknown Users showing in Teams. Here's why they appear

Microsoft Teams, a popular collaboration app, has been throwing a weird issue lately. In recent months, there were countless reports of accounts appearing as Unknown User in Microsoft Teams. In a few small organizations, every single person appeared as an Unknown User!

Most of the time, the problem automatically disappears after 3-7 days. Subsequently, the actual account name is listed instead of Unknown User.

Microsoft hasn’t yet acknowledged the problem, shared a resolution, or released a patch. However, on closely monitoring the issue, a pattern emerges, highlighting what could be causing it in the first place.

Why are Unknown Users appearing in Teams?

• Username changed recently: The issue often appears when you change the account’s username.
• Account inactive for a while: When re-enabling inactive accounts, you might find them appearing as Unknown Users for, say, 24 hours to up to 7 days.
• Sync delay between Teams and Azure Active Directory (AAD): In a few cases, there is a delay in syncing any changes made to individual accounts between Microsoft Teams and AAD. This is a known issue plaguing systems worldwide, though the delay differs from region to region.
• Bug in the new Microsoft Teams app: A few reported the issue after upgrading to the new Microsoft Teams app, indicating a bug in it.

For a quick resolution, you can always log out and then sign back in, clear the Teams cache (or delete the browser cache if using Microsoft Teams web), or switch to a different device, say from Teams on PC to the iOS app or the web version.

If these don’t work, check our advanced solutions for Unknown User appearing in Microsoft Teams.

Teams users express exasperation over the bug

Reports of Unknown User in Microsoft Teams started appearing in November’23 and, since then, have increased exponentially worldwide. We found these on Reddit and dedicated Microsoft forums.

unknown user
byu/Dust_Imp inMicrosoftTeams

I’m experiencing this issue today, all of my users in teams are appearing as “Unknown User” but have the correct profile image. No changes have been made to the accounts. Coincidentally my Teams had also switched back to light mode when I always have it in dark. This is “new teams”.

“Buggy Mess” is putting it mildly. Maybe MS should test its newly developed apps in a closed beta and not use users for beta testing. Users in our environment are experiencing the same error. In addition, the new Teams has many other errors. Since this error has existed since at least January 24 2024 and there is no solution, knowing MS we will most likely have to live with this error.

For now, you can only resort to general fixes and workarounds when an account appears as an Unknown User in Microsoft Teams. We are closely monitoring the situation and will share a fix as soon as Microsoft releases it.

As for improvements to the collaboration software in recent years, Microsoft Teams can find out if you not paying attention!

If your organization also has accounts that appear as Unknown User, share what worked for you in the comments section.