Lync 2013 Contact Search issue

My office recently ran across an issue which prevented users from being able to search Lync by username or ID. The only way around this was to run searches with users email accounts after upgrading to Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013).

Upon researching the issue further we came across several solutions to correct the failure in functionality.

Solution 1:

1. Go into Control Panel, Program and Features, Select Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013
2. Click Change
3. First time through select Not Available
4. Once it completes, run it again and select Installed on First Use

Solution 2:

1. If solution 1 fails, the cached contacts may be corrupt.
2. Go to C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync\sip_yourname@domain.com
3. Delete the following cache files:
   • Galcontacts.db
   • galcontacts.db.idx
   • CoreContact.cache
   • ABS_.cache
   • Mfugroup.cache
   • PersonalLISDB.cache
   • PresencePhoto.cache
4. Restart the application, wait 30 minutes for resynchronization to finish and test the search features.
   FYI... The galcontacts files may not get recreated in some cases, but search should still work fine.

Solution 3:

CAUTION:   requires a change in the registry.

For Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013):

1. Go to C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync\sip_yourname@domain.com,
2. And then delete all the cache files under the folder.
3. Go to the registry to HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator and create a new reg entry, DWORD, GalDownloadInitialDelay, value 0.
4. Exit Lync and reopen it will recreate the address book and begin searching properly.

For Lync 2010:

1. Go to C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Communicator\sip_yourname@domain.com,
2. And then delete all the cache files under the folder.
3. Go to the registry to HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator and create a new reg entry, DWORD, GalDownloadInitialDelay, value 0.
4. Exit Lync and reopen, it will recreate the address book and begin searching properly.

Solution 4:

Worst case scenario is to uninstall your installation of Office 2013, along with any other old versions of Office you might have on your computer, and then to restart your machine and reinstall the program fresh.