Unable to search contacts in Skype for Business?

You can search your buddy or organization people in Skype for Business client. Searching the Skype directory works only with the Skype for Business user interface.

How to Search for people in the Skype directory?

Find the search box on the main Skype for Business contacts page, just below the Contacts tab.

1. Click in the search box and type information about the person you want to search. This can include Skype Name, full name, location, email address, or Microsoft account (the email address used to sign in to services like Outlook.com, OneDrive, Windows Phone, or Xbox LIVE).
2. Click the Skype Directory tab to search the directory.

3. Add more information in the search box if you need to narrow down the results.

4. When you see the listing for the person you want to add, point at their picture or avatar to see your options (such as message, voice call, video call or add to contacts).

5. If you want to add them to one of your groups, click the Add to contacts  If this is a new contact, you can add them to a group, but they have to accept your contact request before you can send them an instant message, call them, or see their presence information.

Ways to search the Skype directory

There are several ways you can search the Skype directory. Each piece of information that you add into the search box helps narrow down the list of results that search returns. Here are some examples:

Unable to search Skype for Business contacts?

First you can check if Skype for Business client address book is downloaded and updated with current date. You can simply visit below path to find address book files.

If GalContacts.db file is up to date then exit Skype for Business client and login again and search contacts.

Address Book Path:

Skype for Business 2015 client: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync\sip_@domainname.com

Skype for Business 2016 client: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Lync\sip_@domainname.com

Note: In Skype for Business Online, address book and GAL lookups are performed through web requests only. The Skype for Business client doesn’t download and save a local copy of the address book any longer. This reduces the load on the servers, and it provides the most up-to-date information possible when you perform a contact search.

If still unable to search contact in address book, then follow below steps:

In rare cases, the contact list may be corrupted because of an invalid character in an “out of office” message or because a lingering deprovisioned contact exists. To resolve this problem, force a contact list update to make sure that your information is synchronized. To this, follow these steps:

1. Locate one of the following folders, depending on your operating system:
   1. For Skype for Business 2015:
2. Windows 7 and 8 or 10:
3. Skype for Business 2015: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync\sip_
4. Skype for Business 2016: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Lync\sip_

Delete the following files:

1. db
2. db.idx
3. cache
4. cache
5. cache
6. cache
7. cache

3. Restart Skype for Business, and then wait for 30 minutes for resynchronization to finish.

If still issue persist then there may be Server / Office 365 tenant problem:

Verify the connectivity to the Address Book Web service is available. To do this, follow these steps:

In the notification area on the right side of the taskbar, locate the Skype for Business icon, hold down the Ctrl key, right-click the Skype for Business icon, and then click Configuration Information.

1. Copy the URL from the GAL Status field.
2. Start Windows Internet Explorer, and then paste the URL in the address bar.
3. The message that you receive from Internet Explorer indicates whether the URL can be accessed from the computer:

Successful: Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage. The connection is successful, but because there’s no HTML page to display, Internet Explorer cannot display the page.

OR

Unsuccessful: The webpage cannot be found. If the URL is inaccessible from the system, Internet Explorer reports that the location cannot be found or is inaccessible.

You may need to check the Exchange Autodiscover service is set up correctly or not. Or maybe your load balancer VIP is block over port 443 then may see above error or something else. Finally enable Skype for business logging and reproduce issue and send log to your IT Administrator. Refer below article for enable logging.

Missing Audio/ video option in Skype for Business client?

Basically audio / video call and Enterprise Voice (Dial-pad) feature control via administrator. You must request IT Admin to enable Audio/Video and enterprise voice (dial-pad) feature to your account.

So how does the Skype for Business client know what features to make available when the user signs in? 

The answer is Skype for Business client receives information through in-band provisioning from backend server.  The Skype for Business client sends out a SIP SUBSCRIBE requesting provisioning information: Below can be seen in Skype for Business client UCCAPILOG.

SUBSCRIBE sip:bilag@bloguc.com SIP/2.0

…

Content-Type: application/vnd-microsoft-roaming-self+xml

The response is a SIP/2.0 200 OK and contained in the response is the setting we’re interested in:

NoAudioVideo

The telephonyMode setting can contain a couple of different values, depending on what the user is configured for:

1. None = PC-to-PC only
2. NoAudioVideo = Audio/Video Disabled
3. RCC = Remote Call Control
4. UC = Enterprise Voice
5. RCC Only = Remote Call Control only

Below screenshot taken from Skype for Business Server Control Panel:

Thank you