Fix: The Action 'update-distributiongroupmember' 'bypasssecuritygroupmanagercheck identity members' – O365 Admin

If you are trying to change or update a distribution group in Office365 administrator, you may receive the following error that prevents you from making the change.

error

The action ‘Update-DistributionGroupMember’,’BypassSecurityGroupManagerCheck,Identity,Members’, can’t be performed on the object “”because the object is being synchronized from your on-premises organization. This action should be performed on the object in your on premises organization.

There was likely an O365 synchronization issue with your organizations Active Directory, which caused O365 distribution groups getting synced with on-premises Active Directory groups, which caused display names and memberships to be changed unexpectedly. The error should specify an AD object so you will want to investigate that objects groups email address attribute that would have a corresponding O365 email address.

It advised you contact Microsoft support to understand how the synchronization issue occurred.

More information below.

As the error message says, distribution groups that are created in Office 365 through directory synchronization must be managed in the on-premises environment. Distribution group owners must manage the group by using on-premises tools for Exchange Server such as followings:

Exchange Admin Center, Exchange Management Console, Exchange Management Shell

After changes are made to the group in the on-premises environment, the changes are synced to Office 365 the next time that directory synchronization runs.