When running a cmdlet, an exception may be encountered with a message of "Group does not exist". This is a UCMA exception that is thrown by the FE server and occurs for random users in certain environments. This occurs when SEFAUtil Server attempts to add somebody to the Workgroup Privacy Relationship for the user. This appears to be an issue in the Skype for Business Server environment.


In SEFAUtil Server version 1.0.6397.22392 or earlier, this exception could occur in any cmdlet. This will cause the entire operation to fail.


In version 1.0.6674.26808 and later, this exception will be handled and a warning logged except when a cmdlet is executed involving delegates (Set-CsUserDelegates or Set-CsUserForwarding with the -SetDelegates switch). In a normal SfB environment, the delegate is added to the Workgroup Privacy Relationship of the delegator, and therefore we throw the exception when this occurs during a delegate operation. If you want to prevent the exception from being thrown, there is a flag that can be added (detailed below). If you are receiving this exception, though, we strongly recommend fixing the environment to prevent this from happening.


Use this flag at your own risk in version 1.0.6674.26808 and later to prevent the "Group does not exist" exception from being thrown.

  • Browse to the installation directory for SEFAUtil Server (C:\Program Files\Landis Technologies LLC\SefaUtilServer) and open the file named SEFAUtilServerService.exe.config
  • Search for ignoreGroupDoesNotExistError and remove the <!-- from the beginning and the --> from the end.
  • The final result of the line should be 
    <add key="ignoreGroupDoesNotExistError" value="True" />


  • Save the file and restart the SEFAUtil Server service.