2007 E-mail merge hangs (not responding)

[wg_tech]

we are using Office 2007, trying to do a word email merge to send to a large
number of email addresses. We will not run into the spam issues because we
are sending only to in-house email addrs directly from exchange acct to
others.

Word stops responding (hangs) during the merge, we originally thought to
many for Word to handle, so we cut the list down to 255 and still the same
problem. Then, we tried again just to see with 1200 and all worked. So
there is no real pattern to the hangs. Have searched the web and other have
similar issues. We have 1G ram, 80G hd, dual core proc, on this single task
machine since we will be sending 1 to 2K emails per session.

Any information is greatly appreciated.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

If your copy/copies of Office are still within the free support period, I
strongly recommend that you contact Microsoft support via the support pages
on their website:
a. the people here are basically just volunteers who do not work for
Microsoft
b. I doubt if anyone has any ideas other than the rather general ones you
have probably already come across
c. there have always been reports of merges hanging after so many records.
In the general case, a memory leak is the obvious likely cause, especially
when the merge is not to printer or an output document (where the problem
could be related to the size of the output). However, in this case I suppose
we also have to suspect timing issues between Word and your e-mail client,
or Word and MAPI . I suppose capacity (e.g. of your e-mail client's message
store) could also still be a problem but the random nature of the problem
suggests otherwise.

The only suggestions I can make are that if you are in a position to
experiment without annoying large numbers of people, you could try
a. using a different e-mail client (e.g. Outlook Express) if you are using
SMTP to send (HTML e-mails not supported in that case)
b. if you're using Outlook with Exchange Server, try simplyfying your
Outlook setup and/or changing the way Outlook synchronises with Exchange
Server. e.g. I would probably try to ensure that Outlook's attention is
completely on the merge, e.g. it doesn't start trying to receive any
records, doesn't start trying to autoarchive stuff in the middle of the
merge) and I might try changing the way Outlook syncs. from "cached mode"
(sorry, I can't remember the options off the top of my head)
c. a "one merge per record" approach I can't give you a reference right now
but if you search this group in Google Groups for Peter Jamieson
activerecord you should find various macros for doing that kind of thing.
My guess is that that appraoch will actually be worse but I suppose it is
worth trying. Or try Doug Robbins' approach at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MailMerge/MergeWithAttachments.htm

 

[Paul Travis]

wg_tech, did you ever get this answered? I've got the exact same anomaly.

([email protected])

 

[Mike Vandamme]

I have the same problem and have not found a solutions yet. So any
suggestions are welcome

 

[Robert A.]

Bump, I am having the same issue. I have been moving from machine to machine
within our office because it works fine the first couple of times then just
stops. We use this feature on a monthlt basis and I am running out of
machines. Anyone find a solution yet?

 

[raremind]

Bump, I am having the same issue. I have been moving from machine to machine
within our office because it works fine the first couple of times then just
stops. We use this feature on a monthlt basis and I am running out of
machines. Anyone find a solution yet?







- Show quoted text -

Bumping too, I have been having this issue for months and can not find
a solution although I do know it is the connection to outlook that is
causing it, once a machine stops responding to email nothing else will
work with the email connection. Please help!

 

[Mike Vandamme]

I am using now the pinpoint marketing tool and ... it works ! !
(www.pinpointtools.com)

Mike

 

[Robert A.]

Now why would I buy a package for 200 buck when the funtionality is free with
the office package? Keep your forum spam to yourself. Anybody have a real
solution?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

and I am running out of

machines.

A couple of things it might be worth trying, either as diagnostics or as a
workaround, although I expect you already have...
a. run Office Diagnostics (e.g. in WOrd 2007 Office button|->Word
options->resources)
b. clear temp files
c. if you have a machine you feel you can experiment with a bit more, use
Windows Restore (in WinXP, or whatever it's called in Vista) to make a
checkpoint, run the merge, then restore the machine
d. if you happen to have something like VMWare, do (c) with a virtual
machine but use VMWare's facilities to rollback to the pre-merge state.
e. It might also be worth trying to delete/recreate any Outlook Profile
post-merge.

If anyone has any Word crash diagnostics (probably because they have had to
crash Word rather than because this scenario causes a crash), let me know
and I'll see what I can do with them.

 

[Bob]

I've been having the exact same problem, and I've found that it isn't just
limited to Office 2007; I've seen the same behavior on a machine with Office
2003.

I've researched this problem in depth 3 times now, including posting the
issue here twice, and I haven't found even an inkling of reason as to how to
resolve this problem. I goofed around with a few things that seem to help,
but Word still hangs frequently whenever we try to send out a large mail
merge. I'll post these tweaks below.

I'm just glad to see that finally my company isn't the only one experiencing
this problem. It's one of the most frustrating troubleshooting issues I've
had to deal with. The problem happens so randomly that's near impossible to
find any fix that works consistently. Using 2007, you start a mail merge
(using the lovely ribbon now), select recipients (we always use an Excel file
as the source), click Finish and Merge, type a subject, and send as HTML
(sending as Plain Text is a whole other issue). Sometimes we'll get through
thousands of e-mail without a problem, sometimes we won't get through 2
without crashing... again and again and again. I tried this on 3 different
machines, one with Office 2007, one with Office 2003. Both experienced the
same problem. I then tried a mail merge with a cleanly formatted machine with
a fresh install of XP and Office 2007. Again, the EXACT same problem. There’s
no rhyme or reason to it. I don’t know what’s causing the problem, only that,
at one point, it was working beautifully, and at the next, PLOP. I suspect
that Windows updates are the cause of this problem. We didn’t make any other
company-wide installs during this period when mail merge stopped working.

So this leaves us users with the following options:
1) Wait for Microsoft to first of all acknowledge this as a problem, then
release an update that will fix it. I'm not holding my breath for this one,
but I'm sure it will happen eventually.

or,

2) Use an alternative product. I toyed around with Open Office as they also
have a mail merge feature, but I could never get it to work. However, I just
came across the following add-on tool: Mail Merge Toolkit
(http://www.mapilab.com/outlook/mail_merge/). This tool, among other things,
says that it makes merging more "reliable in operation." I purchased one
license for my company and so far it seems to be working. We sent out a mail
merge with 10,000 recipients this afternoon and it didn't crash once; no way
would we have had this kind of consistency using Word alone. Really it's
rather ridiculous that we ended up having to pay to get this feature to work
when we should have had it to begin with, but the Toolkit is relatively cheap
and at this point I'll take it if it works. And it’s a miracle if it does.
We’ve been having this problem for months and I’m at my wit’s end. I honestly
recommend this tool to anyone who’s experiencing this problem.


Here are the tweaks I was using before I found this tool if anyone is
interested and doesn't feel like shelling out any money for this problem:

1) Keep Outlook open and set it to Work Offline. Any interruptions such as
Send/Receive attempts seems to bring about a crash. Disable your network
connection if you have to.
2) Don't save the Word document you're using for the mail merge. Copy your
e-mail text into a new document, DON'T SAVE IT, and execute the mail merge
from there. Don't ask me why this affects anything, but it does.
3) If you're sending out a large number of e-mails (in the thousands), break
your source file down into chunks of about 1000, maybe 2000 records.

Also, I only ever used Excel as a source file, so I don't know how well this
system works with other data sources. If you're still having problems, try
converting your data source to an Excel file. Saved as a 2003 or 2007
version. It doesn't seem to matter.


I hope some of this helps those of you who are still experiencing this
frustrating problem.

 

[Bob]

Also, if anyone has come up with a solution that doesn't involve going with
an add-on or another product entirely, please post it. I'd love to see this
problem resolved in a better way.

 

[ccstamper]

Bob, Thank you SO much for sharing what you've learned and confirming, for so
many, that this IS in fact a problem and not unique at all. I have
spent/wasted countless hours struggling with this, both in Word 2003 and now
on a brand new machine with Office 2007 out of the box, etc. I've even
re-formatted and reinstalled to 'factory fresh' my entire machine in an
attempt to get this mail merge "feature" to work as documented, thinking
perhaps I had copied or restored some bug or problem from the old pc.

I have been reading threads and posts all evening trying to find any solid
information about this issue, and virtually every other time this topic has
been posted it has been met with a scolding for not including enough data, or
a hand slapping for not wording the question correctly. I was getting pretty
disgusted with the attitudes of these non-answers. Thank you for your
gracious and generous help. Just to have postive confirmation that there is
a problem, and some solid suggestions on working around the issue, supplied
by someone generous and truly interested in helping others, has me signing
off tonight on a much more positive note. Thanks for taking the time to make
a difference.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Can I suggest again that you contact MS Support (In the UK you will probably
have to contact "MS Professional Support" as the poroblem involves more than
one product from their point of view), especially since it seems that you
have a brand new copy of Office 2007, in which case the support should be
free (unless your copy is an OEM version).

I have tried to bring this problem to the attention of MS, and would report
it myself via MS Support, but unfortunately, I have been unable to replicate
the problem on my systems here (probably because I'm not doing real merges
like this at the moment), which leaves me stuck when I am asked further
questions and no-oone else provides me with an answer. One of the things
I've been asked for is crash dump info. which of course I cannot provide
(and AFAICS no-one else can provide unless Word actually crashes, which it
does not appear to do. Even info. from the Windows Event log that is created
when /you/ have to stop the Word process might be useful.

Have you had the same experience that "Robert A." mentioned in this thread,
i.e. that once the merge had gone wrong on a machine, it never worked again
on that machine? If so, are you in a position to try the system restore
approach that I suggested?

I have been reading threads and posts all evening trying to find any solid
information about this issue, and virtually every other time this topic
has
been posted it has been met with a scolding for not including enough data,
or
a hand slapping for not wording the question correctly.

IMO that is always a shame, but FWIW there is another side to these things,
which is that people who are genuinely trying to help do not always have
enough info. to go on. In fact, the less common the problem, the more likely
that is to be the case, because the chances are that it is being caused by a
very specific combination of factors. It is quite common to spend quite a
lot of time researching a problem, then discover that you cannot get any
further without asking some (potentially relevant questions which
frequently receive no response.

 

[ccstamper]

I purchased my copy of Office Professional 2007 with my LEnovo laptop through
directly through IBM. I have the physical install disks, but I'm not sure
where that puts me in regard to free support from MS. I'm sure I should
pursue that.

At this point, attempting to get my taxes filed and in the midst of a major
promotional sales period, I simply can't invest any more time or risk messing
up my laptop in other ways, by experimenting and making changes purely to
address this problem, although I appreciate your suggestions. As great as my
frustration is over not having this tool working, I simply can't afford the
time or the risk (I'm not that comfortable/confident making system changes
and restoring, etc.) right now to personally troubleshoot it. The short term
answer, which is lousy, is for me to continue to email my customers their
monthly news note &/or specials by sending to a small group of them at a
time, putting their info in the bcc field. Cumbersome and non-slick, but far
less time consuming than playing hit-and-miss with the mail merge. I know at
one point as I was struggling with this, and resending, the first couple
dozen clients receive the same note, multiple times while others never got
it. Anything I do at this point must be seamless to my clients.

I have no desire to purchase any additional software to do my mass emails,
by the way.

I'll keep your notes handy should I feel brave at some point, however.
Thanks for the input!

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Unfortunately, in that case, the produce is supported by Lenovo rather that
directly by Microsoft. But if enought people can make an issue of it with
Lenovo, they might then make an issue of it with Microsoft.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Erich456]

I've been having problems with Word not responding when I do a mail merge
from Excel to a file... I've been able to get around it by making sure EVERY
record for EVERY field on the layout has data in it -- no empty cells. This
doesn't help when you want to do any kind of dynamic layout, but at least it
doesn't hang the application. Maybe that's what happening for you too.

What is the best way to get Microsoft to look into something like this?