Check Names Will Not Let Me Send Email

[Candy]

Hello,

I am trying to send an email. I have entered an email address in the to
section that I do not want to save to my contacts file. Outlook will not let
me send unless I do.

This was not happening before last week when my computer crashed and was
fixed. How do I get Outlook to let me send my email without saving the
contact? My contacts files will become huge if I have to save the email
address of every single person I write to.

Please help. And thanks in advance.

Candy

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

I am trying to send an email. I have entered an email address in the to
section that I do not want to save to my contacts file. Outlook will not
let
me send unless I do.

This was not happening before last week when my computer crashed and was
fixed. How do I get Outlook to let me send my email without saving the
contact? My contacts files will become huge if I have to save the email
address of every single person I write to.

What do you mean by "won't let you"? Does a pair of arms reach out of your
computer and tie you up?

You have to give us some detail. State your Outlook version and account type.
Tell us exactly what you're doing, clicking, etc. and exactly what happens
when you try? You must post the exact and complete text of any errors that
display. With that information we can probably explain.

 

[VanguardLH]

I am trying to send an email. I have entered an email address in the
to section that I do not want to save to my contacts file. Outlook
will not let me send unless I do.

This was not happening before last week when my computer crashed and
was fixed. How do I get Outlook to let me send my email without
saving the contact? My contacts files will become huge if I have to
save the email address of every single person I write to.

You can enter whatever e-mail address you want in the To, Cc, and Bcc
fields displayed in the new-mail editor window. You do not have to save
these e-mail addresses as contact records in your address book.
However, they will get saved in your nickname cache file (.nk2) but why
would you care that they got cached? The cache is only to make it
convenient to lookup a previously entered e-mail string when you are
entering it again later. You could delete the .nk2 file and let it
rebuild but that still has nothing to do with your claimed problem.

You never bothered to identify WHICH version of Outlook that you have.
The later versions have an option to save the e-mail addresses of those
to whom you write e-mails in your contact records or into a safe senders
whitelist. So just disable that option if you don't want everyone to
whom you write e-mails to get a contact record added for them.


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Explain YOUR computing environment and just what actions you take to
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And DETAIL the steps to reproduce the error or problem.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

If check names tells you that the message cannot be sent because a recipient
is not resolved, that suggests that there is a problem with the address,
maybe a typo that keeps it from being in proper format,
(e-mail address removed).

 

[Candy]

Thank you Brian (although, I could have done without the sarcasm) and
VanguardLH for your answers. I will try to provide the required information.


1. Microsoft Outlook 2007, part of Microsoft Office Professional 2007.
2. I was trying to send an email.
3. When I clicked on the huge send button – nothing happened. The email I
wrote would not send.
4. I don’t recall receiving any error messages when that happened.

Then I got a bright idea. I checked the email address I was trying to send
to through the following site:

http://www.ipaddresslocation.org/

If you scroll down the page, it provides (among many other things) a place
to check the validity of an email address. The address to which I was trying
to send (obviously some old information from another site) was no longer
valid.

I did not realize that Outlook checked for that. I’ve never had that happen
before, that I can recall. But, that is the only reason I can figure out
that the email would not send.

Thank you, VanguarLH for all your helpful hints. I will try to remember
them. I get too anxious sometimes when I run into a problem that I cannot
figure out. I want to find the answer, so I hurriedly post my question.
Thank you for your patience.

Candy

 

[VanguardLH]

Thank you Brian (although, I could have done without the sarcasm) and
VanguardLH for your answers. I will try to provide the required information.


1. Microsoft Outlook 2007, part of Microsoft Office Professional 2007.
2. I was trying to send an email.
3. When I clicked on the huge send button – nothing happened. The email I
wrote would not send.
4. I don’t recall receiving any error messages when that happened.

Then I got a bright idea. I checked the email address I was trying to send
to through the following site:

http://www.ipaddresslocation.org/

If you scroll down the page, it provides (among many other things) a place
to check the validity of an email address. The address to which I was trying
to send (obviously some old information from another site) was no longer
valid.

I did not realize that Outlook checked for that. I’ve never had that happen
before, that I can recall. But, that is the only reason I can figure out
that the email would not send.

Thank you, VanguarLH for all your helpful hints. I will try to remember
them. I get too anxious sometimes when I run into a problem that I cannot
figure out. I want to find the answer, so I hurriedly post my question.
Thank you for your patience.

Candy

The "Check Name" function in Outlook does no online lookup. It merely
checks if the e-mail address you entered has a matching entry in your
contact records (rather than from the manually entered entries that were
cached in the .nk2 file). The "Check Name" operation is performed
internally and before Outlook ever makes a connection.

Outlook has no clue if an e-mail address that you entered (or even
copied from an e-mail) is valid or not. Outlook is an e-mail client,
not an e-mail server. The only place the e-mail address can be checked
if valid or not is at the receiving mail server. So your e-mail client
(Outlook) would send your message to your sending mail server whereupon
your sending mail server tries to connect to the receiving mail server.

If the domain is invalid (no host accepting SMTP connects at that
domain) then your sending mail server cannot connect anywhere; however,
the mail session between your e-mail client and your sending mail server
is already over by the time for whenever your sending mail server
decides to get around to sending your message. Your sending mail server
does NOT connect to the receiving mail server when your e-mail client is
connected to your sending mail server. Your sending mail server ends
the session with your client and then sometime LATER sends your message.
That means your sending mail server would have to dump an NDR
(non-delivery report) e-mail into your mailbox that your client picks up
later.

If the receiving mail server exists, your sending mail server connects
to it. The receiving mail server then determines if the email address
(username) is valid. If not, it rejects the e-mail *during* the mail
session with the sending mail server. Since the mail session between
your client and the sending server is long gone, your sending mail
server dumps an NDR e-mail into your mailbox that your client picks up
later. Some receiving mail servers are misconfigured in that they will
accept all e-mails during the mail session with the sending server.
They then later determine if that message is deliverable. Since they no
longer are connected to the sending mail server, they cannot simply
reject the e-mail and let the sending server decide where to dump the
NDR message. Instead the receiving mail server, just like the
recipient, only has the headers on which to base where to send back its
NDR message; however, if the sender's e-mail address is bogus then the
NDR doesn't get back to the sender but off to some bit bucket or to the
wrong e-mail address.

If your e-mail moves out of the Outbox into the Sent Items folder then
Outlook got an +OK status back from your sending mail server. Outlook
is thereafter out of the loop. It finished its operation and has no
further control over delivery of your e-mail. Delivery is then up to
your sending mail server. If you don't get back an NDR from your
sending mail server then either it never attempted to send your e-mail
(so no error would've been generated by a receiving mail server) or it
got back and +OK status from the receiving mail server (which also means
the receiving mail server accepted your e-mail because the e-mail
address was valid or the receiving mail server check for delivery after
its mail session is over with the sending mail server but hasn't gotten
around to sending back an NDR to you).

You will have to do a lot better in your description than just "Outlook
will not let me send". If that were true, Outlook would've issued an
error message but you say there wasn't one. You never mentioned if your
e-mail moves from the Outbox to Sent Items folder. If it does, Outlook
was told your sending mail server accepted your message which means
Outlook is thereafter out of the picture regarding delivery.

So let's start at the basics. After composing your e-mail and clicking
the Send button, just what does happen? Are you entering a valid e-mail
address into the To field? Are you entering the e-mail address manually
or retrieving it from a contact record (i.e., address book)? Do you see
an error message? Does your e-mail move into the Outbox folder? Does
it then later (and the conclusion of the mail session with your sending
mail server) move it into the Sent Items folder?

 

[Candy]

1. The situation I first described was only one email, one time.
2. I said, “Outlook would not let me sendâ€, because that is just what
happened. I did not know how else to describe it. I am not an expert. That
is why I come to this group – looking for answers.
3. I believe the email address came either from an esnips page or from
another web site on which I was searching for some help.
4. I did not save the email after I discovered it was no longer a valid
email address.
5. When I first hit the send button – NOTHING happened. It just hung there
– wouldn’t send, wouldn’t go, wouldn’t do anything. It was frozen. I had
never had that happen before this time.
6. I do not recall if it moved to the outbox or not. I know it is not there
now, because I deleted it.
7. It never went to the sent folder because it never sent. It just hung
there – wouldn’t send, wouldn’t go, wouldn’t do anything. It was frozen.
8. This was my first occasion after the computer crash and recovery that I
had had an email problem.
9. The email address I entered in the to field appeared to be valid (it
appeared to have all the proper parts that an email address should).
10. I do not recall any error message. This is why I was puzzled. I could
not figure it out.
11. Then I used the link I described in my previous message to check and see
if the email address was still active. It was not. I assumed that that was
why it did not send.
12. If you do not have enough information, then ask questions, like you did
just now. I did not know how else to describe the situation. I am not an
expert. That is why I come to this group – looking for answers.

 

[Candy]

If this is so, then the email address from either the esnips site or another
site to which I was going for some help/sources had it typed wrong.

Because, as a rule, I copy and paste all email addresses gleaned from such
sources (if that way of doing things is allowed) to avoid just such typo
situations.

 

[VanguardLH]

1. The situation I first described was only one email, one time.
2. I said, “Outlook would not let me sendâ€, because that is just what
happened. I did not know how else to describe it. I am not an expert. That
is why I come to this group – looking for answers.
3. I believe the email address came either from an esnips page or from
another web site on which I was searching for some help.
4. I did not save the email after I discovered it was no longer a valid
email address.
5. When I first hit the send button – NOTHING happened. It just hung there
– wouldn’t send, wouldn’t go, wouldn’t do anything. It was frozen. I had
never had that happen before this time.
6. I do not recall if it moved to the outbox or not. I know it is not there
now, because I deleted it.
7. It never went to the sent folder because it never sent. It just hung
there – wouldn’t send, wouldn’t go, wouldn’t do anything. It was frozen.
8. This was my first occasion after the computer crash and recovery that I
had had an email problem.
9. The email address I entered in the to field appeared to be valid (it
appeared to have all the proper parts that an email address should).
10. I do not recall any error message. This is why I was puzzled. I could
not figure it out.
11. Then I used the link I described in my previous message to check and see
if the email address was still active. It was not. I assumed that that was
why it did not send.
12. If you do not have enough information, then ask questions, like you did
just now. I did not know how else to describe the situation. I am not an
expert. That is why I come to this group – looking for answers.

It appears you have an add-on that hung (which took Outlook with it).
Many anti-virus programs install their add-on to provide for their
superfluous e-mail scanning feature. You can see what add-ons are
installed in Outlook. To test if an add-on is causing problems with
Outlook, you can load Outlook in its safe mode ("outlook.exe /safe")
which does not load any enabled add-ons.

I'm basing my guess on your mention that Outlook hung. That it was
working before and "suddenly failed" (even with a claim that you did not
change anything yourself) doesn't mean that Outlook or its add-ons did
not change. AV (anti-virus) programs get updates. Sometimes those are
*program* updates and not just signature updates. When the AV program
changes, its behavior can also change. So what was working before that
suddenly stopped working without you changing anything could be due to
an auto-update that changed Outlook (via Windows Updates) or changed an
add-on (like an AV add-on).