E-mail addresses mysteriously unresolved themselves...

[Julia]

Hi-
Using Outlook 2003. For some reason, the e-mail addresses in my contacts are
no longer resolved. If I open a new message and click the "To" button, I see
my list of contacts, but it does not show the e-mail addresses. If I open the
contact, the e-mail address is in the e-mail field, but it is not underlined.
If I click the drop down arrow next to the e-mail address, and select "e-mail
2", then do it again and select "E-mail", the address resolves and becomes
underlined.

Anyone have a way to fix this for my entire address book? I'd rather not
have to manually touch all 365 contacts....

TIA-
Julia

 

[Russ Valentine]

Can't happen all by itself for no reason as you imply. Tell us the rest of
the story.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Using Outlook 2003. For some reason, the e-mail addresses in my contacts are
no longer resolved. If I open a new message and click the "To" button, I see
my list of contacts, but it does not show the e-mail addresses. If I open
the
contact, the e-mail address is in the e-mail field, but it is not
underlined.
If I click the drop down arrow next to the e-mail address, and select
"e-mail
2", then do it again and select "E-mail", the address resolves and becomes
underlined.

Anyone have a way to fix this for my entire address book? I'd rather not
have to manually touch all 365 contacts....

You'll need a third-party tool.. Start here:
http://www.slipstick.com/addins/contacts_entry.asp

 

[Julia]

I never said "for no reason". I said "for some reason"- reason unknown.

I _discovered_ the issue when I was trying to send an e-mail and it kept
bouncing back with an enlightening (not) "operation failed" error message. I
then found out that I was not seeing the e-mail addresses for my contacts
when I tried to select someone using the "To" button from the compose e-mail
window.

As to what caused the issue- I don't know. Nothing unusual happened
*immediately* preceding the problem. I use Emoze push software to sync the
e-mail and contacts on my home computer to my phone; I also sync my e-mail
and contacts from my work computer (we have an Exchange server at work) to my
phone, and vice versa. It is possible that one of these electronic exchanges
of information caused a problem with the contacts on my home computer. Or it
could be caused by having the computer shut down as a result of my house
rebooting (a power fluctuation which happens about once a month).

Does any of this information help to point you towards a possible solution?

 

[Russ Valentine]

Wow. I knew there was more to the story but never imagined how much more.
Any or all of these could have caused the problem, and there is no way for
me to tell which. To narrow it down a bit, create a new Contact from
scratch. Send an email to that Contact using the address book interface
(what you call the "To Button"). Does it succeed?
If so, please tell me you have a good backup of your Outlook data.

 

[Julia]

Whatever caused the problem, a nifty little utility from Chapura fixed it.

I found it on the http://www.slipstick.com/addins/contacts_entry.asp page
(thanks Brian!)

The direct link is http://www.chapura.com/downloads_utilities.php

Julia

 

[Russ Valentine]

Which utility did you use. I assume it's "Resolve E-mail Address Utility"?
Something is mangling your data. It would be a good idea to figure out
what's causing the problem and to make frequent backups of your data.