Emails not leaving Outbox

[spolowyk]

Having an issue with Outlook 2003 running in Cached Exchange mode. We have
approximately 200 users all running same client over Exchange 2003.

One or two users a month will find that midway through the day their email
will quit sending. Their client is still online and email still flows in.
However all sent emails sit in the Outbox and never go out. Send/Receive
does not report any errors.

I have looked tried disabling the antivirus with no success. I have also
tried reinstalling the client without any success. I have tried MS KB291613
& MS195922.

If I turn on Outlook logging I get the following entries repeatedly:
Microsoft Exchange Server: UploadItems: 5 messages to send
UploadItems: couldn't send 5 messages

The only solution I have found is to transfer the emails from Outbox to
Drafts, turn off Cached Exchange mode, restart client, and then resend
emails. They then go out immediately.

Seems to be specific to Cached Exchange mode - if I turn it off and restart
the client the use can then send emails without any issues. I am having to
leave the users without Cached Exchange mode enabled.

 

[VanguardLH]

Having an issue with Outlook 2003 running in Cached Exchange mode.
We have
approximately 200 users all running same client over Exchange 2003.

One or two users a month will find that midway through the day their
email
will quit sending. Their client is still online and email still
flows in.
However all sent emails sit in the Outbox and never go out.
Send/Receive
does not report any errors.

I have looked tried disabling the antivirus with no success. I have
also
tried reinstalling the client without any success. I have tried MS
KB291613
& MS195922.

If I turn on Outlook logging I get the following entries repeatedly:
Microsoft Exchange Server: UploadItems: 5 messages to send
UploadItems: couldn't send 5 messages

The only solution I have found is to transfer the emails from Outbox
to
Drafts, turn off Cached Exchange mode, restart client, and then
resend
emails. They then go out immediately.

Seems to be specific to Cached Exchange mode - if I turn it off and
restart
the client the use can then send emails without any issues. I am
having to
leave the users without Cached Exchange mode enabled.

Invariably I end up disabling Exchange cached mode. It doesn't help
the client. It is to reduce network load for e-mail traffic. Perhaps
in large corporations this reduction is significant but usually the IT
folks can't see what improvement was made by switching to cached mode.
Also, if users are not polling every minute but instead every 10
minutes, cached mode has little or imperceptible effect on network
load. If I forget to disabled it as soon as I setup a new workstation
for myself, I will disable it at the first sign of problems in using
Outlook with Exchange.

If a network's remaining free bandwidth is so tight that it actually
requires cached mode to alleviate timeouts due to an overly busy
network then the company needs to address the real issue first:
improving their network's bandwidth. Since cached mode can be set
using a domain policy, you could check how much impact there would be
to your network if cached mode were disabled versus when it was
enabled.

 

[spolowyk]

Network load/performance was not a consideration when we moved to Cached
Exchange mode. Over half our users have mobile computers (either laptops or
tablets) and can then access their Outlook messages whether connected to the
network or not. As well, we are distributed between four remote offices.
Cached Exchange mode avoids interruptions when the WAN inevitably goes down.

I would like to find a solution that incorporates Cached Exchange mode.
There is no clear reason why the emails stop sending. No updates are
applied, the system isn't restarted; it will just quit midpoint through a
workday and never work again. This only effects less than 5% of our users
right now. It just worries me that the number is growing.

 

[Angela]

We had a very similar problem at my office. We found that installing or
reinstalling the latest Office service pack cleared the problem.