Major flaw in Outlook 2007: emails stuck in outbox

[scorpionleather]

There is a major bug in Outlook 2007 whereby the emails get stuck in the
Outbox and I'm not aware that they are stuck, unless I check the Outbox
folder. I searched this on Google and LOTS of others are having the EXACT
same problem. I'm running on Vista x64, very latest updates, otherwise
stable system and everything is about as plain-vanilla about my setup as can
possibly be. Is Microsoft interested in fixing this or just going to ignore
it?

 

[DL]

Its not a bug with Outlook, its caused by something on your system, often a
third party antivirus application

 

[scorpionleather]

My AntiVirus software is NOD32 v2.7. I just unchecked the "scan outgoing
email" box and will see if it happens again. Thanks for the tip DL. But
since this is such a common problem then AntiVirus software makers should
start talking with Microsoft about making better hooks into the API.

 

[just bob]

There is a major bug in Outlook 2007 whereby the emails get stuck in the
Outbox and I'm not aware that they are stuck, unless I check the Outbox
folder. I searched this on Google and LOTS of others are having the EXACT
same problem. I'm running on Vista x64, very latest updates, otherwise
stable system and everything is about as plain-vanilla about my setup as
can possibly be. Is Microsoft interested in fixing this or just going to
ignore it?

When you close outlook does it not warn you there is something stuck in your
outbox?

 

[scorpionleather]

When you close outlook does it not warn you there is something stuck in
your outbox?

Yes it does but that warning is often useless, because I don't close
Outlook, I leave it running all the time like most other people do. Then
two days later, when wonder why people aren't responding, I realize a whole
bunch of emails are stuck. Nice.

 

[scorpionleather]

DL: Disactivating NOD32 email scanning did not fix it. Emails are still
stuck in the Outbox. What else could it be? Maybe a Microsoft programmer
glitch that is still affecting users?

 

[DL]

Generally send/receive problems are cused by third party addins.
To test, reboot your PC into safe mode, does outlook then fuction correctly?
If so it means a third party background application is causing the problem

 

[Peter Foldes]

Did you try go Offline and then delete or see the following

http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/messagestuckinoutbox.htm

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP (OneNote)]

Hmmm...I run Outlook 2007 on Vista 64 and have never had that problem.
What kind of mail server are you connecting to? POP3? IMAP? If you
Send/Receive manually do they go?

I'm curious to hear what the Safe Mode experiment reveals for you.

--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com
Author - The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/5m3f5q

 

[scorpionleather]

Peter, if I exit Outlook and then start Outlook again the stuck messages are
sent. The proposed solutions in the article are much worse than just
restarting Outlook. But the whole point is that I shouldn't have to
re-start Outlook when I discover that messages supposed to be sent two days
ago were never sent.

 

[scorpionleather]

DL: I have no third-party add-ins whatsoever. It's apparently not caused by
third party add-ins. That's why there are so many reports of this problem
on the web with no solution, because there's something under the hood in the
nuts and bolts of Outlook itself that is causing this.

 

[scorpionleather]

The accounts are IMAP. Send/receive manually does not get them un-stuck
from the Outbox. Restarting the whole application is the only thing that
works. It wouldn't be practical to do the Safe Mode test because this
problem is intermittent and I could sit there for days inside Safe Mode
waiting for it to happen. I have a very "standard" install of Vista and MS
Office and standard apps that do not use plug-ins for Outlook, so I think
Microsoft could easily reproduce it and fix it in some upcoming bug fix.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

don't set autosend to more frequently than about 8 -10 min, especially if
you have a lot of accounts or IMAP folders to sync. Don't hit the
Send/Receive button or F5 more frequently than 8 -10 min for the same
reason.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



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[scorpionleather]

don't set autosend to more frequently than about 8 -10 min, especially if
you have a lot of accounts or IMAP folders to sync. Don't hit the
Send/Receive button or F5 more frequently than 8 -10 min for the same
reason.

Interesting, thanks Diane. I changed auto send/receive from 6 minutes to 10
minutes. Let's see what happens. That makes me curious why should that
make any difference? What kind of glitch is circumvented in these long
timescales that are minutes-long?

 

[Gordon]

DL: I have no third-party add-ins whatsoever.

I bet you have. In Outlook do Tools-Trust center-Addins and see what's
listed there.

 

[Gordon]

Interesting, thanks Diane. I changed auto send/receive from 6 minutes to
10 minutes. Let's see what happens. That makes me curious why should
that make any difference? What kind of glitch is circumvented in these
long timescales that are minutes-long?

It's to do with responses to and from the mail server - not sure of the
technical details, but if you set up a new email account you will see that
the default send/receive time interval is ten minutes.....that's the reason.

 

[scorpionleather]

It shows several Microsoft add-ins such as Office Groove, and to my surprise
it also shows Apple iTunes as a COM plug-in for Outlook. What the $%%$ is
iTunes doing in there? Is the Apple marketing dept. following ideas from
spyware and the shady practices of RealNetworks? The iTunes installer never
asked me if I want to integrate with Outlook, I have no idea what this is
doing to my emails, but there it is..

 

[Gordon]

It shows several Microsoft add-ins such as Office Groove, and to my
surprise it also shows Apple iTunes as a COM plug-in for Outlook. What
the $%%$ is iTunes doing in there? Is the Apple marketing dept. following
ideas from spyware and the shady practices of RealNetworks? The iTunes
installer never asked me if I want to integrate with Outlook, I have no
idea what this is doing to my emails, but there it is..

Disable them all and see if that cures the problem. if it does, add them
back one by one until you find the culprit.....

 

[DL]

Have you yet disabled/removed the Itunes plug in?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

It shows several Microsoft add-ins such as Office Groove, and to my
surprise it also shows Apple iTunes as a COM plug-in for Outlook. What
the $%%$ is iTunes doing in there? Is the Apple marketing dept. following
ideas from spyware and the shady practices of RealNetworks? The iTunes
installer never asked me if I want to integrate with Outlook, I have no
idea what this is doing to my emails, but there it is..

The iTunes add-in is a known problem-maker.