messages vanish immediately

[Keith Hicks]

Using O2003.

This only seems to happen once in a while. I just noticed it today. I don't
have any filters set. I don't have any rules set to move mail automatically
to other folders. I never let Outlook mark messages as read on its own and
no views to hide read messages. I have it set up to show all messages in the
inbox no matter how old or read status. I move them manually to other
folders as I need to and mark them as read manually. Once in a while when I
hit send/recieve I watch messages come in and one of the messages comes in
but then vanishes immediately after it arrives. It doesn't get marked as
read. It's not in junk mail. It's just gone. If it's moving to some other
folder, there's no way I'd ever find it. I have hundreds of folders and
subfolders. And since it vanishes so quickly, I have no time to read it so
that I can afterward do a search. It's also very unexpected. This seems to
happen rarely so I would not know to watch for this. It doesn't seem to be
predictable. Now, I do have about 5 blocked senders such as
(e-mail address removed). Some time ago I was using that feature when
junk mail would come in but it became too cumbersome to deal with. Junk mail
setting is set to "low". As I write this I'm wondering if I very rarely get
messages from some of these 5 that are in my blocked senders list and they
vanish when the arrrive. Is that possible? Are there other possibilities?
Again, I do not have any rules set up to redirect to other folders. Any
ideas?

Thnaks,

Keith

 

[Keith Hicks]

Well I just did a test. I set up one of my email addresses as a blocked
sender. Then I sent myself a message to one of my other addresses from that
address. It went to the junk mail folder. It didn't vanish. So that's not
the problem.

 

[K. Orland]

Open Outlook in safe mode to see if its behaviour changes:

Start > Run > outlook.exe /safe

 

[Keith]

I appreciate the suggestion but like I said, it's rare. Maybe once a month.
I'd have to run in safe mode all the time and pay close attention every time
mail comes in. That's not practical. But thanks anyway.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I appreciate the suggestion but like I said, it's rare. Maybe once a month.
I'd have to run in safe mode all the time and pay close attention every time
mail comes in. That's not practical. But thanks anyway.

I know you said you have no rules, but do you have any add-ins? Do you have a
any "Internet security suite" or antivirus program that integrates with
Outlook? There have been plenty of posts that indicate, for example, that
Norton Internet security suites can exhinit this behavior. Some firewalls
that have hooks into mail can do it as well.

 

[Keith]

You know, I bet that's it. AVG is probably doing this. I had an issue with
AVG a couple of years ago where it was blocking all emails with attachments
(me being a developer, you can imagine how much of a problem that would be).
But I just checked the email feature of AVG and it says 1 threat blocked (an
email with a virus). It was dated today. So I'm sure that's the problem I've
been having and the reason it's been rare. I'll hvae to check the same thing
on my main system. I bet there are blocked messages there too due to
viruses. Thanks for making the suggestion. Problem solved.

Keith

 

[VanguardLH]

Using O2003.

Once in a while when I
hit send/recieve I watch messages come in and one of the messages comes in
but then vanishes immediately after it arrives. It doesn't get marked as
read. It's not in junk mail. It's just gone. If it's moving to some other
folder, there's no way I'd ever find it.

Do an advanced find and specify a date range. Start the search from the
root folder in the message store (top folder in the tree list). If the
Time selection on the Messages tab for Advanced Find isn't granular
enough, use the Advanced tab to select the Recieved field on which to
search and select "on or after" (I'm not sure what string you enter for
the value, though; Outlook's help is absent on that topic). If you
still don't find it then something is permanently deleting the item from
Outlook (which probably means it is running as an add-on), like your
anti-virus software.

 

[Keith]

YOu're right. Good idea. I did do that after Bill's advice and found that
AVG creates a "vault" for bad messages that have had the viruses stripped
from them. The message I got today was in there along with several others
over the past couple of years. Like I said in my response to Bill, turns out
AVG was the culprit (in a good way).

Thanks,

Keith

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

YOu're right. Good idea. I did do that after Bill's advice and found that
AVG creates a "vault" for bad messages that have had the viruses stripped
from them. The message I got today was in there along with several others
over the past couple of years. Like I said in my response to Bill, turns out
AVG was the culprit (in a good way).

Who's Bill?

 

[Keith]

LOL. I meant Brian. Sorry. I must have combined "Brian" with "Tillman" in my
head somehow and came up with Bill. . That's logical, right? "B" from
Brian and "ill" from Tillman? I think that works. LOL.