Outlook 2007 Locks on Meeting Request Actions

[Alex Maghen]

Hi. I'm not sure if what is happening here is related to the development work
I'm doing or not, but it's certainly keeping me from getting it done:

After some initial automation work with outlook, suddenly any attempt to
open a Meeting Request in my Inbox causes Outlook to completely lock up. The
Automation work I had been doing had had nothing to do either with the
Calendar or the Inbox - it was a simple read-only function on the Contacts,
so it seems hard to believe it's related - though I'm not sure.

So far, I have completely removed my software and I have de-installed and
re-installed Office, and the problem continues. Is this soome kind of general
problem with Outlook?

Your help is much appreciated so I can get this project done.

Alex

 

[\Ji Zhou [MSFT]\]

Hello Alex Maghen,

Thanks for using Microsoft Newsgroup Support Service, my name is Ji Zhou
[MSFT] and I will be working on this issue with you.

------Som clarifications--------
Firstly I want to clarify the problem with you to make sure that I
understand it correctly. When saying "my Inbox causes Outlook to completely
lock up", what do you mean about the "lock up"? Does the Outlook hang and
not react upon the user manipulation, or the Outlook files are locked? To
better support this issue, I need to know the exact symptom, so I ask for
this information again. Thanks for your understanding!

------My Suggestions---------
1.Currently, this problem looks like a Inbox corrupted issue to me. Thus, I
would suggestion you follow this KB article to use the Inbox Repair tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287497 to recovery your Outlook Inbox.

2.And here is another article about Outlook issues' troubleshooting
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742569.aspx. The Locked Office
Outlook Files section may be what you will be interested in,

Locked Office Outlook Files
Cause
The Office Outlook 2007 executable file (Outlook.exe) or the Outlook .pst
or .ost file is locked.
Resolution
Check the properties for these files, and verify that they are not read
only.
The default location for the .pst and .ost files is:
C:\Users\<User_name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\.
The default location for the Outlook.exe file is: C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\.

3.If the these still do not help, have you tried to repair the Outlook
instead of uninstall and reinstall it? The repair process will set all
application configurations back to default values.

Please let me know if my suggestions helps on your side. If you need any
future help, please do not hesitate to update this thread and I will try my
best to follow up.

Best regards,
Ji Zhou ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

Delighting our customers is our #1 priority. We welcome your comments and
suggestions about how we can improve the support we provide to you. Please
feel free to let my manager know what you think of the level of service
provided. You can send feedback directly to my manager at:
(e-mail address removed).

==================================================
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where an initial response from the community or a Microsoft Support
Engineer within 1 business day is acceptable. Please note that each follow
up response may take approximately 2 business days as the support
professional working with you may need further investigation to reach the
most efficient resolution. The offering is not appropriate for situations
that require urgent, real-time or phone-based interactions or complex
project analysis and dump analysis issues. Issues of this nature are best
handled working with a dedicated Microsoft Support Engineer by contacting
Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS) at
http://support.microsoft.com/select/default.aspx?target=assistance&ln=en-us.
==================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Alex Maghen]

Hi. Thanks. Let me try to be more specific. Also, I've done some research and
found some more details. When I say that "Outlook Locks up," I mean that the
software stops responding and I have to kill the process. But I have recently
determined that this only happend when I receive or interact with Meeting
Requests from a specific MS Exchange server (not my own but someone else's).
If they send me a meeting request and I try to open it or accept it, etc. MS
Outlook completely stops responding. After some research on Google, I found
that if you press the Escape key, Outlook will continue functioning. But my
question is, why might this be happening? If there's something currupted
about the Meeting Request messages that are coming from the other Exchange
server, isn't it strange that that would result in Outlook locking that way?

Hello Alex Maghen,

Thanks for using Microsoft Newsgroup Support Service, my name is Ji Zhou
[MSFT] and I will be working on this issue with you.

------Som clarifications--------
Firstly I want to clarify the problem with you to make sure that I
understand it correctly. When saying "my Inbox causes Outlook to completely
lock up", what do you mean about the "lock up"? Does the Outlook hang and
not react upon the user manipulation, or the Outlook files are locked? To
better support this issue, I need to know the exact symptom, so I ask for
this information again. Thanks for your understanding!

------My Suggestions---------
1.Currently, this problem looks like a Inbox corrupted issue to me. Thus, I
would suggestion you follow this KB article to use the Inbox Repair tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287497 to recovery your Outlook Inbox.

2.And here is another article about Outlook issues' troubleshooting
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742569.aspx. The Locked Office
Outlook Files section may be what you will be interested in,

Locked Office Outlook Files
Cause
The Office Outlook 2007 executable file (Outlook.exe) or the Outlook .pst
or .ost file is locked.
Resolution
Check the properties for these files, and verify that they are not read
only.
The default location for the .pst and .ost files is:
C:\Users\<User_name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\.
The default location for the Outlook.exe file is: C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\.

3.If the these still do not help, have you tried to repair the Outlook
instead of uninstall and reinstall it? The repair process will set all
application configurations back to default values.

Please let me know if my suggestions helps on your side. If you need any
future help, please do not hesitate to update this thread and I will try my
best to follow up.

Best regards,
Ji Zhou ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

Delighting our customers is our #1 priority. We welcome your comments and
suggestions about how we can improve the support we provide to you. Please
feel free to let my manager know what you think of the level of service
provided. You can send feedback directly to my manager at:
(e-mail address removed).

==================================================
Get notification to my posts through email? Please refer to
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/aa948868.aspx#notifications.

Note: The MSDN Managed Newsgroup support offering is for non-urgent issues
where an initial response from the community or a Microsoft Support
Engineer within 1 business day is acceptable. Please note that each follow
up response may take approximately 2 business days as the support
professional working with you may need further investigation to reach the
most efficient resolution. The offering is not appropriate for situations
that require urgent, real-time or phone-based interactions or complex
project analysis and dump analysis issues. Issues of this nature are best
handled working with a dedicated Microsoft Support Engineer by contacting
Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS) at
http://support.microsoft.com/select/default.aspx?target=assistance&ln=en-us.
==================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[\Ji Zhou [MSFT]\]

Hello Alex,

If that is the case, I think this issue should not be related to our
Outlook automation application. This looks like the Outlook product issue.
For this kind of issues, you'd better post it in the Outlook Product
newsgroup, and experts there may have an idea about it. The link is,
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=micros
oft.public.outlook.general&cat=en_US_db03bd1f-73aa-41e1-abfd-27a6e3c352e5&la
ng=en&cr=US

And in my opinion, the Outlook hangs there because it is trying to do a
task circularly but never finish. And the pressing ESC will terminate the
process midway. The task may be trying to understand a custom meeting
request format. Consequently, I think we can try to clean up the forms
cache on the meeting request sender's machine. We can clear the form cache
via the following steps.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click the Other tab, and then click Advanced Options.
3. Click Custom Forms.
4. Click Manage Forms.
5. Click Clear Cache.
6. Close all open windows, and then restart Outlook.

If this still does not help, I would recommend you to post in the above
mentioned newsgroup to see if anyone there encounter this before.


Best regards,
Ji Zhou ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

Delighting our customers is our #1 priority. We welcome your comments and
suggestions about how we can improve the support we provide to you. Please
feel free to let my manager know what you think of the level of service
provided. You can send feedback directly to my manager at:
(e-mail address removed).

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.