Outlook freezes, locks up

[Volker Traudt]

Since 2 weeks, I experience regular and constant freezes
of outlook. The program starts, I can often download new
messages, but then the program freezes. I have not found
out what triggers the freeze, initially I thought it
occurs when opening a message (rather than just browsing
or searching).

I first thought my pst folder has gotten to big (I heard
of a 2 GB limit), so I reduced it (it has now ca. 600 MB).

I reinstalled (using the repair option) MS
Office/Outlook, and then it works for a while, sometimes
hours, but often again only minutes.

I also noticed that the lock up seems to also coincide
with the message on the bottom right "Send/Receive Status
0%"; it looks like Outlook is trying to send/receive
messages on its own (even so I have disabled automatic
sending/receiving). When manually clicking send/receive,
it works as expected (unless the lock has occured).

Also, my cable modem is busy blinking (no other computers
are switched on that might access the modem), which
concerns me (could there be someone else trying to get
into my computer, causing the outlook to lock up?).

The pst files are in on the c drive in documents and
setting/administrator/local settings/application
data/microsoft outlook. There are other pst files (from
backups I made) on the other hard drives.

I am running Windows XP professional, and Office XP,
Hardware is an Athlon 1700+ with 1 GB RAM, 3 harddrives
(120, 80, 80), cable modem internet connection, Linksys
hub.

Any idea what it could be or where to look for a solution?

 

[jill sheldon]

i am having this same issue. My outlook keeps freezing for no reason. I have office xp standard and this issue is driving me crazy. I have run the repair tool several times. any thoughts on what i should do? Did you get a response to your issue posted here?

thanks. jill



----- Volker Traudt wrote: -----

Since 2 weeks, I experience regular and constant freezes
of outlook. The program starts, I can often download new
messages, but then the program freezes. I have not found
out what triggers the freeze, initially I thought it
occurs when opening a message (rather than just browsing
or searching).

I first thought my pst folder has gotten to big (I heard
of a 2 GB limit), so I reduced it (it has now ca. 600 MB).

I reinstalled (using the repair option) MS
Office/Outlook, and then it works for a while, sometimes
hours, but often again only minutes.

I also noticed that the lock up seems to also coincide
with the message on the bottom right "Send/Receive Status
0%"; it looks like Outlook is trying to send/receive
messages on its own (even so I have disabled automatic
sending/receiving). When manually clicking send/receive,
it works as expected (unless the lock has occured).

Also, my cable modem is busy blinking (no other computers
are switched on that might access the modem), which
concerns me (could there be someone else trying to get
into my computer, causing the outlook to lock up?).

The pst files are in on the c drive in documents and
setting/administrator/local settings/application
data/microsoft outlook. There are other pst files (from
backups I made) on the other hard drives.

I am running Windows XP professional, and Office XP,
Hardware is an Athlon 1700+ with 1 GB RAM, 3 harddrives
(120, 80, 80), cable modem internet connection, Linksys
hub.

Any idea what it could be or where to look for a solution?

 

[Jeff Schiff]

Folks:

I am having the SAME difficulty. And it has happened on a
bunch of machines I've used. And, even after I reinstall,
it still happens. Has anyone gotten a clue?

Jeff

P.S. Outlook Express and Eudora 6 work fine. But, I want
my Outlook back!!!

-----Original Message-----
i am having this same issue. My outlook keeps freezing

for no reason. I have office xp standard and this issue
is driving me crazy. I have run the repair tool several
times. any thoughts on what i should do? Did you get a
response to your issue posted here?

 

[Scotty]

Just wanted to say "ditto" and add my own observations

The freezes don't seem to be coming from any one activity in particular. In fact, the problem only started (a couple days ago) when I was calling Outlook up from inactivity. If it was sitting idle for a while and I hit the icon, it choked for a few moments then came up

Since then, however, the problem has gotten much, much worse. The freezes are more persistant and far more frequent. I can hardly use the program

My own suspicion is that it has something to do with the taskbar behavior or the goddamned passport

I have no viruses/trojans or other attacks, WinXP SP1, ... what else can I add?

 

[Scotty]

By the by, these posts are all over the WWW but there's no posted solution

I forgot to mention I see this in the status bar quite often when it's frozen "Databinding..."

What the heck is databinding and why does it happen so often?

 

[Apryl]

I am having this problem on multiple computers throughout our company. I have searched everywhere. I have done a detect and repair, reinstalled office XP, and even reimaged one of the computers...however, the problem persists. I can not even seem to find a pattern to the freezing, except that it typically happens at least once when the user first opens Outlook in the morning. Bizarre. Has anyone found anything about a possible solution?

 

[Scotty]

I seem to have gotten rid of the problem although it cost me a feature I rather miss. Under Tools -> Options -> Mail Format, choose "Plain Text" for the "Compose in this message format:" I still have Word 2003 acting as my editor for both e-mail messages and Rich Text e-mail messages but my Compose format has to be Plain Text. The worst hang problems were when my choice was HTML (I wanted to use stationary)

Hope this works for you guys and also hope that MS is paying attention

 

[Pam]

I am having the same problem, with freezing of outlook. I am running Windows XP with office 2003.
I believe I can trace it to when I have many emails coming in at once (after shutting it down for the day, for instance), then may have 9 or 10 coming in. It seems to hang up on ones I have keyed as "junk mail". I have to go out to the comcast website, get my mail over the web, deleted a few and it works again.
WHAT A PAIN!
Has anyone any ideas at all??
thanks for any help

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Are you using any AV software that does inline email scanning? If so
disable that feature and see if things speed up.

I am having the same problem, with freezing of outlook. I am

running Windows XP with office 2003.

I believe I can trace it to when I have many emails coming in at

once (after shutting it down for the day, for instance), then may have
9 or 10 coming in. It seems to hang up on ones I have keyed as "junk
mail". I have to go out to the comcast website, get my mail over the
web, deleted a few and it works again.