Outlook has stopped downloading emails and outgoing emails stuck i

[MWACSNY]

One moment Outlook 2002 in Windows XP with SP3 worked fine incoming and
outgoing, the next neither works. The download process shows progress (even
an advancing bar) but with an error at the end with no emails added to the
inbox. On outgoing the emails get stuck in the outbox but never move to the
sent folder. The Internet connection is good. Although the PC was apparently
being protected with Symantec EndPoint protection with up to date virus
protection, my guess that there was a severe virus infection proved to be
correct but Outlook is still not functional after what appears to be a
complete removal of all malware. The test email sent by Outlook itself goes
out with no problem but nothing else does whether the recipient is in the
address book or not. I could get the stuck emails out only by creating a new
Outlook Data File and making that the default location but after reverting to
the original they would get stuck again. As the inbox also did not work I
decide to run the scanpst.exe repair tool but it found no errors in spite of
the problem. Are there any suggestions as to what I should try next? Maybe I
need to transfer all emails in existing folders to a new default Outlook Data
file - at least outgoing was made to work that way. I did not try incoming
then.

 

[Kathleen Orland]

My guess is that error message is the key to the problem. It probably
details exactly why your email is not sending/receiving. Please post it in
its entirety.

 

[MWACSNY]

Well I am not at the PC right now but I believe that the error I got on
trying to download was only described as "unknown error" but I am certain
that was the error description when I tried to delete the emails stuck in the
Outbox. I find it very strange that a bar displayed on the download that
steadily progressed to the right until the error right at the end but no
emails were getting into the inbox as the bar moved. That is not what I
recall happens normally. I believe emails should be showing up in the inbox
as the bar moves. It is almost as if the emails are being redirected
somewhere else other than the default inbox.

I have no idea to what degree all this could be explained by changes
possibly made by the malware but I am less interested in an exact explanation
of the cause than I am interested in the best viable strategies for retaining
all the emails that are currently in my folders and subfolders and getting
send /receive to work again.

 

[MWACSNY]

One more thing of probable importance is that although outgoing mail appears
to be stuck in the Outbox and does not go to the sent folder the mail
actually does get sent to the recipient and repeatedly as often as Outlook
checks for mail unless the email in the Outbox is opened whereupon that stops
because the email then is no longer in send mode as shown by the italics for
entries in the the To: and Subject: lines being changed to non-italics. Hope
this info helps.

 

[I_used_to_like_windows]

More than likely you need to download the latest Outlook Connector. I had
exactly the same problem with a friend of mine's computer. He had the old
version of the Outlook Connector which "broke" when MS made some change to
the MSN servers this month. You should have received notices from the support
guys telling you to upgrade to the latest connector. If you are not sure you
have the latest then google "outlook connector" and the link should show up
as the first one in the list. Just follow the prompts and download buttons
and install. That should fix it.

 

[MWACSNY]

Only problem is that this is Outlook 2002 not 2003 and there is no Outlook
Connector entry anywhere in the registry. The version 12.1 Outlook Connector
you suggest I download is for Outlook 2003 and later. The only Outlook
Connector for Outlook 2002 that I could find was specifically for IBM Lotus
Domino which is not relevant here.

I can now verify that send/receive appears to progress to 100% completion
but then ends with the "unknown error" 0X8004060C since an error description
was requested.

As there were no other viable suggestions I installed Outlook 2002 SP3 and
the six post SP3 updates that were available, none of which helped. However,
prior to that I tried to run the scan that identifies the installed Office
updates which is available at the Microsoft Office site but it aborted at
about 30% completion due to Data Execution Prevention which I understand gets
triggered when system memory is being used by unauthorized processes possibly
malware. The message is "Internet Explorer has closed this webpage to help
protect your computer . A malfunctioning or malicious add-on has caused IE to
close webpage". Maybe I'm wrong about ALL malware having been removed from
this PC or is this due to some legacy of the malware that was once there?

About the only positive achievement appears to be that I was able to export
the contacts in Outlook via a personal address book to Outlook Express so I
can now switch to Express since my Outlook seems to be history.