Outlook - Messages Stuck in Outbox

[Mike10987]

I have Microsoft Outlook and about 2 months ago it stopped sending messages.
I didn't realize it but it stopped sending email. Now, I see that they are
all in the Outbox. When I try to send a message it goes to the Outbox and
they after about 5 minutes get an error that says "...reported error
(0x800CCC0F): 'The connection to the server was interrupted. If the problem
continues, contact your server administrator or internet service provider
(ISP)'. I have contacted Comcast (my ISP) and no problem there. What am I
missing? I don't know of anything else that changed.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I have Microsoft Outlook and about 2 months ago it stopped sending messages.
I didn't realize it but it stopped sending email. Now, I see that they are
all in the Outbox. When I try to send a message it goes to the Outbox and
they after about 5 minutes get an error that says "...reported error
(0x800CCC0F): 'The connection to the server was interrupted. If the problem
continues, contact your server administrator or internet service provider
(ISP)'. I have contacted Comcast (my ISP) and no problem there. What am I
missing? I don't know of anything else that changed.

The first thing to try is to see of they'll send if you start Outlook in safe
mode. Press Ctrl when you start Outlook.

 

[Mike10987]

Brian,
I tried to send an email while in "safe" mode and it had the same result. I
could see in the "Outlook Send/Receive Progress" message box that it was
trying to send the email but after about 5 minutes I get the same error
message. Do you have any other suggestions I should try?
Thanks, Mike

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I tried to send an email while in "safe" mode and it had the same result. I
could see in the "Outlook Send/Receive Progress" message box that it was
trying to send the email but after about 5 minutes I get the same error
message. Do you have any other suggestions I should try?

What did you do on your PC just before Outlook stopped sending?

 

[Mike10987]

Brian,
I'm not aware of anything that happened at the time we began experiencing
the issue. The only thing that I can think of was that the battery on the
system has run low so when the power goes off I've had to re-sync the time
with the internet. This has caused some problems with the dates on emails in
the past but once we sync the clock with the internet that is fixed. Other
than that the only other thing might have been around the time we updated
iTunes.
I know this isn't much help but that's all I can think of. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Mike

 

[Mike10987]

Brian,
I just tried to send an email from my wife's laptop using MS Outlook and got
a similar error. So, it looks like it is not isolated to my home desktop PC.
The error is slightly different. Here it is: Outlook cannot connect to your
outgoing (SMTP) email server. If you continue to receive this message
contact your server administrator or internet service provider (ISP). Does
this add any insight to the problem?
Mike

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I'm not aware of anything that happened at the time we began experiencing
the issue. The only thing that I can think of was that the battery on the
system has run low so when the power goes off I've had to re-sync the time
with the internet. This has caused some problems with the dates on emails
in
the past but once we sync the clock with the internet that is fixed. Other
than that the only other thing might have been around the time we updated
iTunes.

While iTunes is often a source of trouble, I don't think it's to blame here.
If this were happening to me, I'd create a new mail profile to see if that
helped. I'd leave the old one in place for now, though, and have Outlook
prompt for the proper profile when it starts.
http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/newprofile.htm

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I just tried to send an email from my wife's laptop using MS Outlook and got
a similar error. So, it looks like it is not isolated to my home desktop
PC.
The error is slightly different. Here it is: Outlook cannot connect to your
outgoing (SMTP) email server. If you continue to receive this message
contact your server administrator or internet service provider (ISP). Does
this add any insight to the problem?

Have you examined the Help pages at Comcast to make sure you're using all the
correct server settings? Have you temporarily disabled your firewall and AV
programs so that as little as possible can interfere? Have you tried setting
up Outlook Express (or Windows Mail on Vista) to see if that behaves
differently?