send/receive stops working after updates

[Christine]

SORRY SO LONG!

I have never had problems until a couple months ago running Outlook 2003 Pro
SP3 on Vista Home Premium 32-bit (have had current system for one year). I
do not have the Business Contact Manager loaded for Outlook. I run the
latest version of McAfee Internet Security Suite along with the built-in
Windows Firewall and Defender.

The problem occurs the day of automatic updates (junk email filter updates
included) and continues until it seems to miraculously correct itself shortly
before the next set of updates when the problem reoccurs. Luckily, I have my
automatic send/receive set to 5 minutes and that works properly, but all my
send/receive buttons and options disable. At first, I was getting the
extend.dat file error. I "corrected" that a few times, but it ultimately
didn't make any difference. I currently do not get errors. The only thing
that does work is if I hard reboot. Then my send/receive only works a couple
times, then disables again.

On the reboot issue, at the same time this send/receive problem started, I
could no longer soft reboot. If I do, I have to CTRL+ALT+DELETE to get the
system to boot. Right before both problems, we moved some hardware around
(added a battery backup and plugged most components into this; changed out a
printer; loaded the new corresponding software, compatible with Vista).

I read somewhere from Robert Sparnaaij that the updates have nothing to do
with this problem; it may be the built number of Outlook gets updated and if
there's a 3rd-party firewall tool that checks this number, the firewall must
be reconfigured to allow Outlook access to the internet. Could this be my
problem, and if so, how do I check for this? I do have other email accounts
through a web host.

Other suggestions? Doing anything that causes potential loss of data is out
of the question.

Thanks

 

[Christine]

ADDITIONAL INFO:

Upon reboot, all my email accounts are shown under Tools > Send/Receive
drop-down menu as follows:

Send/Receive All (F9), Send All, 1 "All Accounts" Group, 2 "email account"
only, 3 "email account" only, 4 "email account" only.

When I exit and re-open Outlook, I lose all that and any send/receive
functionality. The drop-down then lists:

Send/Receive All (F9), Send All, Send, Send.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Upon reboot, all my email accounts are shown under Tools >
Send/Receive drop-down menu as follows:

Send/Receive All (F9), Send All, 1 "All Accounts" Group, 2 "email
account" only, 3 "email account" only, 4 "email account" only.

When I exit and re-open Outlook, I lose all that and any send/receive
functionality. The drop-down then lists:

Send/Receive All (F9), Send All, Send, Send.

Try deleting the (hidden) file %AppData%\Microsoft\Outlook\yourprofile.srs
while Outlook is closed and try again.

 

[Christine]

I tried that yesterday...no changes. I also deleted the extend.dat and
outcmd.dat files again...no changes. Detect/repair never makes a difference
either.

Could this be a networking issue? I have a Vista computer (main) and an XP
computer running off the same router for internet access. I do not have the
XP computer set up to send/receive emails, but Outlook is loaded. File
sharing is On (even though I keep setting it Off). Since there's so many
workarounds networking between Vista and XP computers, I never fully
configured the network (just my laziness!). I only ask this because when we
moved stuff around in the office, we had to set up the router again, etc.

 

[Christine]

Another weird thing Outlook has been doing (only the last couple days since
the latest updates--sorry) is when I receive mail, the usual "ding-dong"
sound has a glitch -- now it sticks at ding real fast before it dongs --
"ding ding ding ding...dong". Best I can explain =)

 

[SB Mull]

I am having the same problem - using Vista and Outlook 2007 - everything was
fine until about 3 weeks ago. Now I have to do a hard reboot to send or
receive e-mail. I have checked everything I know to do and have had my ISP
crawl all over my set up - not their problem. I am on a home network and the
other three pc's are working properly for e-mail. Two have Vista with
Windows Mail and one has XP with OE - I have the only networked computer with
Outlook, although when my other pc with Outlook and XP was on the network it
was also working fine. I am concluding that the problem is related to the
combination of VISTA and Outlook.

 

[Christine]

Could be [incompatibility]! Since my original posts, I switched to Window
Mail and grew quite fond of its simplicity (and no problems! other than the
occasional dialog box about compressing folders, and made that mistake only
once!). I did not get any helpful responses to my posts either, so I'm
assuming no one really knows why this happens. I'm a Vista lover, so I won't
bash Vista, but I do wish there was a somewhat more advanced version of
Windows Mail. =)

 

[SB Mull]

Have you tried Windows Live (get a free download from microsoft.com). It is
much better than Windows Mail - has a calendar and lots of neat
functionality. I am considering trashing Outlook and going to Live since I
also use other products in the Live suite. Their picture gallery is good and
the RSS feeds function works well. I have determined that the problem with
Vista/Outlook is likely to be the file synchonization that seems to happen
endlessly - why, I don't know, since I am not using any other devices to sych
with. Problem is I can't find how to turn it off and am not getting any
responses to my question about it. Do give Live a try - good luck,

 

[Christine]

Thanks for the tip - I will definitely check out Live.

Now that you mention it, I do remember the constant synch issue, which I
believe is only necessary for mobile devices(?). I searched and found a
mobile device on my computer either through updates or automatically running
through msconfig/services. Since I don't run mobile devices, I either
uninstalled it (updates) or disabled it (msconfig), and the synch problem
seemed to go away, at least until it updated/re-enabled itself. I believe it
may have been an Apple/Quicktime mobile device, but I can't remember. The
computer I had these problems with died a few weeks back and has been in
service since; otherwise, I'd check it out. I bought a "backup" computer a
week before the other died, and I'm trying to keep it clean as a whistle!

Christine

Have you tried Windows Live (get a free download from microsoft.com). It is
much better than Windows Mail - has a calendar and lots of neat
functionality. I am considering trashing Outlook and going to Live since I
also use other products in the Live suite. Their picture gallery is good and
the RSS feeds function works well. I have determined that the problem with
Vista/Outlook is likely to be the file synchonization that seems to happen
endlessly - why, I don't know, since I am not using any other devices to sych
with. Problem is I can't find how to turn it off and am not getting any
responses to my question about it. Do give Live a try - good luck,
--
Sandra

Could be [incompatibility]! Since my original posts, I switched to Window
Mail and grew quite fond of its simplicity (and no problems! other than the
occasional dialog box about compressing folders, and made that mistake only
once!). I did not get any helpful responses to my posts either, so I'm
assuming no one really knows why this happens. I'm a Vista lover, so I won't
bash Vista, but I do wish there was a somewhat more advanced version of
Windows Mail. =)

 

[SB Mull]

I never have had any mobile devices with this computer, but I do have some
unrelated Bluetooth equipment in the physical area - I hope that's that the
problem - more likely it is an update that has changed some parameters that I
don't even know about. One thing I am doing today is changing my update
choices so I can individually select what I install. I am set for automatic
update now and when I looked at all the updates that have come in recently, I
was amazed.
--
Sandra

Thanks for the tip - I will definitely check out Live.

Now that you mention it, I do remember the constant synch issue, which I
believe is only necessary for mobile devices(?). I searched and found a
mobile device on my computer either through updates or automatically running
through msconfig/services. Since I don't run mobile devices, I either
uninstalled it (updates) or disabled it (msconfig), and the synch problem
seemed to go away, at least until it updated/re-enabled itself. I believe it
may have been an Apple/Quicktime mobile device, but I can't remember. The
computer I had these problems with died a few weeks back and has been in
service since; otherwise, I'd check it out. I bought a "backup" computer a
week before the other died, and I'm trying to keep it clean as a whistle!

Christine

Have you tried Windows Live (get a free download from microsoft.com). It is
much better than Windows Mail - has a calendar and lots of neat
functionality. I am considering trashing Outlook and going to Live since I
also use other products in the Live suite. Their picture gallery is good and
the RSS feeds function works well. I have determined that the problem with
Vista/Outlook is likely to be the file synchonization that seems to happen
endlessly - why, I don't know, since I am not using any other devices to sych
with. Problem is I can't find how to turn it off and am not getting any
responses to my question about it. Do give Live a try - good luck,
--
Sandra

Could be [incompatibility]! Since my original posts, I switched to Window
Mail and grew quite fond of its simplicity (and no problems! other than the
occasional dialog box about compressing folders, and made that mistake only
once!). I did not get any helpful responses to my posts either, so I'm
assuming no one really knows why this happens. I'm a Vista lover, so I won't
bash Vista, but I do wish there was a somewhat more advanced version of
Windows Mail. =)

 

[Christine]

I believe the mobile device software I found on my computer was an automatic
update related to Apple's Quicktime, if I remember right. Automatic updates
are awesome, but can definitely be sneaky! Good you're being selective.
Thanks for responding to my original post, and thanks again for reminding me
about Windows Live. Good luck!

I never have had any mobile devices with this computer, but I do have some
unrelated Bluetooth equipment in the physical area - I hope that's that the
problem - more likely it is an update that has changed some parameters that I
don't even know about. One thing I am doing today is changing my update
choices so I can individually select what I install. I am set for automatic
update now and when I looked at all the updates that have come in recently, I
was amazed.
--
Sandra

Thanks for the tip - I will definitely check out Live.

Now that you mention it, I do remember the constant synch issue, which I
believe is only necessary for mobile devices(?). I searched and found a
mobile device on my computer either through updates or automatically running
through msconfig/services. Since I don't run mobile devices, I either
uninstalled it (updates) or disabled it (msconfig), and the synch problem
seemed to go away, at least until it updated/re-enabled itself. I believe it
may have been an Apple/Quicktime mobile device, but I can't remember. The
computer I had these problems with died a few weeks back and has been in
service since; otherwise, I'd check it out. I bought a "backup" computer a
week before the other died, and I'm trying to keep it clean as a whistle!

Christine

Have you tried Windows Live (get a free download from microsoft.com). It is
much better than Windows Mail - has a calendar and lots of neat
functionality. I am considering trashing Outlook and going to Live since I
also use other products in the Live suite. Their picture gallery is good and
the RSS feeds function works well. I have determined that the problem with
Vista/Outlook is likely to be the file synchonization that seems to happen
endlessly - why, I don't know, since I am not using any other devices to sych
with. Problem is I can't find how to turn it off and am not getting any
responses to my question about it. Do give Live a try - good luck,
--
Sandra


:

Could be [incompatibility]! Since my original posts, I switched to Window
Mail and grew quite fond of its simplicity (and no problems! other than the
occasional dialog box about compressing folders, and made that mistake only
once!). I did not get any helpful responses to my posts either, so I'm
assuming no one really knows why this happens. I'm a Vista lover, so I won't
bash Vista, but I do wish there was a somewhat more advanced version of
Windows Mail. =)