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Cyclops3590Flag for United States of America

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Outlook 2k3 Send/Receive issue

I have a user that after a random amount of time, her Outlook stops sending and receiving email.  Email being sent just stays in the Outbox .
She then closes out Outlook and restarts.  After she clicks send/receive, the email in the outbox sends and she also receives all of her email from the server.  The client is configured to send email immediately and check for new email every 10 minutes.  And this usually works.  

Also, this is not an Exchange environment.  I had first updated her Outlook to no avail, then I reinstalled it completely and updated it.  Short of re-installing the OS, I don't know what else to check. This is the only user I'm experiencing this problem with and I have several other Outlook 2k3 users with a similar configuration.  

Can someone shed some light on this as I'm completely stumped here.
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war1
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Thanks for the suggestions.  Normally this user's client works no problems, its just after a certain amount of time it stops working.  Restart it and it starts working again.  So option 1,2 and 3 I don't believe would change anything.  Also, since it only happens at most 2 times in the same day, it'll take me a little while to try option  4.  I will try creating a new profile just the heck of it so see if that does anything.

 I'm going to wait until the next time it happens so I can get a better description for you of the problem (need to refresh my memory as to exactly what was happening)  I just asked the user again.  And she said that when it does screw up, the status bar does read Sending and Receiving like its trying, but either never does anything or comes up with a Not Responding box.  After it screws up again though I'm going to try a new profile just to make sure.

Also, do you think running a ScanPST on the pst file would help solve this problem at all.  I'll try one just for the heck of it as well.
Okay, just for the heck of it I'm trying all of your suggestions.

While Outlook was open, I clicked Send/Receive.  In the status bar it was stuck on Sending 1 of 2 ....
The problem is there were 9 emails in the Outbox.
I disabled the Anti-Virus (still open; AV is AVG)
Nothing changed.
I check the server timeout. Was at 6 1/2 minutes
Authentication I require on all laptop users so that was already configured right.
I then closed Outlook and reopened it.
All the emails in the Outbox went immediately.  Will have to wait until it happens again now, then I will try the new profile suggestion.

One new problem that arose was that now the extend.dat file is not accessible at all.  When I checked the properties there was no Security tab (I have simple file sharing unchecked so it should show; does for other files).  Do I just log into DOS mode and try to copy the contents to a new file, then remove the current extend.dat.

What does the extend.dat hold for information anyway?
>> What does the extend.dat hold for information anyway?

Extend.dat holds are the starting info for addins. So renaming it is a quick way to disable all the addins.
to if I just delete it will Outlook create another one.  Also, by addin, can you give me a couple examples of what you mean by this.  Other than a full MS Office install, I have AVG with its plug-in.  Other than that I don't know of anything else on this client.

thanks for the help war1
To see what addins that you have, in Outlook go to Tools > Options > Other > Advanced Options > Addin Manager or COMM/Addin
Cyclops, any update?
Not yet, I'm sure its still happening, but we're in the midst of doing inventory.  So she's busy and doesn't report it everytime it happens since a quick restart of Outlook fixes it.  I'm going to remind her on Monday to keep me updated.
quick update....she is currently in the middle of working on important presentations and doesn't want to mess with it until Wed. afternoon at the earliest.  Hopefully we'll know if a profile change fixes it by the weekend.
another update...evidently she's not having the problem anymore.  The thing is I didn't do anything to the pc.  tried your suggestions, didn't work still had problem, didn't do anything, and now it works.

Basically if its working I'm not going to mess with thil its broken again.  Of course, its only been one day so we'll find out more early next week.
Maybe removing the addins did help. But user had to reboot before the change would take effect.
actually, I never did touch the add-ins.
ok, its still not working.  I just created a new profile and going to see if that works.  I'll get back to you early next week.
Well I did the profile thing, still too early to tell if that fixed it or not though.  However, a side effect is now I have to reconnect everything.  I have the email and contacts connected again.  The signature needs to be redone.  However the biggest problem is the address book auto fill on the to header.
All of the contacts are listed under Contacts, its now the only Address Book as well.  The problem is that when you compose a new email message and begin to type in the name of someone it finds some addresses, but most it can't find.  You click on the To button and their in there, but Outlook won't find it for auto complete.

I have no clue where to check for that piece, war1 do you have any idea.

Also, thanks for sticking around on this drawn out issue.
Cyclops,

Make sure autocomplete is selected.  Go to Tools > Options > Email Options > Advanced Email Options. Check "Suggest names while completing To, CC and BCC fileds". Click OK. OK.
Its checked already.  It seems to work since it brings up some names, but its almost like its checking a different list.  However, the address book and contacts are the same and the contacts list is the only list in the address book.  

any other ideas, if not I'll just have her put up with it for now so we can atleast see if the original problem is solved.  If it is, then I'll post another question to solve the other problems.
Autocomplete addressing pulls addrresses from Contacts list and from nickname file.  the file has a .NK2 extension.  Search for it in old profile and copy to new new profile.  This file is hidden, so you have to unhide hidden files.
well that semi-fixed that problem.  is it possible to get the nickname file sync'ed back up with the contacts list. or does this file kind of work similarly to when you use IE and enter URLs, that after you enter the URL once it is saved somewhere so that if you retype it later, IE should autocomplete for you.  Or does the nickname file work differently than that.
Cyclops,

The nickname list works similarly to Internet Explorer autocomplete feature.  You have to type in the names.  You can use this free tool to edit and add names.

http://www.epute.com/nk2csv/
sweet, thanks.
It looks good so far; however she took a half day yesterday so we're going to run it a couple of days to make sure but I think the creating a new profile worked. (knock on wood)
Cyclops, thanks for the update.
everything is looking good so far, creating a new profile worked.

Thanks for all the help
You are welcome, Cyclops!