Scott Fowler
asked on
How to recover a lost message composed in Outlook 2007 through Citrix Web Interface?
Recently, one of our users was outside of the office at a coffee shop using his netbook to vpn into work. He was using our citrix web interface and had Outlook 2007 opened remotely. He spent several hours composing a message in Outlook and then sent it to himself (to his own exchange mailbox). After doing so he noticed that his citrix web session had timed out. He then periodically checked his exchange mailbox the rest of the afternoon (both through the vpn and on his blackberry) and the message never showed up. I've looked in his sent items, drafts, and outbox and found no trace of this message. I also tried message tracking on our exchange server and found nothing.
So...Is there any other place this email could be hiding? Would the Citrix Web Session timing out have anything to do with the message disappearing? I didn't think the web interface timing out had any effect on programs that were already opened remotely. But I could be wrong :)
And a second issue that's related to this: our users hate the fact that the Citrix Web Interface times out without much of a warning. On our setup the interface will tell them that their session is about to expire, but they have to be looking at the web page to see the warning and usually they have a remote program open over the top of it. I know that you can increase the session timeout, which we've already done. But is there a way for the user to get a more obvious warning? A pop-up would be Ideal. Any other suggestions are welcome too.
So...Is there any other place this email could be hiding? Would the Citrix Web Session timing out have anything to do with the message disappearing? I didn't think the web interface timing out had any effect on programs that were already opened remotely. But I could be wrong :)
And a second issue that's related to this: our users hate the fact that the Citrix Web Interface times out without much of a warning. On our setup the interface will tell them that their session is about to expire, but they have to be looking at the web page to see the warning and usually they have a remote program open over the top of it. I know that you can increase the session timeout, which we've already done. But is there a way for the user to get a more obvious warning? A pop-up would be Ideal. Any other suggestions are welcome too.
chuckyh
I don't think the web interface timing out has anything to do with this. If there was a problem with his Citrix connection his outlook would have stopped responding. It strange that exchange would lose the message if it was actually sent. Maybe check the Citrix server he was connected to for any errors when he was logged in.
Have the user log back into the citrix session and see if the message is not in the drafts folder.
Presumably you have it auto-save while typing.
Presumably you have it auto-save while typing.
ASKER
Thanks for the replies!
chuckyh - I checked our Citrix server for logged errors around the time the user claims the message was sent and found nothing. Several other messages he sent around the same time did get through. So, it's quite strange that this one did not.
arnold - That was one of the first things we checked. Auto-saving is turned on and he has quite a few messages in his draft folder that he hasn't finished, but not the one that he's looking for is not in there.
Any other ideas? Thanks again!
chuckyh - I checked our Citrix server for logged errors around the time the user claims the message was sent and found nothing. Several other messages he sent around the same time did get through. So, it's quite strange that this one did not.
arnold - That was one of the first things we checked. Auto-saving is turned on and he has quite a few messages in his draft folder that he hasn't finished, but not the one that he's looking for is not in there.
Any other ideas? Thanks again!
What about the sent items? Is the message there and the person had a typo to whom the message was sent?
ASKER
arnold - It's not there either. I checked every one of his sent emails from that day just to make sure he didn't send it to the wrong email or give it a subject line other than what he thought. No luck.
Are there any othe folder locations that either citrix server or outlook 2007 might store incomplete email messages?
Are there any othe folder locations that either citrix server or outlook 2007 might store incomplete email messages?
It sounds as though the person may have closed the compose windows and answered no to saving the email.
The other possibility is that the user still has an active session where that composition window exists.
Check the citrix/terminal server for an active session for this user that is old. Do not logoff the session, but disconnect the session. The user should on the next login resume that session and may have the window along with the data.
There might be a file in %userprofile%\local settings\temp.
Search based on the text inside the message. I think this will be valid if word or another external editor is being used to compose the email.
The other possibility is that the user still has an active session where that composition window exists.
Check the citrix/terminal server for an active session for this user that is old. Do not logoff the session, but disconnect the session. The user should on the next login resume that session and may have the window along with the data.
There might be a file in %userprofile%\local settings\temp.
Search based on the text inside the message. I think this will be valid if word or another external editor is being used to compose the email.
ASKER
arnold - Good suggestion. Unfortunately, our Citrix server shows that there are no remote sessions older than today that are still open.
Regarding the second suggestion, would I check that folder on our Citrix server or on the users netbook? I suppose I could do both.
Regarding the second suggestion, would I check that folder on our Citrix server or on the users netbook? I suppose I could do both.
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ASKER
I really think the lost email is gone forever. The user has since moved on and there really is no reason to continue with it. Thanks to Arnold for all the good suggestions.