Windows Live Mail Contacts - Categories Not Being Retained
My wife uses Windows Live Mail in Windows 8. It's worked fine until the last few weeks, when it's started having a strange issue: Her Categories (groups) are not retaining the correct list.
For example, if she creates a Category called Friends, and adds perhaps 7 folks into it -- say Barbara, Heather, Jane, Judy, Marlene, Susie, and Trudy ... and then sends an e-mail to that group, it will only go to a subset of them [perhaps 4 of them].
If she then right-clicks on Friends in the address list, it will SHOW all 7 in the list at the right; but only show the 4 it's sending to in the little box at the bottom that shows membership. You cannot add the others back to it, as it "thinks" they're already members.
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling Live Mail; deleting all the Categories and recreating them (seems to work for a brief time) -- but nothing works. It's a real pain, as she's very involved in a variety of activities and has perhaps 2-dozen groups she needs to send info to.
FWIW the mail accounts are simple POP3 accounts -- nothing fancy; no phone or tablet syncs; no "I" stuff involved. Just a plain vanilla install of Live Mail with two POP3 accounts.
I've confirmed that all members of the group ("Category") have valid address book entries and valid e-mail addresses -- she can send an e-mail to the whole group by simply selecting them all individually.
Anyone seen this? ... and more importantly, do you know how to fix it?? :-)
For example, if she creates a Category called Friends, and adds perhaps 7 folks into it -- say Barbara, Heather, Jane, Judy, Marlene, Susie, and Trudy ... and then sends an e-mail to that group, it will only go to a subset of them [perhaps 4 of them].
If she then right-clicks on Friends in the address list, it will SHOW all 7 in the list at the right; but only show the 4 it's sending to in the little box at the bottom that shows membership. You cannot add the others back to it, as it "thinks" they're already members.
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling Live Mail; deleting all the Categories and recreating them (seems to work for a brief time) -- but nothing works. It's a real pain, as she's very involved in a variety of activities and has perhaps 2-dozen groups she needs to send info to.
FWIW the mail accounts are simple POP3 accounts -- nothing fancy; no phone or tablet syncs; no "I" stuff involved. Just a plain vanilla install of Live Mail with two POP3 accounts.
I've confirmed that all members of the group ("Category") have valid address book entries and valid e-mail addresses -- she can send an e-mail to the whole group by simply selecting them all individually.
Anyone seen this? ... and more importantly, do you know how to fix it?? :-)
Hi Gary.
I know how to solve this problem - sorry, I did not yet read the 9 pages you linked.
The problem occurs if you had imported the contacts from previous installations (like for example a .wab file). It does not happen with contacts you create in WL Mail12 on win8 but ONLY with the imported ones. [I guess] That's why in your case the mail is only sent to a subset.
It is a bug that can be made visible very easy: just click on the "+" next to the category after inserting the cat. into the "to"-line - result: some of the addresses (the imported ones) simply vanish.
Solution would be to re-create the imported ones or bring them into a format that gets imported correctly (don't ask me which, but it won't be .wab).
I know how to solve this problem - sorry, I did not yet read the 9 pages you linked.
The problem occurs if you had imported the contacts from previous installations (like for example a .wab file). It does not happen with contacts you create in WL Mail12 on win8 but ONLY with the imported ones. [I guess] That's why in your case the mail is only sent to a subset.
It is a bug that can be made visible very easy: just click on the "+" next to the category after inserting the cat. into the "to"-line - result: some of the addresses (the imported ones) simply vanish.
Solution would be to re-create the imported ones or bring them into a format that gets imported correctly (don't ask me which, but it won't be .wab).
ASKER
Unfortunately it's not that simple => I've already tried deleting all of the contacts; recreating them; and creating a category with them in it -- and the problem is the same. There was initially some speculation that the issue only occurred when updating from WLM2011 to WLM2012, but both my experience and several others who installed WLM 2012 from scratch in a clean new install of Windows 8 shows this isn't the case.
In fact, I installed WLM2012 in a new Win8 install with NO imported contacts; created 20 contacts; added a few groups ("categories" -- a dumb name for mail lists IMHO); and confirmed that the problem is still there.
There IS a fairly simple workaround -- when creating a message, after you've selected a category to use, you just click the "+" to expand it before clicking the OK button to close the address selections. This works every time !! You should NOT, of course, have to do this -- WLM 2011 works perfectly without doing so; but with WLM 2012 it at least works around the problem.
Hopefully Microsoft will fix this "one of these days" -- but I wouldn't hold my breath :-)
In fact, I installed WLM2012 in a new Win8 install with NO imported contacts; created 20 contacts; added a few groups ("categories" -- a dumb name for mail lists IMHO); and confirmed that the problem is still there.
There IS a fairly simple workaround -- when creating a message, after you've selected a category to use, you just click the "+" to expand it before clicking the OK button to close the address selections. This works every time !! You should NOT, of course, have to do this -- WLM 2011 works perfectly without doing so; but with WLM 2012 it at least works around the problem.
Hopefully Microsoft will fix this "one of these days" -- but I wouldn't hold my breath :-)
Funny - I experienced this on my own machine and was able to solve it as described. Well... weird stuff.
ASKER
There are other weird things related to this issue as well -- if you're bored sometime, read the 9 pages of discussion on the Microsoft forum :-)
... The problem apparently doesn't happen if you have a Windows Live account and are always logged on to it; and it will "go away" for the duration of your WLM 2012 session if you simply log on to Windows Live, then log off (from within WLM). The consensus seems to be that the "pointers" to the contacts are set incorrectly, but are reset to the correct local store if you are logging off of Windows Live (thus the need to log on so you can log off).
Definitely a strange (and frustrating) issue -- but at least there's a simple workaround (clicking the "+" sign).
... The problem apparently doesn't happen if you have a Windows Live account and are always logged on to it; and it will "go away" for the duration of your WLM 2012 session if you simply log on to Windows Live, then log off (from within WLM). The consensus seems to be that the "pointers" to the contacts are set incorrectly, but are reset to the correct local store if you are logging off of Windows Live (thus the need to log on so you can log off).
Definitely a strange (and frustrating) issue -- but at least there's a simple workaround (clicking the "+" sign).
That + had been no workaround for me: all "invalid" contacts (those that were imported) vanished, leaving the few new ones (I created after importing) behind.
ASKER
Very interesting -- Microsoft sure managed to mess up a good program when they moved from WLM 2011 to WLM 2012 !! I'm definitely tempted to just install WLM 2011 on my wife's system -- but I'm a bit paranoid about how much might get lost when trying to move everything "backwards" ... so as long as the workaround works for her, I suspect that's what we'll use.
There were a few other "weird" symptoms discussed in the long thread I referenced -- I don't recall if any matched exactly what you described; but the one thing that's clear is that the behavior of the "Categories" has certainly been messed up with the newest version.
There were a few other "weird" symptoms discussed in the long thread I referenced -- I don't recall if any matched exactly what you described; but the one thing that's clear is that the behavior of the "Categories" has certainly been messed up with the newest version.
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This outlines a way to workaround the issue, and is probably the best approach to use until Microsoft resolves this issue in Windows Live Mail.
I've finally discovered that the problem is when you have duplicate addresses. Go through and delete all duplicates in your address database.
Then check whether the remaining one is loading - if not copy the address, delete the old and make a new contact. This new one will work fine when included into the category.
I have huge golf and footy club emails to manage and this was driving me batty - just half a day and its all fixed!
Then check whether the remaining one is loading - if not copy the address, delete the old and make a new contact. This new one will work fine when included into the category.
I have huge golf and footy club emails to manage and this was driving me batty - just half a day and its all fixed!
ASKER
The most reliable "fix' is to simply use WLM 2011 => this works perfectly.
Unfortunately, unless you already have a full download of it; it's no longer available for download. [If you have the "stub" download, that also won't work, as it won't be able to download the full package.] Fortunately, I downloaded the full package some time ago, so I've been able to resolve this for local friends who have the same issue with no problem.
Unfortunately, unless you already have a full download of it; it's no longer available for download. [If you have the "stub" download, that also won't work, as it won't be able to download the full package.] Fortunately, I downloaded the full package some time ago, so I've been able to resolve this for local friends who have the same issue with no problem.
I have to retract my previous solution - it didn't work next time I tried to send a category - hit the '+' button and only 3 out of 15 names came up.
On Microsoft community I found the following solution from 'Mountain Bob' that seems to work:
Please note further: if I add a new category in WLM 2012 that has ALL of my contacts in it, then all of my other non-functioning categories suddenly start working fine, UNTIL I exit WLM 2012. When I re-run WLM 2012, they've all stopped working again, and I have to add ANOTHER new category that contains ALL of my contacts in order to use my categories again. That is also highly indicative of a code problem, not a data corruption problem.
Fairly easy thing to do so if this continues to work I think I'll not go through the fuss of reverting to WLM 11.
On Microsoft community I found the following solution from 'Mountain Bob' that seems to work:
Please note further: if I add a new category in WLM 2012 that has ALL of my contacts in it, then all of my other non-functioning categories suddenly start working fine, UNTIL I exit WLM 2012. When I re-run WLM 2012, they've all stopped working again, and I have to add ANOTHER new category that contains ALL of my contacts in order to use my categories again. That is also highly indicative of a code problem, not a data corruption problem.
Fairly easy thing to do so if this continues to work I think I'll not go through the fuss of reverting to WLM 11.
ASKER
There's virtually no "fuss" revertintg to WLM 2011 IF you have a download of the full version of Windows Live 2011. If you don't have access to that, it's really no longer an option, as this download no longer seems to be available.
I've been a longtime participant in the same thread you referenced on the Microsoft Community forum (Mountain Bob and I posted a LOT of the comments on that thread) ... and if you read through the entire thread you'll see that several different Microsoft moderators "jumped in" and after then disappeared after they recognized that this was a real issue and they didn't have any solution. Bottom line is it's a problem that's never going to be resolved -- so you either need to use a frustrating workaround; revert to 2011 (which works perfectly); or simply use some other e-mail program.
I've been a longtime participant in the same thread you referenced on the Microsoft Community forum (Mountain Bob and I posted a LOT of the comments on that thread) ... and if you read through the entire thread you'll see that several different Microsoft moderators "jumped in" and after then disappeared after they recognized that this was a real issue and they didn't have any solution. Bottom line is it's a problem that's never going to be resolved -- so you either need to use a frustrating workaround; revert to 2011 (which works perfectly); or simply use some other e-mail program.
ASKER
There's a LONG (9 pages) thread about that here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/livemail-people/windows-live-mail-category-problem/fdc70f55-8456-466a-aa65-5f0b04f50f3f?page=1&tm=1365416021107
... if anyone else is having this issue, that thread may be useful => on page 9 there's a workaround posted that may help until a fix is implemented by Microsoft. I'm going to see if it works for my wife; if not, I'll just uninstall Live Mail 2012 and install Live Mail 2011, which does not have the problem !!