Outlook 2013 deletes all the emails in a user's inbox
This has me stumped.
This is a new SBS 2011 standard edition installation with four users, all using MS Office 2013. The users' mailboxes from their old SBS 2003 installation were saved as PST files and imported into the Exchange 2010 component of SBS 2011. The server OS is fully up to date with updates, and Exchange has had SP2 applied, followed by rollup 5, and is also up to date with its own updates.
Three of the users have no issues with Outlook; the fourth has had three bizarre events occur with his Outlook installation in the last few days.
I haven't been able to discern any pattern or common denominator for these issues, but sharper eyes and wiser heads may know or discern things that I'm not seeing.
I would be most grateful for any insights into these events.
This is a new SBS 2011 standard edition installation with four users, all using MS Office 2013. The users' mailboxes from their old SBS 2003 installation were saved as PST files and imported into the Exchange 2010 component of SBS 2011. The server OS is fully up to date with updates, and Exchange has had SP2 applied, followed by rollup 5, and is also up to date with its own updates.
Three of the users have no issues with Outlook; the fourth has had three bizarre events occur with his Outlook installation in the last few days.
1.
In front of his very eyes, without him touching mouse or keyboard, everything in his inbox except the subfolders vanished. The missing messages were found in the Deleted Items folder, and were successfully returned to the inbox.2.
When he opened some old emails in his Sent Items, the date of receipt changed to the current date. This happened for perhaps half a dozen messages, but I can't duplicate the problem. It is a problem, because for this client it can be very important to know when an email was received.3.
Several emails sent by the user have appeared in his inbox as well, flagged as unread. The email has been successfully sent to the recipient regardless of whether it appears in his inbox.I haven't been able to discern any pattern or common denominator for these issues, but sharper eyes and wiser heads may know or discern things that I'm not seeing.
I would be most grateful for any insights into these events.
ASKER
No-one has access to this mailbox except the user.
The user doesn't have any forwarding to his account. He does of course have email forwarded to him from other users, but purely on an ad hoc basis.
The Sent Items issue is a bit murkier; the items that had their date of receipt changed were from the PST import and were about a year old. I haven't been able to reproduce the problem with other sent items from the imported mailbox. Items sent since the new system was up and running are normal; there haven't been any date issues with them.
The user doesn't have any forwarding to his account. He does of course have email forwarded to him from other users, but purely on an ad hoc basis.
The Sent Items issue is a bit murkier; the items that had their date of receipt changed were from the PST import and were about a year old. I haven't been able to reproduce the problem with other sent items from the imported mailbox. Items sent since the new system was up and running are normal; there haven't been any date issues with them.
ASKER
This may not be relevant, but I've just discovered that on the user's computer Word wasn't the default program for document editing - the default text editor was helpfully described as Unknown Program.
As Word is used by Outlook as the default text editor, I'm wondering if this might have some bearing on the problem; not because it's a logical premise, but because it wasn't the normal expected setup.
As Word is used by Outlook as the default text editor, I'm wondering if this might have some bearing on the problem; not because it's a logical premise, but because it wasn't the normal expected setup.
ASKER
The user's inbox has just had all the emails in it deleted again (yesterday), while its subfolders and their contents remain untouched. Again, the user wasn't actually doing anything on the computer; the emails in his inbox disappeared before his very eyes.
The emails were successfully recovered using the Restore Deleted Items option under the Folders tab, but not unreasonably, the user doesn't want to keep having to do this.
Incidentally, this happened after Word had been restored as the default text editor, so that seems to be ruled out as a potential cause.
Ideas, anyone?
The emails were successfully recovered using the Restore Deleted Items option under the Folders tab, but not unreasonably, the user doesn't want to keep having to do this.
Incidentally, this happened after Word had been restored as the default text editor, so that seems to be ruled out as a potential cause.
Ideas, anyone?
Hi,
MS has a known issue simular to yours. Have a look at this KB and see it helps. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2024309
MS has a known issue simular to yours. Have a look at this KB and see it helps. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2024309
ASKER
Thanks for the response.
I've checked the KB article and it assumes that cached mode is being used. All the users on this domain have cached mode turned off, as there were constant synchronisation warning messages about deleted items not being found. However, it is only this user that is having the problem, so I'm don't think that the access mode of Outlook is causing the difficulty.
The view that is in use is the same as everyone else's.
I've checked the KB article and it assumes that cached mode is being used. All the users on this domain have cached mode turned off, as there were constant synchronisation warning messages about deleted items not being found. However, it is only this user that is having the problem, so I'm don't think that the access mode of Outlook is causing the difficulty.
The view that is in use is the same as everyone else's.
ASKER
I've followed the steps suggested in the article, but I'll have to wait for a while to see if it's addressed the problem. I didn't find any rules set up in the user's Outlook, but I ran the Outlook /cleanrules command as it was implied that this needed to be done regardless of whether any rules existed.
So now, I wait...
So now, I wait...
ASKER
Well, it's been a long time...
None of the above suggestions seemed to have any effect on the problem. In the end, I did a clean install of Windows 7, followed by Office 2013, on the user's computer about six weeks ago.
Since then there have been no problems at all, so I can only conclude that there was some corruption somewhere in the original installation of either Windows 7, Office 2013, or both.
If nothing else, this outcome shows that the problem was client side and not server side, which may be useful to anyone encountering a similar issue in the future.
None of the above suggestions seemed to have any effect on the problem. In the end, I did a clean install of Windows 7, followed by Office 2013, on the user's computer about six weeks ago.
Since then there have been no problems at all, so I can only conclude that there was some corruption somewhere in the original installation of either Windows 7, Office 2013, or both.
If nothing else, this outcome shows that the problem was client side and not server side, which may be useful to anyone encountering a similar issue in the future.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
No suggestions offered had any effect on the problem, and I haven't solved it either, so I'm closing the question before it starts to smell bad.
Does anyone else have permission to open the users mailbox, this permission is set either at the server level or by using delegates. Also check to see if the users mail get forwarded to anyone (including himself)
Forgetting the imported PST sent items for a moment - do new sent items show up as the correct date/time