0x8004210A smtp errors on outlook 2003 - getting desperate

[Michael Hennessy]

Hi all,

I've read just about everything I can lay my hands on with this
problem and am rapidly getting nowhere......

heres what I've got : multiple new, freshly build ol2003 installs on
new xp pro sp1 machines. Some of the machines intermittently get this
error - sometimes all the time, other times seldom. One or two
machines have never had it.

All machines have been through an identical build process.

heres what I think its not:

- not the MTU problem mentioned elsewhere - have tried the blackhole
and pmtu changes and they dont help.

- not anything to do with antivirus - running Trendmicro officescan
corporate on these, and it makes no difference itf its loaded or not.

- not anything to do with pst file corruptions - have rebuilt them
multiple times - sometimes the next send works, sometimes not.

- not anything to do with the smtp server at the other end - changing
timeouts doesnt make any difference

Ive turned on logging, and on the transfers that fail, the log looks
like the below.

Frankly, I'm about to downgrade the lot of them to officeXP if I cant
get this sorted real soon, which would be a crying shame..... if there
are any 'softies out there with any words of wisdom I'd very much
appreciate it.

===========================================================
2004.02.05 21:52:25 <<<< Logging Started (level is LTF_TRACE) >>>>
2004.02.05 21:52:25 Mail Service: Synch operation started (flags =
00000001)
2004.02.05 21:52:25 Mail Service: UploadItems: 1 messages to send
2004.02.05 21:52:25 SMTP (mail.myisp.com.au): Begin execution
2004.02.05 21:53:40 SMTP (mail.myisp.com.au): End execution
2004.02.05 21:53:40 Mail Service: ReportStatus: RSF_COMPLETED, hr =
0x8004210b
2004.02.05 21:53:40 Mail Service: Synch operation completed
===========================================================

Task 'smtp server name - Sending and Receiving' reported
error (0x8004210A):
'The operation timed out waiting for a response from the
sending (SMTP) server. If you continue to receive this message,
contact your server administrator or Internet service provide (ISP).'


MH

 

[Michael Hennessy]

OK - some more news - using packet capturing on a machine that is
having the problem shows that:

- normal outbound manual telnet traffic to port 25 using telnet works
fine
- outlook will run pop3 ok
..... but outlook doing smtp still fails and generates _NO_ traffic on
the network.... its just like the network is disconnected, but only
for SMTP traffic from outlook... a cmd window running atthe same time
can telnet to port 25 of the mail server with no problems.

Looks to me like theres some sort of problem with the low level
networking code in outlook.... anyone else seens anything similar?

MH

 

[Michael Hennessy]

Testing running outlook.exe under the dependecny walker in trace mode
shows that onthe occassion when SMTP works properly that wsock32.dll
and ws2_32.dll are being loaded by inetcomm.dll, but on the occassions
when it times out tyhey are not loaded at all....