BCM- Calendar hangs Outlook 2007

[Bob Heiney]

I have a new problem. When I click on the calendar button on Outlook 2007, it
hangs Outlook. I must use Windows Task Manager to force a close of Outlook
and restart. All other buttons operate normally.

I'm guessing the prevaling solution will be to Restore from a backup. If
this is the case, I am going to move on from Outlook-BCM. It is way too buggy
and unstable.

Here's my computer stats:

Dell Notebook, Intel Centrino 1.60 GHZ
1.25 GB Ram
80 G harddrive

 

[curtizb]

I have installed Outlook 2007 then Office Accounting 2007, and then BCM 2007.
It seemed to work at first, even though the process of setting up the
initial database was a little confusing. I would say it worked for about a
day and then for some reason Outlook 2007 DISABLED the add-in effectively
making BCM useless.
BTW Outlook 2007 still crashes for no appearant reason, and then the only
recourse is a re-boot. I just now had Outlook 2007 lock up and REBOOT my
computer. This is the worst MS release to date in my opinion.
WHY are we not getting the update to make this stuff work?
This is MY BUSINESS, and I guess I made a huge mistake trusting MS
accounting software. Horrible!

 

[Bob Heiney]

Hello Curtizb,

I can really empathize with you. I switched over from Chaos Software to what
I thought was the ultimate in sophistication. How could anyone go wrong with
Microsoft? I upgraded at a cost of hundreds of dollars and basically all I've
got now is "Slow & Stupid" instead of a well functioning contact manager. I
don't know why a hole in the wall software company in TX can produce a faster
and easier to use contact manager than the world's largest software company.
It baffles me.

There are so many things wrong with BCM 2007 you'd think the company was
some small backwoods firm operating out of someone's basement. To quote
another 'satisfied' user, Outlook 2007 & BCM 2007 is shameful and should
never have been released.

Let's rename it "Slow & Stupid 2007"

Bob

 

[curtizb]

Yes, I agree Bob.
It may also be important to note that I was running BCM2007 on a Vista
Business OS. When I ran outlook 2007 over XP Pro I had few issues. I added
Vista to a test box, and it seemed to be working fine aside from a few minor
driver issues.
Then I made the mistake of adding Office 2007, Office Accounting 2007, and
BCM.
Outlook refuses to open sometimes. It just gives you a lame prompt saying
"outlook could not open) and really does not give you a clue as to why!
Then sometimes you can open Outlook, but as soon as you open an e-mail it
shuts down! Also it takes out the preview view and if you click on the
preview, yep you guessed it: IT SHUTS DOWN! I have had the accounting 2007
software shut down as I was in the middle of entering an invoice.I am glad no
customers were around for that little scene!
Eventually, Outlook took it upon it's self to DISABLE my BCM add-in as it
determined that was a problem, and I am sure it was, but it makes me wonder
how much testing was put into this rediculous release. It's almost like they
did not test Office 2007 on Vista very much at all. Maybe they figured most
people would not upgrade for THIS VERY REASON! I am tempted to load up
my Small Business Accounting 2006 instead of the new (broke) version, but I
can only imagine what will happen when I try to import the newer data backup
type to the older version of 2006.
That being said, I can honestly say that Office 2007 has more bugs than any
of the previous releases. The verdict is still out on Vista, but if Vista
cannot run Office 2007; I would say it's pretty much garbage too.

 

[Clinton Ford [MSFT]]

Sorry to hear about these difficulties. It is hard to identify the source of
this error. Are you connecting Outlook to an Exchange Server? You might also
try disabling E-mail Auto Linking to see if that resolves the issue. Also,
enable BCM logging in Outlook by clicking Help | About Business Contact
Manager | Enable logging. If you get another hang or crash, open that file
and look for errors in the log
(%temp%\bcmlog_v3).

If you need immediate assistance, we have support staff available to work
with you on this issue. Below is the link to the support options:
http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx?rdpath=1&gprid=11335

 

[curtizb]

No I am not connecting to an Exchange Server.
Outlook disabled the BCM plug-in and did not give a reason why.
Now I have a bigger issue. Today I downloaded and ran the Office Accounting
2007 SP1 and now it locks up EVERY time I try to run it.
It attempts to backup the company and then LOCKS. After you close the
program it does not let you back in until you reboot!
I think it may be time to go back to Quickbooks! I just can't have these
issues on my accoutning machine. It's running on a Vista Business edtion. I
called the tech support and they wanted $245 bucks to help me!

Thanks anyway Clinton.
Curt
PS: Have any idea of when is Google coming out with an accounting package???

 

[curtizb]

Hey Bob. Just wanted to give you a heads up in case you're still trying to
make this buggy program work. I installed the SP1 for Office Accounting 2007
thinking it would FIX things, and boy was I WRONG. Now, I can't even open
the program at all!!! I have invoices I need to send and now I am stuck
having to RE-Install or try to find a fix. I have never been so dissapointed
with a piece of software. They might as well send me a virus in the updates
next time!
I hope Google comes up with a full package soon, as I will be the first to
ditch Office and recomend the Google software to my clients. I have tried
out some of the ZOHO stuff: http://www.zoho.com/ and of course the Google
stuff: http://www.google.com/a/ and I think they are making huge strides.
Vista and Office 2007 are a major dissapointment man.

 

[Paxford_Pete]

Hi Bob

I have exactly this same problem - Outlook 2007 with BCM under Vista Home
Premium. P4 Prescott 3.4HT with 2Gb RAM and ATI X1950 Pro. Also use OneCare.

4 x Email accounts (3 x POP3 plus Hotmail) and BCM.

Can select contacts, tasks, mail but selecting calendar just locks the
system and CPU usage sidebar gadget/task manager shows around 60% utilisation
by outlook.

I am cool (notwithstanding serious resource hogging) with Vista and Office
2007 but need to be able to see my calendar once in a while!!!

Has Micrsosoft acknowledged this as a problem?? Is there a fix/workaround.
Cant really go back to 2003 as I didn't have 2003 BCM and lots of my data is
now in BCM. Coudnt find any reference in MKB.

Thanks and regards

Paxford_Pete

 

[Aarjay777]

Hi,

I have had the same problems since installing last week. I have spent 6
hours with Microsoft techies troubleshooting this problem and still no joy. I
have lost count how many hours I have now lost for my business.

Tasks, mail, contacts worked fine until i went from BCM and then into the
calendar.

We have now created 3 profiles which has been a total pain in the rear.
Yesterday the 3rd profile was working for about 8 hours full functionality
and then all of a sudden i went from BCM to calendar and wallop Outllook
crashes. I cannot open my calendar at all now.

We have removed any third party plug ins. The calendar, tasks, BCM etc work
fine on my networked computer. Therefore this would lead me to believe BCM is
not liking my previous calendar. This for me is where the conflict lies. I
have been told i might have a corrupt file. How about the software isnt
working properley? My calendar has never giving me any issues in the past
it's only since i upgraded so the corrupt file for me is a cop out.

I upgraded from Outlook 2003 (wish I never bothered). I previously did not
use BCM.

Microsoft have said that because they havent received enough error reports
on this issue then it will not be given priority. I think this is because the
error reports also hangs along with Outllook. I have left the error reporting
hanging for up to 45 minutes and it still wouldnt send.

Like many other posts on here about the same subject but scatted about under
seperate headings the system resources are running at extremely high levels.
Yesterday the memory usage was over 1,000,000k. When I look at the rest of
the programmes Outlook.exe uses 153,000k and the rest are 50,000k and below.
Is this normal?????????????

Like all the other guyrs on here we have invested in what should be market
leading software with market leading backup support. So why is it you guys
posted this issue months ago and you get one response from an MVP and nothing
since then????

Here's my stats:

Windows XP SP2 (I have an upgrade disc for Vista but i think it will be a
long time before i forget about the pain of this upgrade never mind a new
Operating System).

Acer Notebook, Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz
2GB DDR2
160GB HDD

So come on Microsoft acknowledge this problem and give us a solution before
we give up Outlook for good.

Best regards
Aarjay

 

[Aarjay777]

Update on problem 14th July 2007

My Calendar has now been working for the last 48 hours without any glitches.

I removed all recurring appointment past, present and future. (not ideal but
i picked up that this might be a problem). My system did start hanging after
24 hours again but since then for no apparent reason it has started working
again without any issues.

My frustration is i was working on this with Microsoft as a support incident
and they were supposed to phone me back 2 days ago. I'm still waiting on
their return call.

I have yet to receive a response to my posts on these forums.

Are you guys to busy or does no one want to deal with this problem?

Yours Hopefully,

Aarjay777

 

[Aarjay777]

Update on the 16th July 2007

Again for no apparent reason my Outlook 2007 Calendar keeps hanging the
software every time I select Calendar. All other parts of my Outlook are
working but I am trying to run a business here and i cannot operate without a
diary.

I have still not received any contact from Microsoft even thought they were
supposed to phone me back.

Is there anybody there???????????????????

 

[CLarke]

Did you ever get this sorted.

We are having the same issue. The PC works well with BCM installed and no
BCM in the profile. As soon as I create the BCM link in the OUtlook profile,
the calendar is unusable. The cpu goes to about 40-60%, and the interesting
thing is the Network activity/utilisation goes to 12-20% straight away, if I
Kill Outlook in Task Manager it stops straight away.

Anyone got any bright ideas.

 

[Aarjay777]

Hi Clarke,

My system has now been working for 3 weeks without any problems. I have to
admit that i dont know exactly what i did right but please see my previous
posts above.

The biggest change that i do know that worked was when I removed the
"Instant Search Feature" in Outlook. Once i removed this my system
performance has been fine. No more issues with CPU going beserk. I removed
this using add remove programmes.

Try this first, and see how you get on it worked for me. If this in
isolation doesnt work then remove recurring diary entries like i did as this
might be a compatibility issue when converting from 2003 to 2007.

Microsoft are aware of these issues. They wanted me to tell them what i did
to rectify the problem and I have provided them with all the troubleshooting
steps as detailed in my previous posts.

Good luck.

Aarjay777

 

[CLarke]

We actually narrowed the fault down to the Local users task list in Outlook.
We are running Exchange 2003, and as soon as we make his task list empty in
exchange, ie export it to a PST, the calendar works correctly. There must be
a slight conflict with his task list and the BCM's task list.
No issues since this about 4 days ago.

 

[Paxford_Pete]

Hi Again

For me this problem is still there albeit intermittent.

However, I now get the same "hang" if I go into the to do list. Previuosly
I would get a list of BCM contacts with their "follow up flag" date showing
as the "due date". Now it just hangs.

Under "My Tasks" if I select "Tasks" I get my non-BCM tasks listed; if
however I select "To Do List" (which has the red flag icon rather than the
clipboard with a tick icon) under "My Tasks" then it has started just
hanging....whereas before it would have listed BCM contact names as well as
Outlook tasks

Anyone else seen this?

Pete

 

[Pachimke]

hi there

i spent DAYS putting hundreds of clients into BCM. Know realising it sucks.
I think i'm starting to cry at this moment.
When i click on the calender, it HANGS...on my laptop i have the same
problem. Both win XP. At my pc i removed "Instant Search Feature" because is
a real disaster. Outlook calender still hangs. On my laptop i never installed
the instand search feature, and it also hangs. I can't work this way. Have to
stay 2 days at home from work and try to fix this. With no succes.
I think i will re-install the complete pc, outlook, bcm, etc...what can i do
? i'm hopeless.

 

[Sam]

Looks like the problem of hang when clicking on Calendar is not yet fixed. I
can duplicate it over and over with nothing else running on my machine. When
clicking on Calendar from within BCM it hangs every time. Very embarrasing
when talking to a million dollar account who has just asked for an
appointment and Outlook goes stone cold dead. "Let me check that date" going
into stalling conversation mode while checking the calendar on the cell
phone. Not a productivity helper BCM programmers.