Message stuck in outbox (Outlook 2003 SP 1)

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Byg Byrd

Message stuck in outbox (Outlook 2003 SP 1)


After working properly for ages (more than 12 months) all of a sudden both
new and forwarded received messages, on clicking "Send" go to the Outbox,
display in Italics for a very small fraction of a second then switch to
normal font and then refuse to be sent.

An e-mail struck in the Outbox has a header with:
- an icon which looks like a message outside an open envelope it came in (if
ready to send it should be a closed envelope)
- has a date of "None" (should be date/time stamped)
- Is in normal font (should be italics)

The Outbox folder name in the Folder Panel is in bold followed by the number
of messages in the Outbox shown in square brackets (normally round brackets
appear around the number indicating the messages are waiting to be sent).

I've tried:
- opening the message and clicking Send again - same result.
- creating a new message, saving it to draft, opening it, clicking send - it
goes to the Outbox but on checking displays in normal font and cannot be sent.
- forward a message that has been received - same result.
- uninstalling Outlook and reinstalling it - same result.
- removed all my add-ins - same result.
- stopped AVG anti-virus and ZoneAlarm Pro - same result.
- messages with and without attachments - same result (problem actually
started with a message with two Word attachments amounting to 250kB)
- I've updated my virus scanner and done a complete scan for vurii -
nothing found.
- I've run Ad-Aware - nothing unusual found.
- If I select a stuck message in Outbox, right click it and from the right
click menu select "Forward", the message is opened, has the recipients'
addresses already in the relevant address fields and then immediately click
send (without changing it in any way) it appears in the Outbox as a normal
message waiting to be sent, ie the "should be's" above are all true, and the
clicking "Send/Receive" on the Toolbar sends the newly forwarded message on
its way BUT NOT the stuck message.

Additional info:
- this behaviour occurs regardess of whether the addressee's (intended
recipient) e-mail address is in the To: or CC: or BCC: field.
- I can repeat the above very consistently.

I always Send/Receive manually. And yes, the pop/smtp of the accounts are
all setup correctly. They worked just fine about 5 minutes before this
problem suddenly started.

One other strange behaviour - when the main Outlook windows has the focus
and no dialogues are open I hear a boing-boing, boing-boing sound. Open an
Outlook dialogue or shift focus to another application and the boing-boing
sound disappears sometimes, but not always. This also started with the stuck
message problem.

This problem started three days ago and after more than 10 hours of trying
everything I can think of and the tips I can find on the Web, without
success, I'm now going nuts listening to the boing-boing and pully my hair
out and so I'm hoping there is a genius or two out there that can point me in
the right direction.
 
N

neo [mvp outlook]

Do you have any type of 3rd party applications installed that integrate with
Outlook? (e.g. ICQ was one of the first programs that I remember that
caused what you describe. One had to disable ICQ's Outlook COM addin. This
was done by starting Outlook and selecting Tools | Options | Other tab |
Advanced Options | COM Addins.)

/neo

PS - Does the same behavior happen when starting Outlook in safe mode?
(Start | Run | outlook.exe /safe | OK button)
 
B

Byg Byrd

I have no "COM Add-ins", but "Add-In Manager" reports:
- XTNDConnectPC
- AVG Exchange Extension
- Exchange Extensions property pages
- Windows CE Support
- Redemption Helper Outlook Extension

I also have "You Perform" which provides additional functionality in
Outlook. Uninstalling "You Perform" does not solve my problem - I tried that.

HOWEVER, these have all been in place and working just fine for months and
so far as I'm aware there have been no automatic updates (I always turn off
automatic updates, prefering to do them manually so I know when they are done
and can be aware of any problems).


Byg Byrd
 
N

neo [mvp outlook]

Well 4 of those are not native to Outlook. (Only Exchange Extensions
property pages is native to Outlook.)

In any case, you have something opening the items as they are added to the
outbox. Find that and the problem is solved.

/neo

ps - you might want to check under this registry for other COM addins that
could be installed that the user interface wouldn't show.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
 
B

Byg Byrd

Bingo!! Boing-Boing Gone. That's a start on the problem - the "message stuck
in Outbox" remains.

I found the following entry in the Registry Key you nominated and removing
it stopped the Boing-Boing sound - great advice:

ICQExpress.CExpressClient.2

The other keys found there are:

BtOfficeAddin.BtOfficeIntegration.1
Microsoft.VbaAddinForOutlook.1
VCMailE.MsOlPBar
WinZip.Addin_For_Outlook
YouPerform.Connect

Have you had any reports of these causing problems?

Byg Byrd
 
N

neo [mvp outlook]

Okay, if opening/resending that stuck message doesn't work. Best thing to
do is create a new PST file and set it to be the default delivery location.
After restarting Outlook, you should be able to go into the old PST file and
deal with the offending message. Switch Outlook back to using the other
PST, restart, and remove the new (temp) pst.

Well the ICQExpress thing was part if ICQ and is/was major offender. The
only one native in the list you gave that is part of Office is
Microsoft.VbaAddinForOutlook.1. Haven't heard of any of the others causing
problems, but anything is possible if you are still having problems. (I
would go with the Winzip one first since its job is to compress attachments
at the time of sending. Try changing the loadbehavior value under Winzip to
2.)

Also if you still have You Perform uninstalled, it didn't clean up the
registry in regards to the COM Addin. If it is still installed, then I
would check its configuration(s) and see if it is configured to do any type
of scanning of the outbox.
 
T

Taff

I've been having the same problem since installing Norton Internet Security
2005 - If I forward the stuck messages they go fine! My problem is nearly all
my messages end up being sent with this 2 stage process!!
 
N

neo [mvp outlook]

There are all kinds of internet security products causing issues Outlook.
Right now the rule of thumb is to ask users to uninstall/reinstall w/out the
e-mail integration. However since I know that many use the loopback address
(localhost or 127.0.0.1) to perform their miracle, I'm wondering how many
that are having this problem are running Windows XP SP2. Are you running
SP2 for XP?

The reason for me asking is due to
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;884020&sd=RMVP and
knowing that many products use the loopback address. Whether or not it is
related is anyones guess at this point, so I would be curious to know... r u
willing to give this patch a try?
 
B

Byg Byrd

I have my fingers crossed but it looks like I have finally resolved my problem.

I had previously deleted the reference to ICQ at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
but that did not seem to resolve the issue. Further sluthing in the Registry
also found and ICQ entry at:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
and deleteing that entry too seems to have return Outlook to its old
behaviour, even with the other five Add-Ins as previously listed.

Many thanks for all your help and clues. I hope this is the final solution
and that I do not have to open this thread again.

Byg Byrd
 

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