OUTLOOK 2007 HIDES/LOSES MESSAGES!!

[gomertrash]

Greetings,

Outlook 2007 will download my messages, but will not display them
all. For example, if OL2007 tells me that it has received 10
messages, only 5 will be displayed. The others are simply not shown.
They are not redirected to JunkMail or Spam folders (I have no
filtering rules, and have disabled Norton AntiSpam).

If I open the exact same PST file in OL2003, the messages show up
properly in the Inbox. If I move the PST file back to OL2007, they
are still hidden.

System Config:
Windows XP Pro SP2 (fully patched)
Office 2007 Enterprise Edition
Norton Internet Security 2007 (spam filtering is disabled)

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Gomer

PS: Can OL2003 be installed on a machine that already has OL2007, or
must OL2007 first be removed?

 

[Brian Tillman]

Outlook 2007 will download my messages, but will not display them
all. For example, if OL2007 tells me that it has received 10
messages, only 5 will be displayed. The others are simply not shown.
They are not redirected to JunkMail or Spam folders (I have no
filtering rules, and have disabled Norton AntiSpam).

Do they appear in the Unread Mail search folder?

If I open the exact same PST file in OL2003, the messages show up
properly in the Inbox. If I move the PST file back to OL2007, they
are still hidden.

Reset your view.

 

[gomertrash]

Brian,

I reset the Messages view to its default settings, which (among other
things) is to ARRANGE BY DATE with NEWEST ON TOP. When I did this,
more messages appeared (31 in all). If I simply switch to OLDEST ON
TOP, then I only show 18 for the same time period. In OL2003 (using
the EXACT SAME PST file), there are 142 messages for the SAME time
period!!!

If I switch to "Unread Messages in this Folder", then it appears that
all of the unread/hidden messages appear in OL2007. Switching back to
Messages makes them go away again. Finally, if I look in the "Unread
Mail" Search Folder, then it also appears if all of the of the unread/
hidden messages show up. Going back to the Inbox, things are still
missing. Something strange is still going on! Any more ideas??

Thanks,

Gomer

 

[Brian Tillman]

I reset the Messages view to its default settings, which (among other
things) is to ARRANGE BY DATE with NEWEST ON TOP. When I did this,
more messages appeared (31 in all). If I simply switch to OLDEST ON
TOP, then I only show 18 for the same time period. In OL2003 (using
the EXACT SAME PST file), there are 142 messages for the SAME time
period!!!

I simply don't see how this is possible. Can you post screen shots
somewhere?

If I switch to "Unread Messages in this Folder", then it appears that
all of the unread/hidden messages appear in OL2007.

The searcfh folder will tell you where those messages reside. Obviously if
the Unreasd Mail folder shows them, then they're there.

Switching back to
Messages makes them go away again. Finally, if I look in the "Unread
Mail" Search Folder, then it also appears if all of the of the unread/
hidden messages show up. Going back to the Inbox, things are still
missing. Something strange is still going on! Any more ideas??

I suspect you have a filter or are sorting on an unexpected column, but if
you could show us what you see, we might be able to pinpoint the issue.

 

[gomertrash]

I simply don't see how this is possible. Can you post screen shots
somewhere?

That's what I think - how could this be possible?! This is a new
installation of OL2007 on a fresh installation of Win XP (with
patches). I have not (ever) configured any special views, other than
to sort by OLDEST ON TOP, which I did simply by clicking on that
column.

The searcfh folder will tell you where those messages reside. Obviously if
the Unreasd Mail folder shows them, then they're there.

I agree that the messages are there, because I can view them without
trouble using OL2003. BTW, the OL2003 resides on another PC, to which
I simply copy the PST file. I can perform send/receive with it
(leaving the messages on the server so they're still available to the
OL2007 system), and everything works fine. I can view all of the
messages, regardless of the chronological ordering.

Also, to see more about how the OL2007 system is handling mail, I
installed Thunderbird on it. It appears to work without a hitch as
well. It is also configured to leave messages on the server so that
they are always available to OL2007. So, in essence, on the same
machine I can:

1. Download mail into Thunderbird. Everything looks fine.
2. Download mail into OL2007. It reports the same number of incoming
messages as TBird, but most never appear.
3. If I switch from OLDEST ON TOP to NEWEST ON TOP, some (but not
all) of the new messages will generally appear.
4. If I look in the Unread Mail Search Folder, many of the "hidden"
messages show up (generally quite a few more than show up with NEWEST
ON TOP). If I click on one to read it, it will then appear normally
in the Inbox (regardless of the chronological ordering). If I mark it
as UNREAD, it still continues to appear in the Inbox from that point
forward.

5. If I then close OL2007 and copy the PST file to the other machine
with OL2003, I am able to see all of the "hidden" messages without
difficulty.

I suspect you have a filter or are sorting on an unexpected column, but if
you could show us what you see, we might be able to pinpoint the issue.

I don't have any filters, and am not sorting by anything other than
date.
I'm not sure how to show things in a graphical manner. Also, a number
of the emails are somewhat sensitive regarding sender/subject, so they
would have to be blurred/marked out in some way, which would make
showing things all the more difficult. Perhaps I can create a set of
dummy messages which exhibit this. If so, is there a good place to
post screenshots?

Thanks,

Gomer

 

[gomertrash]

I found a way to make the messages appear - but it is far from a
useful fix to this problem. Since the "hidden" messages do appear in
the Unread Mail Search Folder, I can switch to this folder and select
the messages. I then mark them as READ, and then select them again
and mark as UNREAD. When I switch back to the Inbox, the messages all
appear (as unread, of course), and I can deal with them normally.
Given this, I think it is clear that this cannot be a filtering issue
(I have no filters set up anyway).

As an aside, my Inbox contains about 6000 messages. Could OL2007 have
a database problem for Inboxes that are so large (the PST file is
approximately 900MB)? OL2003 does not have this problem, since the
messages show up fine there.

Gomer

 

[Dryfly]

I've just started experiencing the same problem with my OL2007 and am hoping
someone has a solution.

I had this happen once before with OL2003 and a VERY large .pst file. After
reducing the size and compressing, it was fixed. My OL2007 is much smaller so
something else must be going on.

Here's what I do to 'see' the new emails in my inbox. I click on the SENT
ITEMS folder then immediately click on INBOX and there the new emails are.
Maybe this will work for you.

Steve

 

[gomertrash]

I've just started experiencing the same problem with my OL2007 and am hoping
someone has a solution.

I had this happen once before with OL2003 and a VERY large .pst file. After
reducing the size and compressing, it was fixed. My OL2007 is much smaller so
something else must be going on.

Here's what I do to 'see' the new emails in my inbox. I click on the SENT
ITEMS folder then immediately click on INBOX and there the new emails are.
Maybe this will work for you.

That particular solution did not work for me, but it is clear that
something is awry with how OL2007 is harvesting information from the
PST database.

While experimenting, I did the following:

1. Created another top-level folder called "Inbox2".
2. Selected my original "Inbox", which contains about 6K messages
(approximately 2K are marked as unread).
3. Hit CTRL-A to select all messages, and moved them to Inbox2.
4. After the move was complete, in Inbox, OL2007 claimed "There are
no items to show in this view". However, within the folder list on
the left, OL claimed that there was still 46 unread messages in
Inbox!!
5. I then clicked into Inbox2, and back to Inbox, at which point 46
unread messages showed up!

I have no idea why this is happening, but I want to see how OL
performs if Inbox is kept empty. I'll post back if anything
interesting happens.

Thanks,
Gomer

 

[gomertrash]

Here is an update.

I have kept the Inbox empty for the past couple of days by moving
messages into another folder. Now, when I receive messages, several
will remain hidden/undisplayed. If I switch to the Unread Mail Search
Folder, and then click back to the Inbox, all of the messages show
up. I do not have to do anything else. Hence, it is clear that
OL2007 has either a database retrieval or rendering problem.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Gomer

 

[TAMU Austin]

I have the same problem, Gomer. Brand new machine, brand new Vista/Outlook
2007 setup, using IMAP. Specifically what happens is:

1) I'm in the "Inbox" showing other current messages.
2) A new message will arrive; I know this because Outlook cleverly displays
the number of new messages on the left-hand favorites list, and I can see
that it goes from zero to one msg...but nothing shows up in my Inbox that I'm
currently in.
3) I can click onto another folder, and then back onto the Inbox, and then
the message will appear.

A bug, if you ask me.
Frustrated in Austin

 

[Gordon]

I have the same problem, Gomer. Brand new machine, brand new Vista/Outlook
2007 setup, using IMAP. Specifically what happens is:

1) I'm in the "Inbox" showing other current messages.
2) A new message will arrive; I know this because Outlook cleverly
displays
the number of new messages on the left-hand favorites list, and I can see
that it goes from zero to one msg...but nothing shows up in my Inbox that
I'm
currently in.
3) I can click onto another folder, and then back onto the Inbox, and then
the message will appear.

A bug, if you ask me.
Frustrated in Austin

I think you'll find that's a problem with IMAP not with Outlook - AFAIK IMAP
replicates the folders on the server and so you won't change the folder view
until you either refresh it or move away and back again....