outlook stops downloading mail midstream

[drum maker]

Outlook 2000 (using XP) stops downloading messages before
getting them all. No error message, it just keeps trying
to get the next message, (for instance, the 5th out of
35).
It doesn't do this every time, but when it gets stuck,
the only way to make it right again is to go to my Yahoo
account and clear the "other mail" server of all
messages. Then I can go back to Outlook and usually
there's another spam to pick up, and it works fine until
some time later. Seems random. I have disabled McKafee
and IHateSpam, but no luck. Microsoft had one suggestion
about changing the setting for LAN instead of dialup, but
this didn't help. Any ideas?

 

[Meg Geddes]

It doesn't do this every time, but when it gets stuck,
the only way to make it right again is to go to my Yahoo
account and clear the "other mail" server of all
messages.

It's some kind of a bug (or feature?) within Outlook and Outlook Express
where if there isn't a particular format to a header, it won't download it.
We ended up having to write a small script on the server to append a blank
line if it detected a message where that line wasn't there, and the problem
went away completely. Before that, we had several hundred customers calling
us every time they couldn't pick up all their mail. I've only ever seen it
happen with spam - probably some canned package that doesn't know how to
create a header properly (although Outlook and OE should be a little more
forgiving, in my opinion) Unless you can resort to such tricks, I don't
think there's anything you can do other than delete it in your webmail
account. I've never seen a fix or mention of it from Microsoft, and version
after version, the problem is still there.

Meg