Why does Outlook crash when receiving junk mail?

[Darren Storer]

Hi,

this is the third time that MS-Outlook 2003 has started crashing when
receiving certain junk e-mail (spam). On previous occasions I have resolved
the problem by updating Outlook with MS patches or by using another e-mail
tool to delete my mail queue. Is there a work-around or a way to make
MS-Outlook 2003 more resilient?

NB. I can reproduce the problem on my laptop, office desktop and home
desktop PCs.

Thanks

Darren

 

[William Lefkovics [MVP]]

Reproduce the problem with the same email or just junk mail in general?

 

[Brian Tillman]

this is the third time that MS-Outlook 2003 has started crashing when
receiving certain junk e-mail (spam). On previous occasions I have
resolved the problem by updating Outlook with MS patches or by using
another e-mail tool to delete my mail queue. Is there a work-around
or a way to make MS-Outlook 2003 more resilient?

NB. I can reproduce the problem on my laptop, office desktop and home
desktop PCs.

If you can reproduce the problem, perhaps a call to MS is in order.

 

[Darren Storer]

Hi William,

I have three PCs (laptop, work and home desktops) that all poll the same
POP3 account. When one of the PCs has OL2003 locking up (due to junk mail
problems) the other two PCs also encounter the same problem at the point that
the bad junk mail item is transferred to the local PC. Outlook 2003 (with all
SPs/patches applied) then locks and I have to terminate task. When I restart
OL2003 the POP3 poll starts again, the good e-mails are copied down (in
duplicate) and OL2003 crashes at the point it hits the same bad junk mail as
first time around.

So, in summary, I can replicate this problem on 3 different PCs: some using
XP Pro SP2 and one using Windows 2000 Pro.

I do now have another work-around: I disconnect the PC from the network to
stop the POP3 polling and disable all Junk mail filtering options. Does
anyone know of a good (for good read stable) 3rd party Junk Mail filtering
application that can be used with OL2003/POP3?

TIA

Darren

 

[Brian Tillman]

I do now have another work-around: I disconnect the PC from the
network to stop the POP3 polling and disable all Junk mail filtering
options. Does anyone know of a good (for good read stable) 3rd party
Junk Mail filtering application that can be used with OL2003/POP3?

http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/ is one.