Outlook 2007 Crashes when receiving emails

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Tweak

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Hello,

We have some problems on our office pc's.

First PC Outlook 2007:

The program can't download new emails, Outlook crashes as it is downloading emails.
I was forced to copy all emails to outlook express and let the user continue using this program while I try to fix the problem.

I figure there is something wrong with the .pst file and tried to repair the outlook.pst file but to no success. Has anyone else experienced this problem?


Second pc Outlook 2003:

The outlook software keeps asking for this user's username & password. We don't want to provide the users with their password so it is a pain to have to let her type her password in every time.

Lastly:

Is it possible to set a rule for outlook to allways "keep a copy of the email on the server", because I sometimes forget to do this when temporarily re-creating the user's account, resulting in emails moving from the remote mailbox to her pc.

Is there a way to only download mails that have been sent from the previous day, rather than all mails that reside in their inbox?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hi.

Problem 1: You've got a corrupted/problematic email on the server, which is causing Outlook to crash when it tries to download it. You'll notice that Outlook keeps downloading the same emails over and over again, and then comes to a certain email and crashes. The problem email is usually the last one downloaded, or the one after that.

If you have webmail access to the email account, that is the best way to delete the problematic email/s. I've seen this happen very often on several different clients PCs. You need to login to the server, and delete the email manually, and then all should be fine. If the emails aren't work related or important, I usually just download 2 before and 2 after, just to be sure. If the emails ARE work related or are important, I print it out using the Webmail facility, or try to forward it to a Gmail or other email address, or copy/paste the important info into a new email.

Problem 2: Outlook shouldn't ask for the username and password each time. You should be able to tell Outlook to save the password. If you've done this, but it isn't saving it, then check your settings. Perhaps your athentication protocol/settings are wrong, or you connecting on the wrong port. Failing that, delete the email account from Outlook, and set it up again. This should take less than 2 minutes.

Problem 3: Not sure if I understand you correctly, but almost every email client (Outlook included) will allow you to keep a copy of email on the server, either forever (till you run out of space), until it is deleted from Outlook, or after a specified number of days. Outlook will remember which emails it has downloaded, and won't download them again. It will only download new emails, emails it hasn't yet downloaded since the last time it downloaded email.

Problem 4: You can't selectively download emails (only from the previous day) using Outlook. It's either, everything in the mailbox, or everything since the last download (i.e. everything new).

For problem 3 and 4, you need to go into the advanced tab, of the email account settings. (Account Settings -> More settings -> Advanced). The location of this is different between the different versions of Outlook, but it's easy to find.

All the above assumes you are using POP email, and not exchange or IMAP.
 
Problem 1: Check the size of the PST files. In earlier versions of Outlook, there was a file size limit of 2Gb. If it was perhaps an older version of a PST which was migrated to a new version of Microsoft Office 2003, the problem will still persist. If this is the case, create a new PST file and import the e-mail from the old file to the new one. Also check out http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830336 & http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982577 for more information.

Another solution to reduce the size of PST files, is to remove the attachments from the e-mail messages using OutlookAttachmentRemover (http://www.kopf.com.br/outlook/) and then compress the file to reduce its size.

Problem 2: Check the network connection of the workstation. A disconnect from the network when a Send & Receive is attempted may also cause this problem.

Problem 3: As mentionbed by iCubed.Saajid, you can set this feature up. In Outlook 2003, on the Menu Bar -> [Tools] -> [E-Mail Accounts] -> Double click the relevant e-mail account -> [More Settings] -> [Advanced] -> [Delivery] -> Tick [Leave A Copy Of Message On Server]
 
iCubed.Saajid said:
Hi.

Problem 1: You've got a corrupted/problematic email on the server, which is causing Outlook to crash when it tries to download it. You'll notice that Outlook keeps downloading the same emails over and over again, and then comes to a certain email and crashes. The problem email is usually the last one downloaded, or the one after that.
Click to expand...

Hello Mate,

Thanks for this tip, it is strange how our problem is exactly how you explain it. But when I set up outlook express it was able to download the corrupt email ?

To clarify on problem 2.
Our password/authentication is fine. She enters her password successfully and reads all her mails. It is only after she has closed outlook that it asks for her password again. I suppose it is related to the .pst file. I am just too scared to just delete it and re-create it because I don't know for certain I won't lose any of her emails/contacts etc. But I would really like to be able to assist her with this problem.

Thank you again for your help :)
 
deleting the corrupted email solved the problem

all I can say is thank you, to my hero :)
 
I had this problem for over a year at a previous place I worked at. No updating of Office, troubleshooting or googling could ever fix it.

I used to download the headers (all mail) tick one mail at a time to mark to download and process headers. This way I found the culprit mail and deleted it.
 
Tweak said:
Hello Mate,

Thanks for this tip, it is strange how our problem is exactly how you explain it. But when I set up outlook express it was able to download the corrupt email ?
Click to expand...

MS Outlook is definitely buggier compared to Outlook Express. On the other hand OE has much fewer features, and is quite lightweight. I think the problem lies with rendering engine used by MS Outlook.

To clarify on problem 2.
Our password/authentication is fine. She enters her password successfully and reads all her mails. It is only after she has closed outlook that it asks for her password again. I suppose it is related to the .pst file. I am just too scared to just delete it and re-create it because I don't know for certain I won't lose any of her emails/contacts etc. But I would really like to be able to assist her with this problem.
Click to expand...

Deleting the email account from MS Outlook won't delete any of the downloaded emails associated with that email account. It just removes the settings and so Outlook won't know about that account, and won't download emails from it, until you set it up again. So as long as you know the server settings and the email password, you won't lose a single thing. Trust me, its very safe to delete the email account. If you are still very paranoid, you can backup the .PST file, but this won't make a difference, as email account settings aren't stored in the .PST file - they're stored somewhere else. Hence why it won't affect your already downloaded emails.

Thank you again for your help :)
Click to expand...

You're welcome!

Tweak said:
deleting the corrupted email solved the problem

all I can say is thank you, to my hero :)
Click to expand...

Awesome! ;-)
 
Tweak said:
To clarify on problem 2.
Our password/authentication is fine. She enters her password successfully and reads all her mails. It is only after she has closed outlook that it asks for her password again. I suppose it is related to the .pst file. I am just too scared to just delete it and re-create it because I don't know for certain I won't lose any of her emails/contacts etc. But I would really like to be able to assist her with this problem.
Click to expand...

You could also try removing/resetting/changing the password for her Windows User account. If I'm not mistaken, the passwords for MS Outlook email accounts is stored alongside the Windows password. In fact, I think the Windows Password is used to encrypt other passwords that windows stores. So resetting the password should cause something to change. I think it's a security measure in windows - if a hacker manages to remove the Windows password to allow access to the Windows User Account, they will effectively also be removing all other passwords. Try this and see if it works. Just a hunch I had.
 
scanpst.exe is included with office. Its location varies depending on the version of Outlook being used. The easiest way to locate it is to search for scanpst.exe in the Program Files or Program Files (x86) folders.

If you do decide to use scanpst, run it multiple times until such time as no errors are detected.
 
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