Images in Outlook 2003 showing as red x

  • Thread starter Thread starter Beavt8r
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Beavt8r

Hello everybody. I have a question for you gurus out there. We have some
computers at work where either embedded images or images pulled in from
another server are showing as a red x with no option to "download content".
The only fix we've found is clearing out the OLK folder but the problem comes
back after time.

Solutions I've tried include:
1) Unchecking "Don't download pictures automatically" in the Security
settings. Works on some, but not all.
2) Changing the 'zone' for emails from Restricted to Internet. Again, fixes
some but not all.
3) Detect & Repair in Outlook.
4) Making sure "Show Images" is checked in IE (Outlook pulls emails via IE)
5) Clearing the "Securetempfolder" registry key and/or clearing out the
Outlook Temporary folder's contents (under Temporary Internet Files). This
fixes the issue, but only temporary. It does come back.
6) Reverting to IE6. Doesn't work.
7) Upgrading to Office 2007. Seems to work, but not an option as of yet.

I work for a University and it is affecting the President's office and they
want a "permanent" fix, rather than the temporary one we tried before with
deleting the folder. Any ideas? I've been in contact with a rep from
Microsoft but as of yet, the patches we tried didn't work. Thanks in advance
:)
 
Beavt8r said:
Hello everybody. I have a question for you gurus out there. We have some
computers at work where either embedded images or images pulled in from
another server are showing as a red x with no option to "download content".
The only fix we've found is clearing out the OLK folder but the problem comes
back after time.

Solutions I've tried include:
1) Unchecking "Don't download pictures automatically" in the Security
settings. Works on some, but not all.
2) Changing the 'zone' for emails from Restricted to Internet. Again, fixes
some but not all.
3) Detect & Repair in Outlook.
4) Making sure "Show Images" is checked in IE (Outlook pulls emails via IE)
5) Clearing the "Securetempfolder" registry key and/or clearing out the
Outlook Temporary folder's contents (under Temporary Internet Files). This
fixes the issue, but only temporary. It does come back.
6) Reverting to IE6. Doesn't work.
7) Upgrading to Office 2007. Seems to work, but not an option as of yet.

I work for a University and it is affecting the President's office and they
want a "permanent" fix, rather than the temporary one we tried before with
deleting the folder. Any ideas? I've been in contact with a rep from
Microsoft but as of yet, the patches we tried didn't work. Thanks in advance
:)
Click to expand...
I can assure you the problem is still there with Outlook 2007 (and
Office 2007). This has been bugging me since Late Dec/07 when it
suddenly started. I have tried all the above with no success, not even
Temporarily. If you get a solution, please post here

Frenchy
 
Have you tried clearing your Cache in IE? This has worked for many
Vista folks.

Nikki
 
Only for Advanced users:

When pictures in your email won't download, even though you have
Outlook configured to download external content (or allow it on
a per-message basis), the problem is usually a "full" temporary file
folder.

You need to locate the SecureTemp folder and delete the contents
(or the entire folder) then restart Outlook. The images should display
correctly.

Outlook 2007 places the Secturetemp folder at
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.Outlook\8A0VMD3A,
where 8A0VMD3A can be any random characters.

Vista moves the Temp Internet folder to
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\,
so you'll need to look there for the OLK or Content.Outlook folder.

You can look in the registry for the location of the folder by looking in
the registry. You can change the folder to point to a new location,
but be sure the new folder exists before changing it in the registry.

The OutlookSecureTempFolder value (for Outlook 2007) is at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security.
For older versions of Outlook, change the 12.0 to your version number.

Nikki
 
Nikki said:
Only for Advanced users:

When pictures in your email won't download, even though you have
Outlook configured to download external content (or allow it on
a per-message basis), the problem is usually a "full" temporary file
folder.

You need to locate the SecureTemp folder and delete the contents
(or the entire folder) then restart Outlook. The images should display
correctly.

Outlook 2007 places the Secturetemp folder at
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.Outlook\8A0VMD3A,
where 8A0VMD3A can be any random characters.

Vista moves the Temp Internet folder to
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet
Files\,
so you'll need to look there for the OLK or Content.Outlook folder.

You can look in the registry for the location of the folder by looking in
the registry. You can change the folder to point to a new location,
but be sure the new folder exists before changing it in the registry.

The OutlookSecureTempFolder value (for Outlook 2007) is at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security.
For older versions of Outlook, change the 12.0 to your version number.

Nikki
Click to expand...

Nope as repeated before I have done that and that is not a solution.

When I view E-mail headers that are going to be a problem with Red X's,
I see briefly this in the header
When an E-mail (that has http tags
in it that will show as red x's when read) arrives into Outlook 2007
(with Vista Ultimate OS and Office Pro 2007 installed)), the header in
the top pane first shows the message : "You have received an HTML E-
Mail from sendersname, but it appears that your E-Mail client is set
to read messages in plain text"

Well, my client is NOT set to do that (or anywhere I can see) and
after you hover over the message with the mouse, that header
disappears and it shows just the subject line.

Does that help anyone towards a solution?

That disappears when you open the message or preview it in the preview
pane. Does that point anyone to a solution??

Frenchy
 
I've tried clearing out the OLK folder (using 2003 and XP here) but the main
problem is that it comes back after time. Is it just a part of Outlook/IE
where the folder hits a certain point and just stops working?

Oh, another point of note. Two of the computer (probably more) have wildly
different sizes for the folder. One that is affected is nearly 1GB, while
the other is <100MB. Arbitrary size limit or actual corruption I wonder.
 
Is this your email at home or work?

Nikki

Beavt8r said:
I've tried clearing out the OLK folder (using 2003 and XP here) but the
main
problem is that it comes back after time. Is it just a part of Outlook/IE
where the folder hits a certain point and just stops working?

Oh, another point of note. Two of the computer (probably more) have
wildly
different sizes for the folder. One that is affected is nearly 1GB, while
the other is <100MB. Arbitrary size limit or actual corruption I wonder.
Click to expand...
 
I ask because, as an Administrator of my email system at work,
I can set my server to only deliver mail as "plain text". I can also
set policies on the client machines that will set the client's
configuration to plain text only.

Nikki
 
This is my email at work. (I work at a University). The emails are being
delivered as .html, but for some reason a few computers/users have issues
displaying the images.
 
I have pretty well exhausted my ideas on this. You may want to
repost and see if someone else has more to offer to you.

Nikki
 
I may do that. Microsoft is sending it up the ladder so we'll see what they
say as well.

Thank you so much for your help and thoughts. I appreciate it :)

~Stephen
 
I have been reading this thread because I have had the same issue. I just tried something that worked for me, so thought I'd pass it along.

First I searched the C drive for all OLK folders. I happened to have more than one. I know you mentioned that you cleared out the OLK folders, so maybe you have already tried this.

Second, I sorted all the files by type and made sure to delete all picture files.

I closed out and restarted Outlook and the problem was fixed. I thought it was a bit suspicious when I opened up the OLK folder and it said something like 'a security issue was found in the file'. I'm pretty sure that's what started the issue to begin with.
 
Moe said:
I have been reading this thread because I have had the same issue. I just tried something that worked for me, so thought I'd pass it along.

First I searched the C drive for all OLK folders. I happened to have more than one. I know you mentioned that you cleared out the OLK folders, so maybe you have already tried this.

Second, I sorted all the files by type and made sure to delete all picture files.

I closed out and restarted Outlook and the problem was fixed. I thought it was a bit suspicious when I opened up the OLK folder and it said something like 'a security issue was found in the file'. I'm pretty sure that's what started the issue to begin with.
Click to expand...

Thanks for at least thinking of me <smile>

I have Outlook 2007 and no OLK files at all. I have regularly cleaned
out (but never more than 1-2 files there) my

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.Outlook\

Never makes any improvement or difference

Frenchy
 
We have about 400 users and were having this problem very random, and having to re-set some every few weeks or months.

We believe we have identified the cause - Citrix/Outlook attachments, will leave the best solution to you and your staff.

To test:
1. Send an email with an embedded jpg attachment (Rich Text format)
2. from another computer/at home go into Citrix and open the attachment.
3. Close email/Outlook/Log off
4. Return to desktop computer and log in
5. Attempt to open.

My theory is that viewing the attachment while in the Citrix/virtual desktop environment, something interferes with the OLKxxx folder creation, so that upon return to desktop it is not properly set in the registry and until it is added back, the user will get Red X

We had users testing and there are a lot of variables, but if you do as above, it has been consistant to show the red x.

hope this is of help. I am interested, let me know how it goes.
V Fling
 
Thought it might be helpful for those having this problem to test to determine if this is the cause for red-x attachments at their organization.
 
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