Major flaw in Outlook 2007: emails stuck in outbox

[K. Orland]

It's not a glitch. If you have antivirus configured to actively scan outgoing
and/or incoming emails, then you force antivirus to step in and act as a
proxy so to speak between your mail server and your client, Outlook. If
antivirus has not completed scanning all your incoming and/or outgoing email
by the time Outlook is polling the server for email again, you can see the
issues that would cause.

This is why we recommend turning off the antivirus integration with Outlook.
It doesn't compromise security since your real time scanner will catch
anything it's been udpated for.

--
Kathleen Orland - MVP Outlook

http://www.howto-outlook.com/

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

Sometimes just turning it off doesn't work. You have to uninstall the a/v
program, and do a custom reinstall without the email scanning module.

: It's not a glitch. If you have antivirus configured to actively scan
outgoing
: and/or incoming emails, then you force antivirus to step in and act as a
: proxy so to speak between your mail server and your client, Outlook. If
: antivirus has not completed scanning all your incoming and/or outgoing
email
: by the time Outlook is polling the server for email again, you can see the
: issues that would cause.
:
: This is why we recommend turning off the antivirus integration with
Outlook.
: It doesn't compromise security since your real time scanner will catch
: anything it's been udpated for.
:
: --
: Kathleen Orland - MVP Outlook
:
: http://www.howto-outlook.com/
:
:
:
: "scorpionleather" wrote:
:
: > > don't set autosend to more frequently than about 8 -10 min, especially
if
: > > you have a lot of accounts or IMAP folders to sync. Don't hit the
: > > Send/Receive button or F5 more frequently than 8 -10 min for the same
: > > reason.
: >
: > Interesting, thanks Diane. I changed auto send/receive from 6 minutes
to 10
: > minutes. Let's see what happens. That makes me curious why should that
: > make any difference? What kind of glitch is circumvented in these long
: > timescales that are minutes-long?
: >

 

[K. Orland]

That's exactly right, good point to bring up. To go further, some like
Symantec don't uninstall the way you'd think and they even have instructions
listed on their website on how to uninstall completely.

 

[scorpionleather]

Email scanning is here to stay because users will feel a psychological need
for this type of scanning even if the viruses could otherwise be caught by
real time file scanning. It sounds like Microsoft should work with the
major antivirus vendors to produce better tie-ins to Outlook. The same way
Microsoft works with device driver vendors.

Also, although Vista pops up a UAC to protect me from rogue installations,
it is interesting that iTunes can install itself as an Outlook COM add-in in
stealth-mode without telling me anything. WTF is iTunes doing inside my
email application, it's for music! Is Apple getting into spyware marketing
practices or something?

That's exactly right, good point to bring up. To go further, some like
Symantec don't uninstall the way you'd think and they even have
instructions
listed on their website on how to uninstall completely.

--
Kathleen Orland - MVP Outlook

http://www.howto-outlook.com/

Sometimes just turning it off doesn't work. You have to uninstall the
a/v
program, and do a custom reinstall without the email scanning module.

: It's not a glitch. If you have antivirus configured to actively scan
outgoing
: and/or incoming emails, then you force antivirus to step in and act as
a
: proxy so to speak between your mail server and your client, Outlook. If
: antivirus has not completed scanning all your incoming and/or outgoing
email
: by the time Outlook is polling the server for email again, you can see
the
: issues that would cause.
:
: This is why we recommend turning off the antivirus integration with
Outlook.
: It doesn't compromise security since your real time scanner will catch
: anything it's been udpated for.
:
: --
: Kathleen Orland - MVP Outlook
:
: http://www.howto-outlook.com/
:
:
:
: "scorpionleather" wrote:
:
: > > don't set autosend to more frequently than about 8 -10 min,
especially
if
: > > you have a lot of accounts or IMAP folders to sync. Don't hit the
: > > Send/Receive button or F5 more frequently than 8 -10 min for the
same
: > > reason.
: >
: > Interesting, thanks Diane. I changed auto send/receive from 6
minutes
to 10
: > minutes. Let's see what happens. That makes me curious why should
that
: > make any difference? What kind of glitch is circumvented in these
long
: > timescales that are minutes-long?
: >

 

[scorpionleather]

DL: So far after disabling iTunes plug-in the emails haven't got stuck yet.
But sometimes it takes a week or two before they get stuck (problem is
intermittent) and then it will happen several times in a row. So the test
won't be conclusive for a while; I supposed I can post a follow-up to this
thread about a month from now and then we'll have a better idea.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

The tie-in is well known, the scanners use LocalHost to fake an SMTP server.
They just don't tell people to lengthen the polling interval or that there
are lots of bugs they cause due to the scanning.

The ITunes addin is installed as a calendar synching addin to the ITunes
device. It's known to cause various problems, depending on the version of
the software.

 

[scorpionleather]

Its not a bug with Outlook, its caused by something on your system, often
a third party antivirus application

OK latest results - all this advice about disabling Anti-Virus scanning,
disabling the iTunes plug-in, and increasing the email check to 10 minutes
is NOT the solution.

I just sent an email and it got stuck in the Outbox without giving any error
dialog, just quietly sitting there. Send/receive had no effect. It finally
sent when I exited Outlook and started it again.

So now I'm back to where we started - I'm convinced this IS a Microsoft bug.
Hopefully Microsoft can put some priority on this and fix it in the next
Office service pack, or even better, send out a hotfix soon.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

So now I'm back to where we started - I'm convinced this IS a Microsoft
bug. Hopefully Microsoft can put some priority on this and fix it in the
next Office service pack, or even better, send out a hotfix soon.

Unless you contact Microsoft directly and report the situation, they can't
"put some priority" on it because they won't know about it.

 

[scorpionleather]

Master Blaster, if you read the discussion you'll notice that this problem
has nothing to do with incorrect SMTP settings or with the email hosting
provider. Instead, it is the outgoing mail queue inside of Outlook. Your
message is irrelevant to what we are talking about here.. but thanks for the
tip, it might help other users who have a different problem.

 

[scorpionleather]

Brian, I don't know how this works as far as contacting the company. Since
you are a Microsoft MVP maybe you have some Microsoft contacts in the
Outlook department, and maybe you can let them know this is a widespread bug
inside of Outlook itself?

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

It's not a widespread bug - in every instance but yours it was caused by an
addin.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]





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(e-mail address removed)

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[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Brian, I don't know how this works as far as contacting the company.
Since you are a Microsoft MVP maybe you have some Microsoft contacts in
the Outlook department, and maybe you can let them know this is a
widespread bug inside of Outlook itself?

I have no contacts anywhere within Microsoft except for the person who
handles the MVP program.

 

[Cynthia Syverson]

It worked for awhile, but I had to reinstall Outlook because of a problem with my laptop. After the reinstall, the outbox will not auto send messages. Any suggestions?

There is a major bug in Outlook 2007 whereby the emails get stuck in the
Outbox and I'm not aware that they are stuck, unless I check the Outbox
folder. I searched this on Google and LOTS of others are having the EXACT
same problem. I'm running on Vista x64, very latest updates, otherwise
stable system and everything is about as plain-vanilla about my setup as can
possibly be. Is Microsoft interested in fixing this or just going to ignore
it?

On Monday, November 03, 2008 5:43 PM DL wrote:
Its not a bug with Outlook, its caused by something on your system, often a
third party antivirus application

On Monday, November 03, 2008 11:33 PM Diane Poremsky [MVP] wrote:
don't set autosend to more frequently than about 8 -10 min, especially if
you have a lot of accounts or IMAP folders to sync. Don't hit the
Send/Receive button or F5 more frequently than 8 -10 min for the same
reason.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]





EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
(e-mail address removed)

You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.


news:[email protected]...

On Tuesday, November 04, 2008 8:39 AM Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook] wrote:
The iTunes add-in is a known problem-maker.

On Tuesday, November 04, 2008 10:34 AM Tom [Pepper] Willett wrote:
Sometimes just turning it off does not work. You have to uninstall the a/v
program, and do a custom reinstall without the email scanning module.

outgoing
email
Outlook.
if
to 10

On Tuesday, November 04, 2008 10:57 AM KOrlan wrote:
That's exactly right, good point to bring up. To go further, some like
Symantec don't uninstall the way you'd think and they even have instructions
listed on their website on how to uninstall completely.

--
Kathleen Orland - MVP Outlook

http://www.howto-outlook.com/



"Tom [Pepper] Willett" wrote:

On Tuesday, November 04, 2008 2:44 PM Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook] wrote:
The tie-in is well known, the scanners use LocalHost to fake an SMTP server.
They just don't tell people to lengthen the polling interval or that there
are lots of bugs they cause due to the scanning.

The ITunes addin is installed as a calendar synching addin to the ITunes
device. It's known to cause various problems, depending on the version of
the software.




news:[email protected]...

On Wednesday, November 05, 2008 8:02 AM Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook] wrote:
Unless you contact Microsoft directly and report the situation, they cannot
"put some priority" on it because they will not know about it.

On Wednesday, November 05, 2008 8:24 PM Diane Poremsky [MVP] wrote:
It's not a widespread bug - in every instance but yours it was caused by an
addin.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]





EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
(e-mail address removed)

You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.


news:[email protected]...

On Thursday, November 06, 2008 7:36 AM Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook] wrote:
I have no contacts anywhere within Microsoft except for the person who
handles the MVP program.