Outlook Outlook 2003 Open Failure

[rapid]

Hi

I am having problems with outlook 2003 on windows 7 64 bit system.

Sympton:
Yesterday morning opened outlook as usual and it worked fine. Closed it and later went to open it again. Outlook started to open showed the splash screen followed by messages in inbox and then greyed out with the report:

Outlook has stopped working - windows is checking for a solution. Only option is to close program

Actions taken:
1. ran scanpst.exe multiple times. There were initially some errors but they were cleared first time.

2. Renamed extend.dat to extend.old

3. Tried to open outlook.. still same failure.

4. Tried running outlook in safe mode - same failure

5. Created a new profile setting outlook to open with choice of profiles.

6 Outlook 2003 opens and works fine in both ordinary mode and safe mode when I select to open with the new profile.

7. If I select to open with the old profile it produces the same failure.

8. One oddity if I try to run OST integrity check it reports "please quit Outlook before performing a scan with OST Integrity check tool:" When clicking OK the select profile option opens. After selectiong profile I get: I get ffline synchronisation is not supported.

Recommendations please.

1. What to try to eliminate the problem. OR
2. How do I transfer everything from the original profile to the new profile keeping my messages, contacts etc safe? I tried copying the .pst file after it had been checked with scanpst to so as to replace a .pst file created for a new profile. When I tried to open outlook using that profile I got the same error message. So it looks as though something additional to scanpst.exe is required

Thanks in advance for any help

David

 

[alow]

What kind of mail setup are you using Outlook with? Is it for personal mail like POP3 or IMAP? Or is it for exchange? If you're working with an OST, I would try to rebuild that. To do so, you would close Outlook and go to C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook and look for the .OST file. Change the OST to OLD and that will force Outlook to recreate it the next time you start with that Profile. To know which OST to remane, the name before .OST should be the same as the name of the profile you are using. Unless I'm remembering incorrectly (and a quick Googling suggests that I am not), your mail should still be on the mail server, regardless of the setup you have, so renaming the OST file should allow you to re-download the messages.

If that doesn't do it, I would try a general repair of Office. You can do this fully be first rebooting the computer. Then go to Start | Control Panel and open up Programs and Features. Select Microsoft Office 2003 (Your Version) and click on Change at the top. In the window that comes up, select repair and follow along. It will attempt to repair the installation, if the program itself is the problem and not any files associated with it.

Let me know how you make out.

 

[rapid]

I am using it to access mail via pop3 from multiple accounts so there is no OST file. The emails are still on the server but not the quite large folder, filter and contact info which I really want to preserve.

Outlook seems to be working correctly with an alternative profile and its failure seems to be connected with something outlook loads in response to .pst file. I suspect something like a corrupt profile data , email or registry entries or an inability to close properly but only in relation to that pst file.

The .pst file is around 1.8GB but it has often been larger.

I am wondering if outlook is not closing properly when that profile is being used.

I think the question is how can it be that scanpst.exe fixes the pst file but I still get the same problem. It looks as though there is another error outside the .pst

 

[alow]

When you say contact info, are you referring to actual contacts, or just suggested contacts? Suggested contacts are stored separately. And ScanPST can fix a PST, but not always. If the PST is around 1.8 GB, I would be careful with it, as I've seen many PSTs go corrupt after going over 2 GB. I know, technically, they have a 20 GB limit (as long as it is a 2003 or earlier PST file type) but 2 GB should be the absolute max it goes to. If this specific PST has been around a long time and has been that large and fluctuating, it should be time to transfer to a new PST, or at least try to compress it, if you can get it open at all. The easy way to transfer everything from one PST to another is using the archiving feature. What I would recommend trying is to open a new profile with a new PST. Then go to File | Open | Outlook Data File and select your original PST file. Next go to File | Archive. In this window, you want to select your old PST file in the Select a Folder (Or whatever it's called) section of the window. In the bottom, select a date that is after todays date (to move everything) and make sure to check "Include items with Do Not Archive checked." Then select your new PST file in the bottom as the destination and click on Archive. This will take a little while to run, but if it works, will move everything over to a new PST file. Doing everything in this method with a new profile and to a new PST will rule out any Profile errors, view errors, or anything like that. Let me know what that does for you. Good luck!

 

[rapid]

Hi Alow
Sounds good advice and good thinking. I will try it and report back. Imcidentally I downloaded thunderbird. Then set set the default profile to the "bad" .pst and thunderbird after a long run copied the folder structure and emails. I thought that might be a useful test of data validity and indicateds that your process could well be successful.

Of course it does not replicate my exhaustive filter set up!

Thanks for your input

David