"The Operation Failed"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff Needle
  • Start date Start date
J

Jeff Needle

Greetings. I'm using Outlook 2002 SP3 on a WinXP SR2 system. I haven't
used Outlook in a while. I started everything, the settings were fine --
test settings in the accounts are worked just fine. I tried to send a test
message from the e-mail section, and it worked fine. But when I press
"Send/Receive," I get a message, "The operation failed." The message comes
up immediately, no delay, so I don't think it's a problem with the server
(gmail).

Any idea what happened and how I can fix it? Thanks!
 
There should be some sort of an error number associated with that message. If
you don't see one, check your application event viewer and look for any
Office or Outlook related errors. In particular note the event ID and source.
 
Wow. There is no error number with the message. And I have no idea how to
check an "application event viewer." How do I do that? Thanks!
 
Hi Jeff
Right-click on My Computer, scroll to Manage. You'll see an event viewer
listed at or near the top of the llist, expand it. Check the application
event viewer for errors related to Office or Outlook.
 
Thanks. Found it, and looked everywhere for some indication of an error.
There's nothing that bears today's date, and I've manually repeated the
error twice, closing the event viewer and re-opening it twice.

Sometimes life seems so hopeless <grin>.
 
There are still things you can try:

1) Run a detect and repair from the Help menu. You will probably need your
Office 2002 CD to do this.

2) Run scanpst.exe against your PST to look for errors. Just do a search
(start > search for scanpst.exe), double-click it, and follow the
instructions. You may have to run this utility several times.

3) Check the size of your PST. There is a limit on older versions of Outlook
of 2 GB but the PST can start having problems earlier than that.

Post back and let me know. Good luck.
 
Well, here's the status of things, which has changed in the last hour or so.

I uninstalled Outlook 2002 and installed a previous version, Outlook 2000.
It gave me the same problems. I then ran the Repair option from the CD, and
now it works fine. I don't see any reason to stop using 2000 now, it works
pretty well.

The one thing I can't find is where, in 2000, to tell Outlook not to
download emails above a certain size. I'm on dial-up, and generally don't
want these massive pictures of someone's grandchild <grin>. Is it there, or
should I now re-install 2002 and see what happens?

Thanks so much!
 
To be honest with you, I've never been aware of Outlook's ability to limit
the size of incoming mail. I've always known that to be handled at the ISP
level or Exchange level.
Hopefully someone else would have an answer for you if Outlook does have
that capability.
 
Well, what I finally did last night was I obtained Outlook 2003 and
installed it. After a false start, and some major adjustments to the way I
look at Outlook, I now have the system working the way I want it!

In 2003, under "Send/Receive Settings," "Define Send/Receive Groups," you
can define a group of e-mail accounts that you want to group together (in my
case, just one account!), you can set Outlook to download only headers when
the size of the e-mail exceeds a certain number of kilobytes. This is even
better than ignoring the e-mail, as Outlook Express does. It alerts me that
I need to go to the website and handle the large posts.

Thanks to you for all your help. I apologize that this has been such a
messy problem. Your help is so appreciated.

Best.
 
I'm sorry I wasn't able to help. I've not used dial up in so long, I can't
even remember. I'd totally forgotten about headers! I'm glad you were able to
work your way through this.
Have a good weekend.
 
Jeff Needle said:
The one thing I can't find is where, in 2000, to tell Outlook not to
download emails above a certain size.
Click to expand...

Outlook doesn't have that ability.
 
Installed Office 2003, activated Outlook 2003 then uninstalled Office 2003
including the Outlook 2003. I then installed Office 2000 -- Outlook 2000
won't load. Gives me "The Operation Failed" message. During first startup,
Outlook 2000 noted a .pst file from previous installation found and wanted to
use it to configure settings. I said "OK", then I started getting error
messages. What do I do?

Thanks
 
Richard Blake said:
Installed Office 2003, activated Outlook 2003 then uninstalled Office
2003 including the Outlook 2003. I then installed Office 2000 --
Outlook 2000 won't load.
Click to expand...

Two things wrong with this. First, you must uninstall Outlook 2003 if you
expect Outlook 2000 to work. Second, you must be sure that the PST in an
ANSI (OL 97-2002 format) PST and not a Unicode (OL 2003's native format)
PST.
 
I had already uninstalled Outloock 2003 but evidently the .pst file was left
behind. Uninstalled Office 2000, then reinstalled and told Outlook not to use
the existing .pst file. Everything working great now. Thanks.
 
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