Hi, Steve.
Now it has happened to ME! :>(
I've tried all the solutions that I and you and others have suggested. No
joy.
The solution in your last post (create new store folder, then import from
old) works - but too well! It imports the defective Outbox along with the
good stuff, so I'm back in the same place as before (and it took a couple of
hours to do the Import from/to my one computer). Except that now I have a
second copy of my Message Store that I can play with while my original stays
intact.
Some details: Windows Mail has worked well for me since midway through the
Vista beta, and since I installed Vista Ultimate x64 on my AMD Athlon 64 X2
5000+ system after I upgraded it in December. Until last Thursday, 4/5/07.
Then I Replied to a message from my daughter-in-law. But there was an
unrelated glitch just as I hit the Send button and I panicked and hit the
Big Red X to exit WM in the middle of the Send operation. When I restarted
WM, everything was normal EXCEPT that my Reply was still in the Outbox,
still marked Unread. But when I tried to view the message, WM told me,
"Message could not be displayed
Windows Mail encountered an unexpected problem while displaying this
message. Check your computer for low memory or low disk space and try
again." The "low memory or low disk space" verbiage is pure boilerplate
garbage; there is plenty of memory and disk space. Surprisingly, that
message IS in my Sent Items, (and she confirms that she received it) so it
did go out, but WM got interrupted before completing its internal
bookkeeping, so it has not cleared it from my Outbox. The mistake is my
fault, I think, but WM should give me a graceful way - or at least, SOME
WAY - to correct my mistake.
That is the last email that I've been able to send from WM. Every email
I've tried to send since then has stayed in my Outbox, waiting for that
stuck message to clear. Newsgroup posts get sent normally, so I expect you
will see this one. I've been able to send email from Outlook 2007. For a
couple of days, I worried that I was also not receiving email, but
apparently my usually-active mailing lists were simply not sending me any
mail over the Easter weekend. I've contacted my ISP (Grande Communications,
headquartered here in San Marcos), both by phone and by Mail2web; the
problem is not at their end, it's here in WM on my computer. My server
settings, password, etc., are correct and work for everything except sending
email via WM.
My mail store (..\Vista) has been duplicated, as I said above (into
...\Vista2) (and both versions are set to Leave messages on server). so I
have some files to safely play with. But I don't know which ones to tackle.
So far as I can tell, my manipulations have not lost any messages, but I've
not been able to delete that stuck one, either. I've deleted the ..\Local
Folders\Outbox folder, both from Windows Explorer and from an
Administrator:Command Prompt. First I deleted the few contents of the
Outbox folder, then I deleted the entire folder. No problem with deleting
it, but when I restart WM, the Outbox has been rebuilt. I expected that,
but that stuck message is back again, and I did not expect that!
I think the Mail Team needs to take a serious look at this one. Some bits
way down in the guts of WM need to be flipped to let us delete the
undeletable message in the Outbox. You are the only person outside MS that
I can think of who might be able to figure out which bits, Steve. I hope
you have the time to do it.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate x64)