Outlook 2003 -- you're not gonna believe this...

[daveo0099]

outlook has been operating without incident for 2-3 years...on sunday, it started hanging up during each send/receive when email was available to download from my servers...no email, no hang up...

when i close it after each hang, i get a "this program is not responding" error...it starts back up with no problems, if there's no email to get...

using the "control panel" and "add or remove programs," i was able to change the office config and uninstall outlook...i rebooted my systems and then reinstalled outlook...

using my laptop, with the same setting and email accounts, i downloaded the available email to the laptop...when i started outlook on the desktop, it loaded fine with all of my usual settings and email accounts...when it went out to get email, none was available, yet it did the auto send/receive without problems...

i turned off the auto send/receive, so i could debug the situation...

over the next two days, i tried so many things to make it work...none were successful...

here's some of what i can remember that i tried...

in the outlook "help menu," i implemented the "detect and repair" item several times...it says it was successful, yet the program still malfunctions as described...as near as i can tell, everything else is okay...

used a couple of "regedit" programs to clean the registry...found lots of junk to delete but didn't fix the problem...

used a couple of spyware programs to clean all the spy junk off the system...took off hundreds of items...still no resolution...

did another uninstall using the "control panel" without any improvement...

searched google for related bugs and fixes...found nothing even close to what's happening...

has anyone ever heard of this kind of thing happening before?

any advice that moves me forward is greatly appreciated...

thanks,

david

Edited January 31, 2007 by daveo0099

[daveo0099]

i exported my rules (all 170 of them) to save them, and i deleted them from outlook...what a surprise...now outlook works during send/receive...

i imported them back into outlook and unchecked each one...the send/receive still works without hanging the program...

looks like there's a limit to the number of rules one can have...

here's another complication...i don't remember that i changed the rules over the past month or so...doesn't explain why the program started hanging on sunday...

any ideas...anyone?

david

[daveo0099]

after 24 hours, it seems that outlook's send/receive is working fine with one exception...

when it starts up, i need to have the auto send/receive turned off or it'll hang up...once the application is up and runing, it'll send/receive just fine...

kind of strange, huh?

any comments...

david

[daveo0099]

okay...on friday, i kissed microsoft goodbye...

i installed eudora as my mail server...i opted out of the conversion from outlook and spend a day getting things set back up...the way i wanted my email to work...

i still have outlook installed for reference to the old email...

this morning, my new email server is working just fine...no more worry about this little glitch or that one...

have a great day, guys...

david

[ringfinger]

Thats an interesting one there.. 170 rules!! Good God Man!! While reading through you're post one thing came to mind although you've probably already thought about it. How about cached exchange most from your server? Are you running in cached mode (or were you, since you've now switched).. also possible .ost corruption?