To Cache or Not to Cache

[David French]

I have some users of Outlook 2003 that we are seeing something rather
disturbing.
These users are keeping track of their employees locations for the day in
the calendar and let's say there are 15 of them.

Upon converting him to Outlook 2003 with Cached mode there were only 10
visible.
Changing the configuration to NOT use Cached mode all 15 are again visible.
The OST file has been deleted and allowed to rebuild but the same issue
comes up again.

Anyone have a good idea as to how and/or why this is happening?

Dave French

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Visible where?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[David French]

In the Day/Month view.
Day specifically.
Also, changing to the Recurring Appts. view in the cached mode shows all
entries.
Also one of the administrators shared the calendar and he opened the shared
calendar and all entries were visible in the identical views...but NOT on
the user's own calendar view.

Dave


Visible where?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

I'm not clear on whether the problem is in the user viewing their own mailbox Calendar folder, some other user's mailbox folder, or in some consolidated public folder calendar.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[David French]

Bob's Exchange Server Calendar is the issue.
We are on Exchange 2003 and Bob was happy before Outlook 2003 was installed.
He would click on his calendar, see all his entries, open and edit them,
etc.
Bob's computer was updated to Outlook 2003 and the hiding of certain events
started to occur.
Mark is the network admin working on the problem.
Mark remote controlled Bob's computer to do the update (nothing new here).
Bob called to say he couldn't see all of his entries. Being the owner of
the calendar we are all very confused as to why this is happening.
If the Cached Mode is turned off, all of Bob's events are visible. Even
deleting and having the OST file recreate itself does not solve the issue.

I hope this clarifies the questions.

Dave French

I'm not clear on whether the problem is in the user viewing their own
mailbox Calendar folder, some other user's mailbox folder, or in some
consolidated public folder calendar.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

The symptoms suggest that a filtered view might be in place showing only some of Bob's items in the day/week/month view, but with an unfiltered view in the Recurring Appointments shows them all.

Are the missing entries all recurring appointments?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[David French]

Sue,
Yes, these are all recurring appointments.
So from what you are suggesting there may have been 'adjustments' in the
view parameters that appear to be excluding certain events, am I on the
right track?

Dave


The symptoms suggest that a filtered view might be in place showing only
some of Bob's items in the day/week/month view, but with an unfiltered view
in the Recurring Appointments shows them all.

Are the missing entries all recurring appointments?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

That's certainly where I'd be looking -- at the Filter for the problem view.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Walter P. Zaehl]

Being one of the people who had experienced similar problems
(without any filter being applied - at least not visibly), here's
an update of my latest interactions with our IT support:

After several sessions with the usual /cleanfreebusy, /resetfolders,
/cleanviews etc, creating a new profile in cached and non-cached
mode, which all did not correct the problem, but at least went
deeper and deeper (or rather higher up the 'expert escalation'),
I finally was connected to an expert who had a very clear idea what
caused the problem: He assumed that my views.dat was corrupted,
so wanted to delete it and have outlook recreate it.
Bad luck, though - the only views.dat on my computer is the mailViews.dat
from Thunderbird. That completely threw him off track, so he
closed the netmeeting and the phone call and went home for
further investigations, mumbling something about 'possibly have to
repair or re-install', and he wasn't heard of for some hours.

Next time he called he searched for views.dat again and still
couldn't find it.

Then he didn't call back. That was on Friday.

Today I got a mail stating my case (which apparently was one
of many similar cases) was closed as resolved.
According to the infomrmation in the mail the problem had been
caused by a change in the service account on the exchange server
from NT4 to Active Directory.
Now don't ask me what this means, and why it shoudl cause such
an obscure problem - what I know is that my hidden appointment was
still hidden, so I deleted and re-created it.
Now it's visible also in the day view; let's see how long it will
take until it disappears again ;-)


What I don't understand, though: where - if not in views.dat - are
my views stored? I have created new views, and they are surviving
outlook sessions ...
(And yes, I'm also looking for hidden files;-)

///Walter

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Views.dat isn't used at all in Outlook 2003. In earlier versions, it was used to hold information about views of system folders, not Outlook folders.

Views for Outlook folders are stored in your Outlook data store. The /cleanviews switch removes all such view customizations.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Walter P. Zaehl]

Views.dat isn't used at all in Outlook 2003. In earlier versions, it was used to hold information about views of system folders, not Outlook folders.

Views for Outlook folders are stored in your Outlook data store. The /cleanviews switch removes all such view customizations.

ouch ... this might indicate the need to re-assess my
initial impression that the guy was an expert ... ;-)

Anyway, for now the problem hasn't reappeared - 3 days and counting ...

///Walter

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

I would come to the same conclusion. Glad the problem seems solved.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers