Annoying Error message - Problem reading reminders

[Guest]

I have started getting an error message when I open Outlook. It says:
"There was a problem reading one or more of your reminders. Some reminders
may not appear. Cannot locate recurrence info for this appointment."

I can click OK and it goes away, but do not know how to resolve. Any help?

 

[BillR [MVP]]

Try starting Outlook once with the /cleanreminders switch added.
For details on how to use this switch search in Help for "command-line
switches".

 

[Guest]

BillR - thank you for the reply

I have done the /cleanreminders per the "command-line switches". The
orginal message I was getting is now gone, but Outlook says it is unable to
display reminders (expected). But how do I restore that Outlook will display
reminders?

Dkearsley

 

[BillR [MVP]]

do new reminders work?

BillR - thank you for the reply

I have done the /cleanreminders per the "command-line switches". The
orginal message I was getting is now gone, but Outlook says it is unable
to
display reminders (expected). But how do I restore that Outlook will
display
reminders?

Dkearsley

 

[Guest]

No - no reminders work in Outlook.

Upon start up of MS outlook, it will load, but then a message at the bottom
of the screen will pop-up to say:

Microsfot Office outlook (header title)
Cannot start the reminder service. Unable to show reminders.

 

[Martin C via OfficeKB.com]

I just had this problem with Outlook 2003, the /cleanreminders did not work.
I was using an exchange server and found that outlook 2000 worked fine so i
wrote down all the reminders which had alerts.

I then looked these up using the find option in outlook 2003, note you have
to use the find option as the problem ones dont appear in the calendar.
In the find search results double click on the appointment you were
searching on and if you get an error well thats your problem appointment.

I then went back to outlook 2000 located that appointment and open the
series. I changed the time and set it forward by 30 minutes and also set
the status flag to free (as the items were set to busy which clashed with
other ones) i dont think you have to set it to free but im just letting you
know what i did.

Saved the occurence then that seemed to fix the problem.

Hope this helps just out of interest please let me know how you go....
(e-mail address removed)

martin

 

[Guest]

This worked wonderfully(!):
Do a search (I knew that the problem appointments had been added in the last
30 day, so I performed an advanced search limiting the creation time to 30
days and looking for any appointments with recurrence. Then when I tried to
open the appointments from the serach results, the bad ones would not open
and gave me some pop up message. To delete the offending appts., I simply
hit the delete key while it (the evil appt) was highlighted. Magic: the bad
recurrence and the appointment disappeared. I did not have to copy back and
forth to any other old copy, just used the delete key! Thank you Martin C
for the great lead on this problem!!!

 

[DenverBrian]

I too have been having this issue, in my case with Outlook Vista. None of the above advice fixed my problem. However, upon starting up Outlook this morning...the long-gone reminder box popped up (with about 25 past due reminders in it)!

I quickly thought back to anything I had done differently in the past 24 hours, so here's a possible solution:

In my case, I had opened up an old archive PST file using New/Outlook Data File in order to look for an old archived message. This took a while because Outlook Vista wanted to index the entire 500MB file. I allowed it to do so for a while, came back to the 'puter and made my search once indexing was done. Some time later, I closed the older PST file, closed Outlook and didn't re-open it until this morning...and suddenly reminders are working again.

Could be very oddball just for me and my system, but worth a try if none of the above advice has worked for you. Try opening up another PST file if you have one and allow Outlook Vista to index it; close and re-open; cross your fingers.

P.S. I did ensure there were no Windows Updates overnight. There weren't.

 

[Vidooshak]

great solution!

Thank you, Martin C for an intelligent and simple solution that worked!! It was much better than some convoluted solutions I found on premium so-called expert sites. This was something even my sysads could not fix. Thanks a ton!

 

[pannags]

Excellent piece of tip. Thanks a lot

 

[jconstan]

Another method I found works very well

Click on the calendar
Click VIEW and select ARRANGE BY | CURRENT VIEW | ACTIVE APPOINTMENTS
Then open each item and hitting escape for every one that opens ok.

You will eventually find the offending appointment which you can delete, noting specifics so you can enter it again later. Continue in this method until you have gone through all the appointments.

Return the view back to what it was.

Reenter the appointments you deleted

And away you go.

I tried everything else that was suggested BUT this was the only thing that worked.