Cannot view downloaded emails

[Mantari]

I have Windows Mail set to download email from Google locally via POP3. It
has been working great and I've been receiving all of my emails, no problem.

Yesterday, Windows Mail started getting really slow when it came to reading
messages. It may take it 2-30 seconds for an email (which has already been
downloaded locally) to show up in my preview pane.

I did go through the steps are running wmutil151 and "SlowWinmail_Fix"
(clears the blocked site list), which I found in this forum. I also opened
Windows Calendar for a few minutes. None of them seemed to have an impact on
the situation. I moved the mail folder to a different drive. No impact.

Today the problem changed and worsened. Now when I select a message,
(existing or a fresh inbox message), the preview pane (only) will gray
slightly for the same period of time, then turn the normal white, and no
message is displayed. If I double click on a message, after the delay, it
comes up, again with a blank body (the headers are all there at the top).

Messages with attachments will show the attachments, but when you double
click on them, it pops up with an error box, "Windows cannot find
'<filename>'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. A
third party tool ('Windows Mail Attachment Extractor') can pull down those
same attachements, no problem.

System is Windows Vista, 32 bit mode. Plenty of hard drive space left. The
only significant recent change was the upgrade to Firefox 3.5. Antivirus
software is AVG.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Have you installed IE8?

What anti-virus application or security suite is installed, is your
subscription current, and is it supported in IE8? What anti-spyware
applications (other than Defender)? What third-party firewall (if any)?
Were any of these applications running in the background when you installed
IE8?

Has a Norton or McAfee application ever been installed on this machine
(e.g., a free-trial version that came preinstalled when you bought it)?

Is "Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 8 for Vista (KB969897)"
listed in Installed Updates?

Just asking for now!! Do NOT use such a Restore Point yet!! => Do you have
an available Restore Point which predates the install of IE8?

If you do the following, does the behavior persist?

=> Start | All Programs | right-click on Windows Mail | select Properties
| Start in <=delete the value here (leaving it empty/blank) & OK your way
out.

NB: Uninstalling IE8 (cf. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957700) should
resolve the behavior but you should not have encountered it in the first
place if IE8 was installed properly; cf.
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...er.general/browse_frm/thread/a17d79493eac253d

 

[Mantari]

More information:

Windows XP, SP2

I tried going into Microsoft Communities in Windows Mail and reading this
post (and other topics) in microsoft.public.windows.vista.mail. It will not
show the message bodies, only the headers.

I tried downloading Windows Live Mail and accessing my existing mail
folders. It shows the same symptoms of not being able to display message
bodies or attachments. Just message headers.

All functionality of Windows Mail seems to be there, except for the ability
to read the body or attachments of a message (email or newsgroups).

Perhaps a MIME decoding problem? A temporary message buffer issue? (shrug)

 

[Mantari]

IE8 was intalled on June 14th, 2009.

I am running AVG Anti-Virus, Free Edition, which also has an anti-spyware
component. Spybot-SD has its resident process running. My firewall is
Windows Firewall.

I remember going through some effort to disable these before the IE8
upgrade, but it certainly is possible that I was not entirely successful.

It is possible that the system (Dell) came with a Norton or McAfee product.
I would have uninstalled them immediately. They do not show up, at least, in
the installed programs list in the control panel, or have a start menu folder
or desktop icon.

I do not have that particular cumulative update (KB969897) installed for
Internet Explorer 8, but it says it is for Internet Explorer 7. "Cumulative
Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Visa (KB969897).

Removing the default start directory did not change the behavior.

Should I go ahead and uninstall IE8 via the Programs and Features screen
under the control panel, and then follow that thread's instructions for a
reinstall?

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

If you're running WinXP SP2, you're not running Windows Mail and you
shouldn't be posting in this newsgroup.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

In another reply, you said you were running WinXP SP2. Let's clear this up
first, please.

 

[Mantari]

You caught me. I'm an idiot. Windows Vista Home Premium, Service Pack 2. Sorry.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Thank you.

Do you or do you not have an available Restore Point which predates the
install of IE8? (If you installed SP2 after installing IE8, probably not.)

NB: JUST ASKING! Do NOT use System Restore to "uninstall" IE8!

You caught me. I'm an idiot. Windows Vista Home Premium, Service Pack 2.
Sorry.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

Your attachments problem is a known issue that is affecting some who
installed IE8. One workaround is to uninstall IE8, which reverts you back to IE7.
If you decide to uninstall IE8, follow these instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957700

I don't know if doing that will cure your other issues, but those other WM issues
and the attachments problem can both be solved by upgrading your email
program to Windows Live Mail:
http://download.live.com/wlmail

 

[Mantari]

My oldest restore point is 07/16/2009. No, I'm afraid I don't have a restore
point before SP2 or before IE8. "Service Pack for Microsoft Windows
(KB948465)" was installed on 05/26/2009, a couple weeks before the IE8 update.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

To keep track of things, it helps immensely if you quote all of the previous
message(s) in your replies to the newsgroup. Thank you.

Does the behavior persist after you uninstall IE8?

My oldest restore point is 07/16/2009. No, I'm afraid I don't have a
restore
point before SP2 or before IE8. "Service Pack for Microsoft Windows
(KB948465)" was installed on 05/26/2009, a couple weeks before the IE8
update.

 

[Mantari]

I have uninstalled IE8. I have confirmed this by going into IE and going to
Help -> About, and seeing a IE7 screen and version number. The problem
appears unchanged.

In a reply, Gary VanderMolen said the attachment issue is a known IE8
install issue. Reverting to IE7 (also the recommended step) did not solve
that or any other problems that I can see. I followed his uninstall steps for
IE8.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

Since you have other issues besides the IE8 attachments issue, the
other issues may also need to be resolved before improvement is seen.
Make sure you have rebooted after uninstalling IE8. Also try disabling
add-ons in IE7, or as a test, start it like this: Start, All Programs,
Accessories, System Tools, Internet Explorer (no add-ons).

If still no improvement, do a test install of Windows Live Mail.

 

[Mantari]

As mentioned earlier, Windows Live Mail exhibits the same issue before and
after reverting to IE7. (Yes, a reboot was forced to revert to IE7.)

I have disabled all add-ins. The problem persists in both Windows Mail and
Windows Live Mail.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

The fact that you failed to disable all real-time protections (i.e., AVG;
Spybot) prior to installing and/or uninstalling IE8 is the most likely cause
of all your problems.

If a Norton or McAfee application had ever been installed on the computer at
any time in the past, that may have something to do with it, too.

No-charge support for Internet Explorer 8 installation, set-up and usage
(only) is available via the phone based on your locale through 31 December
2009. Customers must be running Windows XP or Windows Vista in a non-domain
environment.
=> US & CA Residents: 1-866-234-6020
=> Other locales: https://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?&prid=13043

I suspect, however, that the only way you'll be able to make things right
now is to format & do a clean install of Vista. A Repair Install (AKA
In-Place Upgrade) will not help.

Best of luck.

 

[Mantari]

The part about that explanation that irks me (although, certainly, entirely
possible) is that first a slowdown of Windows Mail happened, then a loss of
functionality. But it happened a full month after IE8 was installed.

Given the time delay, how certain can we be that an IE8 misinstall, a month
earlier, was the culprit?

Also, do you know of other common programs that would have a similar IE7/IE8
tie-in that I should check for functionality?

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

If (a) the behavior wasn't seen immediately after installing IE8 and (b)
uninstalling IE8 (cf. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957700) did not
resolve the behavior, you'll need to purse other diagnostics to determine
the cause(s) of the problem (e.g., a hijackware infection; Norton and/or
McAfee "leftovers").

 

[Sam Hobbs]

PA Bear might be totally correct in suspecting that allowing IE 8 to be
installed with real-time protecting enabled will cause a permanently damaged
installation but not everyone considers it to be the most likely cause.
There is no direct evidence of the problem existing with IE 8 setup.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

cf.
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...er.general/browse_frm/thread/a17d79493eac253d

 

[Mantari]

Correct. It was not seen immediately after installing IE8, and uninstalling
IE8 did not affect the behavior. (Note also: it is not just attachments, but
I can't even read the body of messages, only the to: from: subj: header area.
This applies to the preview pane and the full message reader. The same
problems exist in Windows Live Mail).

Any idea on how to go about a good route in pursuing other diagnostics? Any
particular thread or document with a procedure to follow? Does Windows have
anything like a truss that I can use to look over the system calls and try to
see what is happening under the hood?