Error Help: Outlook could not sign or encrypt...

[Guest]

Hello,

Whenever I view a message that is digitally signed/encrypted MS Outlook
gives the folloiwng error: "Microsoft Outlook could not sign or encrypt this
message because you have no certificates which can be used to send from the
e-mail address '...'".

I have tried clearing the check box under the security tab with no results.
I have a feeling the reason it happens when I view the message is because it
is attempting to send an auto-reply back (the sender has requested
confirmation).

Any ideas would be great. Thanks!

 

[Guest]

Hi Brian,
Verify the digital signature.
Open the message with a digital signature.
On the File menu, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.
Under Digital Signature, the properties of the certificate are displayed. To
get more Information about the certificate, click View Signing Certificate.
Regards,

 

[Guest]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the quick reply. I can view the certificate and it is a valid
VeriSign Class I certificate. I still get the error message when attempting
to view the message (I can click OK to bypass it, however it is annoying
since 95% of my messages are digitally signed).

Any suggestions?



Thanks again,


Brian

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem in 2 computers, and the certificate is a valid one.
these computes are using outlook 2002.
please help

 

[jfsog]

I see that this is an ongoing problem. I recently started using a free email signing certificate (just for signing - not for encryption) and now any time my mother receives an email from me, when she clicks onto the email (she is not replying, merely viewing), she gets exactly this error message in a popup window. It is confusing her. Fortunately, when she clicks the OK button, the message goes away and she can read the message just fine.

However, I have had at least one person tell me recently that they were unable to reply to my email due to "something about a signature" (non-technical user). It sounds like this stupid Outlook problem is sufficiently confusing as to stump at least some users. Which is totally unacceptable, because now I have a situation where I might have people - potentially even clients - giving up on replying to my emails.

I adopted email signing in part because if we all do it, it can help reduce spam. (Note : it is not in itself a spam-elimination system, but it can help with spam reduction.) But say for example that 1% of emails I send are wrongly sent to spam folders (very frustrating when you have taken the time to write to someone and they never even see the email, and are sufficiently non-technical as to not even know they should check their spam folder occassionally), but say for example (pulling a number out of thin air) that 5% of recipients of my signed emails get so confused by this stupid Outlook problem that they give up on communicating with me via email. Golly goodness! Congratulations Microsoft - you have just mauled what should have been a fabulous technology. Now I have to seriously consider returning to unsigned messages, just because Microsoft clearly hasn't eaten their own soup and discovered this what evidently is a bug.

And yes, to ensure there is absolutely not a shadow of doubt : this warning message comes up when simply viewing the email, even when viewing it in the multi-pane window.

My mother is running Microsoft Outlook 2003.

Looking at dates on earlier posts on this thread, I see that this issue has been around for at least two years. But it seems no-one has found a solution. Don't you love buggy software...

Oh - and as a final note : "get your mum to use a decent email program" is not an adequate solution, because the problem is clearly affecting other users too. So I really need a set of instructions so that I can send out one blitter email to all my contacts saying "I'm implementing secure emails and if you have Outlook 2003 then you need to follow these instructions to fix a bug in Outlook's secure email implementation". Any ideas appreciated!!!