Help with Outlook rules not working as expected

[Dab]

Hi:

I'm a pretty advanced Outlook user but I just can't figure this out and I've
been trying for years!

I created some rules that check for a particular condition and if the
condition is met, the email is moved to a particular folder.

The last rule in the stack moves the remaining messages to a 'default'
folder. All of the destination folders are in the root folders of the
account.

Here's the weird part: I've discovered, after may years, that rules that
include moves to folders don't work if the 'stop processing more rules' is
not included in the rule. If I don't include the 'stop processing more
rules' in the rules, none of them work except the last one which moves
everything into the default folder (note that the last rule will work
whether the 'stop processing more rules' is included or not). If I put the
'stop processing more rules' in the rules, they all work, except for the
last one that is supposed to move what's left over to the default folder -
it doesn't work whether the 'stop processing more rules' is included or
not.

Any suggestions on why this is happening?


Outlook 2003 connected to an Exchange 2003 server.

 

[Dab]

Just an update on the problem.

One of my rules, the second to last, is looking to see if the sender is in
the Outlook Contacts folder and if they are, move the email to the
designated folder. There are over 1000 contacts in the folder (and
growing); could it be that executing of this contacts based rule is taking
so long that the next rule, the last one, never get's executed?

 

[Dab]

Another Update:

So, I confirmed: if I turn off the contacts based rule, the remain rule
works fine. The contacts rule appears to time out executing of further
rules. Perhaps I could reverse the rule - move everything unless they're in
the contacts, then move what left? I'll have to see if that has the same
problem.

 

[Dab]

Another Update:

I reversed the logic for the rule, moving the email except if the sender is
in the contacts folder, and that works, but the final rule to move
everything else still doesn't get executed. It's seems as soon as the
contacts folder is involved in a rule, subsequent rules don't work.

 

[VanguardLH]

Hi:

I'm a pretty advanced Outlook user but I just can't figure this out and I've
been trying for years!

I created some rules that check for a particular condition and if the
condition is met, the email is moved to a particular folder.

The last rule in the stack moves the remaining messages to a 'default'
folder. All of the destination folders are in the root folders of the
account.

Here's the weird part: I've discovered, after may years, that rules that
include moves to folders don't work if the 'stop processing more rules' is
not included in the rule. If I don't include the 'stop processing more
rules' in the rules, none of them work except the last one which moves
everything into the default folder (note that the last rule will work
whether the 'stop processing more rules' is included or not). If I put the
'stop processing more rules' in the rules, they all work, except for the
last one that is supposed to move what's left over to the default folder -
it doesn't work whether the 'stop processing more rules' is included or
not.

Any suggestions on why this is happening?

Outlook 2003 connected to an Exchange 2003 server.

The actions of the rules are OR'ed together. The stop-clause is the
short-circuit OR condition; that is, if one condition in an OR
expressions is met then the other conditions need not be tested, so once
the stop-clause is enacted (on a rule that fires) then no more rules are
OR'ed against this rule. So you have to think about the flow through
your rules. The actions of one rule gets OR'ed against the actions of
the next rule unless the prior rule has the stop-clause. AND'ing is
performed within the clauses of a rule. OR'ing is performed by using
multiple rules.

Rules without the stop-clause allow following rules to undo or modify
the effect of prior rules. Rules are executed in order, not in
parallel. No matter how long it takes for all contacts to be searched
to match in a rule's condition, the next rule doesn't get tested until
the current rule completes testing (and possibly its action). They are
linear in execution.

If any rule fires that has the stop-clause action, processing will never
reach your catch-all rule at the end of the rules list. That means you
will need to include the actions of the catch-all rule in any prior
rules where it should apply. For example, at the start of my rules are
whitelisting rules with a stop clause. If found whitelisted, none of
the other rules need be exercised against that e-mail. At the end of my
rules is a catch-all rule to save a copy of received e-mails in a
Received Items subfolder (under the Sent Items folder). Because the
whitelist rules have the stop clause, I have to add the action of the
catch-all rule (to save a copy of received e-mails) into the whitelist
rules. If whitelisted, I want to save a copy of the received e-mail in
my Received Items folder. If the e-mail survives the gamut of blacklist
and spam rules thereafter then the catch-all rule saves a copy of the
received e-mail.

If you use the stop-clause but want the actions of subsequent rules to
also apply, you have to merge the actions of those rules into one rule
that has the stop clause. Otherwise, once the prior rule fires, its
stop clause means you never get to any subsequent rules.

I also have a contacts rule (to whitelist my known senders). It is at
the top of my rules list along with other whitelisting rules. Once the
sender is known, and the actions for that whitelisting rule get
exercised (like moving the e-mail to another folder), no further rules
are to get exercised against that e-mail. So I have to merge both the
contacts whitelisting rule and the catch-all save-a-copy rule in the one
whitelisting rule - because the catch-all rule will never be reached.

I've not had a rule time out. I have had a rule take a very long time
to complete. If a rule inspects the body of an e-mail, that could take
a lot longer than inspecting just the headers. If you got 100 new
e-mails and each was 10KB in size then that's 1MB of text to search
through, and if you specify multiple keywords (which are AND'ed) then it
takes a lot longer. And if you have multiple rules scanning the bodies
of e-mails then it takes even longer to complete processing all
applicable rules. You'll see Outlook complete its mail poll but the
items won't show up in the folders until a long lag for which rule
processing has completed. That's why I do not have any rules looking
into the body of e-mails. Having to match a sender against thousands of
contacts would also take a while but I don't see that the rule would
timeout.

 

[VanguardLH]

I reversed the logic for the rule, moving the email except if the sender is
in the contacts folder, and that works, but the final rule to move
everything else still doesn't get executed. It's seems as soon as the
contacts folder is involved in a rule, subsequent rules don't work.

Have you disabled all rules except the one to check for the sender is in
your contacts and the last rule for catch-all? Does the rule to check
on sender use the stop-clause rule?

Are you moving? Or are you moving a copy? It would've been better if
Microsoft had referred to these actions as just 'move' and 'copy'. Some
folks think 'move a copy' is a 'move'.

With just the 2 rules enabled - "Move if sender in contacts" and the
catch-all rule - just what are those rules? That is, tell us what the
rules actually are. Hard to troubleshoot something that is vaguely
described rather than actually shown.

 

[Dab]

Hi Vanguard:

Thanks for your note.

I know the sender is in the contacts because I created a created a test
contact from an email that I received from another one of my email accounts.
I then use that account to send some test emails from that account. The
'move except if' rule works but any subsequent rules don't work.

I should have mentioned that the Contacts based move rules that down work
when automated, work just fine when they're run manually.

In all cases, I'm moving, not copying.

Here is my rule list in order (for clarity, I've added some quotes to
identify the fields that are actually underlined in the rule):

Apply this rule after the message arrives
flag message with 'Yellow'

Apply this rule after the message arrives
sent to 'undisclosed-recipients'
move it to the 'Deleted Items' folder
and stop processing more rules

Apply this rule after the message arrives
with 'is now following you on Twitter' in the subject
move it to the 'Deleted Items' folder
and stop processing more rules

Apply this rule after the message arrives
move it to the 'Temp' folder
except if sender is in the 'Contacts' Address Book
and stop processing more rules

Apply this rule after the message arrives
move it to the 'Default' folder
and stop processing more rules

The the last rule doesn't work whether the stop processing more rules is
included or not.

As I mentioned in previous posts, rule 4 doesn't work if the logic is
reversed, i.e. move if sender is in Contacts. Here's the variation, i.e.:

Apply this rule after the message arrives
move it to the 'Default' folder if sender is in the 'Contacts'
Address Book
and stop processing more rules

Apply this rule after the message arrives
move it to the 'Temp' folder
and stop processing more rules

I suspect that what's happening is that it takes so long to check the
contacts folder that the following rules are skipped. Seem kind of lame but
I can't figure out what else it would be. If I turn off rule 4, everything
works.

 

[Dab]

Hi Vanguard:

Thanks for your continuing help with this. All the stuff you mentioned
makes sense and I'm pretty sure I'm doing things right. See my response,
further up on the thread, which lists my actual rules.

 

[VanguardLH]

I know the sender is in the contacts because I created a created a test
contact from an email that I received from another one of my email accounts.
I then use that account to send some test emails from that account. The
'move except if' rule works but any subsequent rules don't work.

I should have mentioned that the Contacts based move rules that down work
when automated, work just fine when they're run manually.

In all cases, I'm moving, not copying.

Here is my rule list in order (for clarity, I've added some quotes to
identify the fields that are actually underlined in the rule):
...
Apply this rule after the message arrives
move it to the 'Temp' folder
except if sender is in the 'Contacts' Address Book
and stop processing more rules

If the exception is true then the stop-clause should not be honored.
Have you tried deleting this rule and recreating it from scratch (and
then position it in the rules list to this spot again)? I've had rules
gets screwed up so their pointers to the folders (you see a name but the
rule has a pointer) are invalid which means the rule doesn't know what
to do (i.e., it is corrupted). See if deleting it and creating NEW copy
of the rule gets it working as expected.

Apply this rule after the message arrives
move it to the 'Default' folder
and stop processing more rules

The the last rule doesn't work whether the stop processing more rules is
included or not.

Wouldn't matter. The problem is that you are not *getting* to the last
rule. It's not that it doesn't work. It's that it is not getting
reached. If there are thousands of contacts, it will take a long time
to scan all of them. So you might think the rules have completed their
execution when they really have gotten stuck on your contacts rule.

Do you have a lot of distribution lists? Are contacts listed in more
than one of them?

Are there a LOT of items in the Temp folder? Does this folder get
periodically emptied (by using the auto-archive function with permanent
delete on expired items in this folder)? Or is this a titan-sized
folder with hundreds or thousands of items in it that you obviously
don't want?

First delete the problematic rule and create a new one for it (or did
you do that already? or did you just disable the old rule and use this
new one?). The rule might be corrupted.

You could try redefining the problematic rule before deleting and
recreating it. Go to each clickable entry and select a different
folder, then click the entry again and select the original folder.

 

[Dab]

Hi Vanguard:

Thanks for your note.

The rule was created from scratch. Note that the rule does work as shown;
messages from senders in the contacts folder do not get moved and stay in
the inbox, but messages from all other senders do get moved.. But, rule
that follows, the one that should move everything left in the inbox, never
executes.

There are no distribution lists in the contacts folder.

None of the folders are overly large, typically less than a few thousand
messages. The folders are not auto archived; I manually delete stuff from
time to time that is more than a few months old.

I'll try recreating the rule. I too have had problems in the past where a
rule is corrupted, but in every case, that I know if, the system detected
the rule as corrupt, or flagged that one of the parameters was not set (even
though it appeared that it was set)

 

[VanguardLH]

I'm running out of ideas. The last one is to start Outlook in its safe
mode ("outlook.exe /safe") which won't load any add-ons. Those alter or
add to the behaviors in Outlook so they could affect Outlook's
operation.