How "stop processing more rules" works ?

[Sabin Coanda]

Hi there,

I have Outlook 2007, and my client is connected to an Exchange server.

I added to my rules the option "stop processing more rules", because without
option, multiple rules have impact on the same mail, and I found copies of
the same mail in different user defined folders.

With this option I got a new problem
It seems when two or more emails are received at once, the first rule which
actions will process the first email, and then the other emails remain
unprocessed in Inbox folder forever.

Is it posible to solve this problem, to process all the emails, in the rule
list order, sequentially, and just the first rule in the list which is
fitting for each email, as Outlook Express is able to do ? This rules
behavior is enoying me, because it is different than the one of Outlook
Express, which works as I expected.

TIA,
Sabin

 

[Roady [MVP]]

The rules applied to the first received email doesn't effect the processing
of additionally received emails.

Which exact rules do you have created and which behavior do you get with
them?
What was the intended behavior?

 

[Sabin Coanda]

Hi Robert,



The behavior on OE that I like is to have at least one rule which process
any email, and move it in a specific folder.



For instance if two rules are able to process the same email based on their
two different criteria, the first actions then moves the email in the
specified folder, so the 2nd rule don't find the email in Inbox, and has
nothing to do.



When I migrate from OE to O2007, I found those two rules action
concurrently, and the "move" action is not quite a move but a "copy", so I
got two copies of the same email in two different folders based on the fact
the email is fitting with both two rule filters.



To deny the concurrent process of an email, I added the option "stop
processing more rules". I expected this option acts on each mail, so the
emails are processing sequentially, and after a rule is fitting with the
first email it processes it and stop other rules to process just this email,
so a single rule processes the 1st email. Then the 2nd email is processed by
another single rule, so on. Then I check it with some test emails and it run
well.



Unfortunately I found sometimes, when a group of emails are received
simultaneously, after a single rule process probably the first email in the
group, it stops other rules to process this email, but also stops any other
rule to process any other email, until another group of emails are coming.
The problem is that the emails which remain unprocessed will no more be
processed anymore, ever.



Sabin

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Yes, I understood your issue and your expectations are indeed correct for
Outlook's behavior as well; each email is checked against all the rules
unless the email matches with a rule that has the "stop processing rules"
action and then it will move to the next message. It doesn't matter how
large the group of emails is that it needs to check.

Have you verified that you have sorted your rules correctly and that the
rule with the "stop processing rules" action isn't too generic in that it
will apply to non-intended emails as well?

Otherwise you'll have to look into things that interfere with the
send/receive progress. Having a virus scanner integrated with Outlook is a
known cause of send/receive issues as well as setting the automatic
send/receive interval to something below 10 minutes.

 

[Sabin Coanda]

Yes, I understood your issue and your expectations are indeed correct for
Outlook's behavior as well; each email is checked against all the rules
unless the email matches with a rule that has the "stop processing rules"
action and then it will move to the next message. It doesn't matter how
large the group of emails is that it needs to check.

Ooops ! I thought a rule will stop the other rules just in case an email
fits with it's filter. Should I understand now that a rule with the option
"stop processing rules" stops the other rules, even if a mail doesn't fit
with the rule criteria ?

Have you verified that you have sorted your rules correctly and that the
rule with the "stop processing rules" action isn't too generic in that it
will apply to non-intended emails as well?

What do you mean by "sorted your rules correctly" ? I applied "stop
processing rules" to all my rules, because I suppose that once a rule
criteria fits with an email, I have to deny the other rules to process the
same email. Am I wrong ?

Otherwise you'll have to look into things that interfere with the
send/receive progress. Having a virus scanner integrated with Outlook is a
known cause of send/receive issues as well as setting the automatic
send/receive interval to something below 10 minutes.

Does it matter if I set more or less the interval ? What's happened if I
stop my computer while the weekend, and I got Monday in the morning all the
emails ?
However, I found if I apply again the rules "off-line", by "Run Rules Now"
command, all the emails which remained into Inbox are processes well.
BTW, it will be nice to have a global button to check all the rules once,
not to check each of them in "Run Rules Now" dialog (I have more than 40)
.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

1) When message matches the criteria set in a rule, then that rule will
execute. If you don't have the action "stop processing rules" added to a
rule, then it will move to the next rule. It will also move to the next rule
when the message doesn't matches the criteria, regardless if you have
specified "stop processing rules" (which is correct since the message didn't
match the criteria anyway).
This process is for each individual message that gets downloaded. It doesn't
make a difference how long the message has been on the server or how many
emails you download at once.

2) Sorting your rules correctly means that the rules are in an order in
which you want them to execute. This is also to prevent from duplicates
being created or if you want to create duplicates on purpose or additional
actions need to be executed based on other criteria. This is of particular
importance when working with the "stop processing rules" action as you
otherwise could unintentionally end up preventing other rules from being
executed against the same mail.

3) Setting your automatic send/receive interval to something less than 10
minutes could result in a lot of send/receive processes piling up when you
have a lot of mail accounts configured, are on a slow connection speed, need
to process a lot of mails, etc... Setting it to 10 minutes or more makes
sure this won't happen.

4) If it works when you run your rules manually, then it often indicates an
issue with the send/receive process. Do you have a virus scanner installed
which integrates with Outlook? If so, uninstall/disable this integration and
try again.
See http://www.msoutlook.info/question/20

Restting your send/receive settings by renaming your srs-file to .old could
also help.
See http://www.msoutlook.info/question/164

 

[Sabin Coanda]

Thank you very much for the details. It makes the rule behavior more clearly
for me.



I don't have any antivirus on my PC, other than Windows Defender. Also I got
all the windows updates, with all the hot fixes. I suppose another antivirus
is on the server. Might them affect my rule behavior?



However it doesn't explain why some of my emails remain in Inbox, but when I
launch explicitly all the rules by "Run Rules Now" all the emails are moved
correctly. All my rules have the "move" action, and all of them have the
option "stop processing rules". So it doesn't matter what is their sort
order, because each email has at least one corresponding rule which will
move it somewhere.



On the other hand, I saw on Vista how an antivirus interacts with Windows
Mail. Its behavior was that it moves the spam emails to Junk folder. But the
behavior on my XP + Outlook 2007 is the emails remain in Inbox folder.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I don't have any antivirus on my PC, other than Windows Defender.

Windows Defender is NOT an antivirus program. Don't rely on it for that.