How to troubleshoot frequent Outlook 2003 Crashes

[ajkessel]

Outlook 2003 frequently locks up on me (using cached exchange mode). I
suspect it is a plugin or interaction of plugins, but I'm wondering if
there is any way to narrow in more precisely what is exactly happening
during a lock up. The systray icon appears and says "Outlook is not
responding..." Canceling the server request doesn't release it, the
only fix seems to be killing the entire task. I have sysinternals
installed and have looked at Process Explorer and Process Monitor
while a crash is occurring but haven't been able to make much sense of
it. Any guidance on how to pin down exactly what the problem might be?

 

[JohnB]

Did you take a look at Event Viewer?
Did you try a "Detect and Repair" in Outlook?

 

[ajkessel]

Did you take a look at Event Viewer?
Did you try a "Detect and Repair" in Outlook?

Yes. Nothing relevant in the event viewer. I do detect and repair
occasionally and it doesn't seem to make a noticeable difference in
crashes. I also delete the OST from time to time and allow it to be
rebuilt. It's possible that it crashes slightly less often after these
changes, but it still crashes (and maybe just as often, it's hard to
pinpoint what conditions are causing it to crash).

 

[JohnB]

Is the problem "profile based"? In other words, log in with a different
username and try it.

If it is, deleting your profile and then re-creating it when you log back in
should fix the problem (but of course, you loose your settings).

 

[ajkessel]

Is the problem "profile based"? In other words, log in with a different
username and try it.

If it is, deleting your profile and then re-creating it when you log back in
should fix the problem (but of course, you loose your settings).

I don't have permissions to create a new account on the machine, but I
have deleted the outcmd.dat file before and it still crashes. I'm just
wondering if there's any way to actually *see* what's going on when it
freezes, rather than just trying various fixes.

 

[ajkessel]

I don't have permissions to create a new account on the machine, but I
have deleted the outcmd.dat file before and it still crashes. I'm just
wondering if there's any way to actually *see* what's going on when it
freezes, rather than just trying various fixes.

I never figured out how to troubleshoot this, but uninstalling and
removing all data from Google Desktop and then reinstalling it seems
to have greatly reduced the freezes.

 

[Janna]

Outlook 2003 was locking up on me a few minutes after opening. Send/receive
worked well on opening, but stopped most of the way through the last incoming
e-mail the next time it was requested. After weeks of frustration, I noticed