Mail stuck in Outbox, Outlook Error 0x8004210B

[Guest]

I've read the other threads, googled it, and can't seem to find anything that
fits these conditions exactly. If I've missed something, feel free to point
me in the right direction.

Outlook 2003, SP2, all the latest patches.
XP Pro, SP2, all updates.

I compose an email, click "Send", and it sits in the outbox. Eventually I
get error 0x8004210B. The problem is very intermittent, affects all our 50+
users (maybe once a month per user). Only known "fix" is to close and
restart Outlook. The Outbox then empties and things are good again for a
while.

It happened to me this morning. I set up a packet trace to see what I was
sending the mail server, and it turns out that Outlook isn't sending ANYTHING
to the mail server when this problem occurs. Specifically, it does the POP3
exchange just fine, so it can receive my messages. But absolutely nothing
goes out related to SMTP.

While Outlook is in this state, I can go to the account properties and send
a test message, and it all works fine, and the packet trace records a
complete SMTP dialog between me and the mail server. Yet the Outbox will not
empty, nor is there any SMTP dialog from Outlook.

Disabled antivirus, IM (Trillian), and anything else I could think of,
problem still occurs. The only "fix" is shutting down and restarting
Outlook. Then everything seems to work fine.

Anyone have any ideas for me?

Thanks.

-dave stambaugh

 

[Jerry Abrams]

We were getting solid 0x8004210b along with 0x800ccc0f and 0x80042109
and fixed everything by swapping out our Linksys router for a new
D-Link router. A strange aspect of this problem was that Outlook 2000
could send email ok, but any machine with Outlook 2003 could not. I'm
not an expert, but it looks suspiciously like Outlook 2003 has an SMTP
handling problem which was exacerbated by a faulty router.