No reminder service

[OpusLuv]

I wrote last week describing my problems with my
tasks/calendar reminders.

I am currently getting the following message whenever I
open Outlook: ""Microsoft Office Outlook cannot start the
reminder service. Unable to show reminders."

This message continues to appear even after I have tried
the following:

Tried the following command-line switches:

/CleanReminders
/ResetFolders
/CleanFreeBusy
/ResetFolderNames

I've also tried to do a "detect and repair" several times,
without change.

I've even tried to do an Uninstall and Reinstall of Outlook.

But still the message appears and my reminders are still
not appearing.

Since my tasks/calendar were not deleted when I did the
uninstall, there must be a file or files that the uninstall
did not delete. Does anyone know what file(s) that might be
and how I can delete it/them?

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

That would be your PST file. It might be named something like Outlook.PST.

Try creating a new profile for Outlook in the Mail applet in the Control
Panel. Don't copy an existing one, just create a new one from scratch and
see if that helps. You've already tried most of the standard fixes for your
problem.

Are you running any sort of synch software, perhaps for a PDA? I've seen a
few cases where that ends up creating multiple Reminders folders. The
Reminders folder is used to search for items with a reminder set in the
enabled folders (Inbox, Tasks, Calendar and Contacts) and if there are
Reminders, Reminders1, etc. it seems to confuse the Reminder Service
somehow.

In cases like that I've seen the problem fixed by downloading OutlookSpy
from www.dimastr.com and once it was installed and running finding and
deleting all the extra Reminders folders. Where those might be depends on
your Outlook version and whether or not you are using an Exchange mailbox or
a PST file.

 

[Opus Luv]

-----Original Message-----
That would be your PST file. It might be named something like Outlook.PST.

Try creating a new profile for Outlook in the Mail applet in the Control
Panel. Don't copy an existing one, just create a new one from scratch and
see if that helps. You've already tried most of the standard fixes for your
problem.

Are you running any sort of synch software, perhaps for a PDA? I've seen a
few cases where that ends up creating multiple Reminders folders. The
Reminders folder is used to search for items with a reminder set in the
enabled folders (Inbox, Tasks, Calendar and Contacts) and if there are
Reminders, Reminders1, etc. it seems to confuse the Reminder Service
somehow.

Yes, I use a Sony Clie running Intellisync Lite software.

I found a thread yesterday (in which I think you also
replied) in which a poster said she'd found the solution
and another poster tried it and said it worked. So I tried
it, and with a little tweaking, it worked for me too.

Here's what worked (I'm going to give the details, in case
someone else having the same problem comes across this thread):

Open Outlook, and under "view" select "Arrange by", then
"current view", then "recurring appointments." That gets
you a list of all your recurring appointments.

The original directions to resolving the problem said to
open the recurring appointments one by one. The ones you
get the error message for, delete.

But that didn't work for me. And, when I opened each
recurring appointment, it noted that all recurrances of
that appointment "are in the past," which should not have
been. I tried without success to re-enter all the
recurrance information, then resave the appointments, but
that didn't help. I still was told that the appointments
were "in the past." So, I ended up deleting all my
recurring appointments.

Then, after you deleting the problem-causing appointments,
close Outlook. Go to the start menu, select "run" and then,
after you enter the path to your Outlook.exe file, leave a
space, then type the command-line switch:
/ResetFolders /CleanReminders /CleanFreeBusy.

Yes, run all three command-line switches at the same time.
Make sure you leave a space before each / .

After I did that, Outlook opened for the first time in
weeks without the error message and with a list of
long-overdue reminders.

What a relief.