Outlook 2002 SMTP timeout error

[Mark]

Running Outlook 2002 SP2 on XP. I am also running my own SMTP server (QK
SMTP Server) on the same machine so that I do not need to reconfigure email
accounts when traveling and connecting via various ISPs.

Quite frequently when sending email from Outlook, the log of the SMTP server
shows that Outlook has correctly authenticated with the server, but the
actual email message is not sent from Outlook to the Server and it remains
in my outbox. Outlook eventually times out with an SMTP timeout error
0x8004210B and will continue to retry. At this time, I can either stop and
restart the SMTP server, or close and re-open Outlook and then the message
will successfully be sent.

I read in one forum that "There is a bug in a Windows component that Outlook
uses that causes Outlook to timeout if the connection to the server is too
fast" and that this can happen when the server and Outlook are on the same
machine. Anyone else heard of this issue???

I have tried the option of not letting Outlook send immediately but that
made no difference.

I can send successfully every time using Outlook Express on the local
machine (or on any other machine on the LAN) so this tends to point towards
Outlook as having the problem.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Mark

 

[Guest]

I have experienced the same problem with two clients in one of our offices. They are sitting on a fast ADSL connection. SMTP timeout error comes up fairly soon (after maybe 20 seconds) and there is nothing you can do about it, except closing Outlook and start again. then it will (in 9 out of 10 times) check email succesfully.

The other 10 clients in the same office experience no problems, we have inhouse jokes about the two unfortunate "cursed" users, but there really is no reason why this should happen. I have read this from another posting on the net, it would help to shed some light on it i guess, but solves nothing

OK, that's the problem that I know about, and I was finally able to track i
down several weeks ago. What's happening is that if the response to th
STAT command comes back too quickly we hit a race condition in a lower-leve
component (that we in Outlook do not control) that causes that component t
drop the response. Since Outlook never gets the response, it timesout
While we can't fix the component itself, I've been able to modify Outlook'
use of this component to work around the bug. No promises (I'm just
developer, not a decision-maker), but I'll be doing everything I can to mak
sure that the fix ships in the next SP for Outlook

In the meantime, one "workaround" would be to somehow introduce a delay int
the mail server so that the response doesn't arrive as quickly. Ironic
slow things down to fix a timeout problem..

 

[Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]]

The fix for this will be in SP-3 of Outlook 2002, which is due out "soon"
(though I have no idea when "soon" actually is...)

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

I have experienced the same problem with two clients in one of our

offices. They are sitting on a fast ADSL connection. SMTP timeout error
comes up fairly soon (after maybe 20 seconds) and there is nothing you can
do about it, except closing Outlook and start again. then it will (in 9 out
of 10 times) check email succesfully.

The other 10 clients in the same office experience no problems, we have

inhouse jokes about the two unfortunate "cursed" users, but there really is
no reason why this should happen. I have read this from another posting on
the net, it would help to shed some light on it i guess, but solves nothing: