Outlook 2007 Checks Mail Too Often

[jekeesl]

I have Outlook 2007 scheduled to send/receive All Accounts every 10 minutes;
however, it has been checking for new mail every 50-60 seconds. I changed
the check frequency to 5 minutes, and then 15 minutes, but the problem
persists. I use MSE and Windows Firewall with standard settings on this
Windows 7 64-bit system. Outlook 2007 is working properly in all other
respects. How can I fix this problem?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Which mail account type are you using?
This is normal behavior when connecting to an Exchange server.

 

[jekeesl]

This is a POP3 account, home computer, no networks.

 

[DL]

If you turn off auto send / receive, does it stop?

If so and you shutdown outlook, reboot the PC, then open Outlook and reset
auto send / receive, is it now ok?

 

[jekeesl]

DL, I turned off send/receive on startup. I also turned off auto
send/receive, and then applied. After the reboot, I started Outlook. It
still checks for new mail every 55-60 seconds.

 

[DL]

After turning both off, shutting down Outlook, rebooting the PC and
restarting Outlook, without changing any thing, are you saying it still auto
sends / receives?
If so, and this shouldn't have any impact, if you restart Outlook using the
safe switch, does the problem continue.
Start>Run........outlook.exe /safe
(note space between exe /)

 

[jekeesl]

I started Outlook in safe mode, and it still sends/receives every 60 seconds
or so.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Locate the srs-file for your mail profile and rename it to .old when Outlook
is closed. This will reset your send/receive settings.
See http://www.msoutlook.info/question/164

 

[jekeesl]

Roady, I closed Outlook, renamed both .srs files to .old and rebooted. When
I opened Outlook, it checked mail as usual. It also checked again about 60
second later. It appears that forcing a new .srs file did not fix the
problem.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Which method of verifying the send/receive interval are you using?
Are new mails actually being downloaded every minute?

If you create a new mail profile, does it still happen then?
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/newprofile.htm

 

[jekeesl]

Roady, the send/receive notification pops up on the bottom of the Outlook
window when it runs. I don't know if mail is actually being downloaded in
that interval, since I don't get enough mail to tell.

I appreciate the tutorial you linked to for creating profiles. I have not
been to that site for a long time, so will browse through the FAQs, etc.

I thought I might have to create a new profile to resolve this, but don't
really understand what that changes.
1. If I point that profile to my current .pst, will I lose any calendar,
mail, or contacts?
2. Will my current Outlook settings revert to default settings for that
profile?
3. I have an AT&T wireless account, and also pull Hotmail into Outlook with
Outlook Connector. Will I need to reinstall Connector under the new
profile, if I remove the original profile?

Thanks for your patience,
Jim

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

Roady, the send/receive notification pops up on the bottom of the Outlook
window when it runs. I don't know if mail is actually being downloaded in
that interval, since I don't get enough mail to tell.

If the send/receive status displays, that's a fairly sure indication that a
send/receive is being performed.

I thought I might have to create a new profile to resolve this, but don't
really understand what that changes.
1. If I point that profile to my current .pst, will I lose any calendar,
mail, or contacts?

No. You will, however, lose the autocompletion cache, since that's
profile-specific, and if you reference a POP mailbox in the Inbox of which
you've left messages you've downloaded before, you'll get a redownload of all
those old messages. Keep in mind, too that when you re-add any POP account,
the default is to delete downloaded messages so you'll have to remember to
enable leaving copies on the server, if that's what you had before, prior to
starting Outlook.

2. Will my current Outlook settings revert to default settings for that
profile?

Depends on the settings, but many will.

3. I have an AT&T wireless account, and also pull Hotmail into Outlook with
Outlook Connector. Will I need to reinstall Connector under the new
profile, if I remove the original profile?

You won't need to reinstall the connector, since it's already installed (the
Toolbar should still contain the "Outlook Connector" menu), but you will need
to readd the Hotmail account.

 

[jekeesl]

Thanks for your help Brian. The loss of Autocomplete isn't an issue,
because I can rebuild that by dumping (ctrl+A) all of my address book into a
new e-mail message. Even if I don't send it, that should rebuild
Autocomplete. However, since there are some minor hassles with rebuilding
and repairing, I think I'll wait and see if any more significant problems
occur before changing profiles. Thank you (plus DL and Roady) for providing
such good feedback on options.

 

[Russ Valentine]

You should also be aware that Outlook will appear to poll every minute if
you have added the Fax Transport to your profile.

 

[jekeesl]

Russ, I haven't activated Fax Transport on this system. Is there any chance
that this problem could be caused by the Outlook.pst file? If so, would it
be repairable with the scanpst.exe utility?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

Russ, I haven't activated Fax Transport on this system. Is there any chance
that this problem could be caused by the Outlook.pst file? If so, would it
be repairable with the scanpst.exe utility?

There's nothing in the PST itself that would cause Outlook to initiate a
send/receive at any time, let alone every minute. That said, a scanpst run
periodically can't hurt for maintenance purposes.

 

[jekeesl]

Okay. That too-frequent scan isn't hurting anything now, because my
connection is fast enough to get all mail in less than a minute. But if I
have any further issues, I'll definitely create a new profile as suggested
earlier.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Tom Willett]

: Okay. That too-frequent scan isn't hurting anything now, because my
: connection is fast enough to get all mail in less than a minute. But if I
: have any further issues, I'll definitely create a new profile as suggested
: earlier.

Having it check for mail every minute or less will most likely lead to
corruption of the profile as well as loss of the mail, including that
already stored in your inbox.

 

[jekeesl]

Sigh - I guess that convinces me that I need to set up new profile. Those
linked instructions from earlier were pretty clear, so I don't expect
problems. Thanks everybody for your help.

 

[jekeesl]

I didn't know if I needed to start a new post, so will add to this thread.

I set up a new profile in Outlook, and it pulled my Hotmail and AT&T mail in
properly. However, Outlook still checks for mail every 60 seconds or so, in
spite of the settings for this profile (default settings) existing as
follows:

1. send/receive when connected
2. schedule automatic send/receive every 30 minutes

Since changing profiles did not stop Outlook from checking for mail too
often, I removed the test profile. Do you have further steps that may
resolve this issue?