[Outlook 2007] Question regarding the Outbox

[I_Am_The_Walrus]

Outlook 2007
Vista Ultimate
Quad Core
3 GB Ram
2.2 Ghz processor
High Speed DSL connection

Question:

I have many names and email addresses in my contact list. I have found
that if I attempt to send email to someone using their name, Outlook fills
in their email address, but when I Send/Recieve, their message never leaves
my Outbox. If, however, I change the message to use their email address
only, the message is sent. I have used Outlook before and have never seen
this behaviour exhibited. Is there a setting I need to flip or something?

I can certainly google for my own answer if anyone has a search string that
will return useful hits.

Thanks

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

You will need to provide far more intelligible and detailed information than
"if I attempt to send email to someone using their name..." You're the only
one who knows what you mean by that. Be sure you clarify whether you are
using autocompletion or autoresolution.

 

[I_Am_The_Walrus]

You will need to provide far more intelligible and detailed
information than "if I attempt to send email to someone using their
name..." You're the only one who knows what you mean by that. Be sure
you clarify whether you are using autocompletion or autoresolution.

I am not sure what you mean by autocompletion or autoresolution, so I
will attempt to elucidate.

If I select a recipient by clicking on the "To" button and choosing a
person from a list, the "To" line shows their name followed by their
email address in parenthesis. When I hit "Send", the message goes to my
outbox but is never sent.

The same thing happens if I type the name of the recipient into the
"To" text entry field. Outlook will either fill in the remainder of the
name or give me a list to choose from. Regardless of how I select the
person, using either of these two methods, the result is the same. When
I hit "Send", the message goes to my Outbox and stays there regardless
of how many times I hit "Send/Receive".

The only way that I can get an email to actually make it out of the
"Outbox" is to use the email address only in the "To" line.

Is this enough deatil for you?

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Obviously, the entries in both the Outlook Address Book and your
autocompletion cache are corrupt. There is more to this story than you have
told that only you can figure out. You should examine how you created your
Contacts and how you configured your Outlook Address Book. You should see
what happens when you try to send a message to a Contact by selecting the
Contact from your Contact Folder. You should examine error messages and
Event Viewer.

 

[I_Am_The_Walrus]

Obviously, the entries in both the Outlook Address Book and your
autocompletion cache are corrupt. There is more to this story than you
have told that only you can figure out. You should examine how you
created your Contacts and how you configured your Outlook Address
Book. You should see what happens when you try to send a message to a
Contact by selecting the Contact from your Contact Folder. You should
examine error messages and Event Viewer.

I appreciate the help you are trying to give me and I will attempt to
answer your questions as best as I can.

At one point, I had a Palm T|X hand held and when I purchased a new PDA,
one with Windows CE on it, I beamed all of my contacts over from the
Palm to the Windows one. Then, I used the Active Synch function to load
Outlook with most of my contacts.

Some of them have been updated with downloaded VCards from LinkedIn.com

Sending an email to a person in my address book using their entry in the
address book works. It's only when I try to send from the main email
windows using their name that it doesn't work.

I will now attempt this and see if there are any error messages.

As suspected, when I type the name of a contact into the "To" line and
hit "Send", the message goes to my outbox and never leaves.

There are no error messages displayed.

I will now look in the Event Viewer and see if there are any indications
of a problem there.

I found this message in the Applications and Services list

ID: 6, Application Name: Microsoft Office Outlook, Application Version:
12.0.6300.5000, Microsoft Office Version: 12.0.6215.1000. This session
lasted 236 seconds with 0 seconds of active time. This session ended
normally.

But there are no messages in the Event Viewer that indicate a problem,
unless this one does.

The store C:\Users\walrus\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst
has detected a catalog checkpoint.

Is this an indication of corruption? I think what I'll do next is
export out my entire address book to a .csv, verify that all entries are
correct and then re-create my .pst file and see if that fixes the
problem,unless there is anything else I can do.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Do you back up your data?

 

[I_Am_The_Walrus]

Do you back up your data?

"My Documents" which are stored on an external drive are backed up fully
once every 7 days and incrementally otherwise. I have the Windows OS
backup system set up to do a full back up once a week on Sundays. I did
an inital backup when I upgraded to Ultimate, but Outlook was brought into
the picture after that.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Your posts are inconsistent. First you said that selecting a recipient from
the Outlook Address Book (i.e., clicking the To: button) didn't work. Then
you said it did. You'll need to reconcile that discrepancy for us to know
where the problem is.
I was trying to determine whether you back up your Outlook data and whether
you have a valid backup. Backing up My Documents won't do that.
You should never attempt to create Contacts via syncing and syncing may
corrupt your data irreversibly, so keeping current backups of your Outlook
data file is essential, and may be the only way to correct your problem.

 

[I_Am_The_Walrus]

Your posts are inconsistent. First you said that selecting a recipient
from the Outlook Address Book (i.e., clicking the To: button) didn't
work. Then you said it did. You'll need to reconcile that discrepancy
for us to know where the problem is.
I was trying to determine whether you back up your Outlook data and
whether you have a valid backup. Backing up My Documents won't do
that. You should never attempt to create Contacts via syncing and
syncing may corrupt your data irreversibly, so keeping current backups
of your Outlook data file is essential, and may be the only way to
correct your problem.

Clicking the To button does not work. But if I open up my address book
and select a contact (double click to open the vcard) I can send a
message to them from there.

Unfortunantly, there was no information in Outlook as it was not
installed yet at the time of my first backup.

I was not aware of the potential problem with sync, so thank you for
that information. I think that for now, until I have the time, I will
simply use the method of opening my address book and selecting a contact
from there to send email to.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

The To: button and the address book are exactly the same thing. I think what
you are trying to say is that if you open a Contact Record (not a vCard)
from your Contacts Folder you can use the Email button to send a message to
that Contact. Is that what you mean?
If so, then your data should be intact and you only need to reset your
address book service (remove and re-add it to he profile) to get your
address book working again.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;287563&Product=ol2002

 

[I_Am_The_Walrus]

Clicking the To button does not work. But if I open up my address book
and select a contact (double click to open the vcard) I can send a
message to them from there.

Unfortunantly, there was no information in Outlook as it was not
installed yet at the time of my first backup.

I was not aware of the potential problem with sync, so thank you for
that information. I think that for now, until I have the time, I will
simply use the method of opening my address book and selecting a contact
from there to send email to.

Thanks for your help.

Russ, those last instructions you gave me helped a great deal.
I went to the MS site and followed the instructions up to the point
where it talked about giving my address book a descriptive name.
Even though it was already set up to be used (check box in place), I
gave it a new name and now my To button is working.
Thanks for all your help.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

It would have been better to remove the address book service completely
first, restart Outlook, then re-add it. You may still need to do that if you
have more problems.

 

[I_Am_The_Walrus]

It would have been better to remove the address book service
completely first, restart Outlook, then re-add it. You may still need
to do that if you have more problems.

I'll keep that in mind. But so far, I can send sucessfully using the To
button, and by typing in a name for auto-completion (attaches the email to
it) so I'm happy since neither of these two methods were working a couple
of days ago. You've been a big help. Thanks

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

You're welcome. Please institute a policy of frequent backups for your
Outlook data file if you are using sync software. You won't regret it.

 

[I_Am_The_Walrus]

You're welcome. Please institute a policy of frequent backups for your
Outlook data file if you are using sync software. You won't regret it.

I have added the directory in question to my daily and weekly backups.

 

[Brian Tillman]

I have added the directory in question to my daily and weekly backups.

Make sure that Outlook is closed when you attempt these backups or they will
not be complete.