OUTLOOK 2007 with BCM suddenly does not start anymore

[Willem Overbeeke]

I have been using OUTLOOK2007 with BCM for more than a year now without any
problem.

Then, all of a sudden, two days ago, it did not want to initialize anymore,
i.e.
* the initial screen appears
* then, before I can access anything, the screen freezes (my PST information
is already onscreen, my other panes are still "loading", and the application
becomes unresponsive.

Looking into CPU usage I observe OUTLOOK to be hogging one complete CPU
(i.e. 50% of my dual). This situation continues indefinitely.

What I did already:
* I performed SCANPST on my PST and my archive PST (no errors)
* I went to a previous version of my BCM database
* I did a "repair" on my Office suite (from the CD)
All to no avail.

Help would be hugely appreciated, as OUTLOOK is my most essential business
vehicle.

Regards

 

[Willem Overbeeke]

In addition to my original posting below, I now also tried starting OUTLOOK
with a new profile, and thus with an empty PST. Same problem. I am therefore
inclined to uninstall and reinstall OUTLOOK. How do I do that without having
to reinstall ALL of OFFICE. And will BCM be a part of the new installation
again?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Reinstalling won't help with configuration issues.
See http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/outlookdoesntstart.htm

 

[Willem Overbeeke]

No, in the mean time I have been able to restart OUTLOOK (with BCM) by
setting an empty PST as the default and adding the existing PST. I have then
transferred all folders and feeds from the "old" PST to the new default.

Everything works again, the next step will be to rehome the BCM database as
well, but those are cosmetics. Curious point: though I can view all my
ongoing tasks in the side pane, can add to or delete them, I cannot switch to
task view. Then OUTLOOK freezes again. So I suppose this is where the
original corruption was located. I'm still trynig to find out where that data
is stored (it seems not in the PST?)

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Tasks are kept in the Task folder. The Task List you see in Outlook is a
combination of Tasks and flagged items (like an email marked for follow up).
Everything is kept in the pst-file.

 

[DanielEndy]

Roady (and any others):

I just started experiencing a very similar problem. I am running
Outlook 2007 with Vista. Have had it for over a year. (BTW, I'm very
technical. Honestly.)

I was all non-exchange until July 2007. Added an Exchange server and
mailbox. I left the exchange server in January. Still have the post
office and the exchange connection. I only left it around so I could
get to the email. All was fine.

I also had the Salesforce plug-in for Outlook. It's been active but I
have not been using it. I planned to start using it again soon with a
new Salesforce account.

All was fine till March 27th. I had a problem with web browser
connections (Outlook was able to connect fine though.) I took the
opportunity to do a backup of my important items (docs, pics, mail).
After the restart Outlook will eventually take up about 52% of CPU
(not hogging one of 2 cores, just taking about 52%).

I saw a brief message from Outlook saying something about Salesforce
and it is no longer starting the salesforce add-in. But still is only
quasi-responsive. It will let me shut it down from the task-manager,
and task-manager reports it as 'running'. Before it gets up to 52% it
is more responsive (I can switch to Outlook task). After it hits 52%
point, I can't switch to it with the task manager, taskbar, or alt-
tab. It will not draw itself on the screen. Cursor will not appear
when over Outlook app on screen.

Nothing I have done so far will make Outlook responsive. I let it run
overnight. Came back to see 52% CPU and still unresponsive. Restart
machine. Restart Outlook.

On restart of Outlook it acts properly at first but then goes out to
lunch. It prompts me to login to the old Exchange server but I
normally just cancel that and have a different mailbox as my primary.
This is the only part of Outlook that is responsive. If I give it a
password (just to see what will happen) Outlook pops to 98% of CPU
until it finishes attempting to login then returns to 52% and asks for
new credentials. Credentials pop-up dialog is fully responsive, but
Outlook is not.

HELP!

I saw another post from a similar user who seems to use BCM. I have
BCM (bundled install) and I've played with it a bit, but I don't
really use it, though it is present.

On one shutdown Outlook recognized that I had messages in the outbox,
displayed the dialog (do you really want to exit) but then would not
respond to my click. I had to kill it again.

Restarting Outlook means killing it in the Task Manager.

 

[DanielEndy]

I fixed it.

I'm not sure what caused the problem but I terminated Outlook. Went
into config > mail > data files and saw that it still had an entry
for default mailbox as Exchange. I changed this and all is working
now. This also explains why my sent mail was occasionally showing up
in my old offline mail store (OST) file/folder. Even though I had
changed the default mailbox in Outlook 2 months ago, this entry was
still funky.

I can't come up with a theory about why this worked, but I'm now
functional so I'll take it.