Outlook, Brinkster and the Email from Hell

[jim]

Once again I find myself at the threshold of one of life's greatest
mysteries - namely a freezing in Outlook 2003 when downloading files to the
inbox.

This mystery has befallen me before, on various occassions. And, although I
think I may have found what is causing it, I cannot seem to find out why.

Microsoft admits no liability concerning this malady. Why should they?
After all, they've already sold you their product and its not like their
email is being impacted by your problem.

Brinkster (the email host) admits no liability and (according to Ronald at
Brinkster's technical "support") has no way of helping a customer with this
issue. (BTW, again according to Ronald, they also have no way of posting a
status page to tell their customers when they are experiencing any of
various outages either - which I see as quite odd for a web hosting company.
(And, we won't even get into the fiasco of hacking that lead Brinkster to
force most (or all) of its customer base to change their passwords with no
explanation as to *what* actually happened, *how* our website passwords were
compromised or *what* (if anything) Brinkster is doing to make sure that the
hack doesn't compromise its customers in the future.)

So, it falls right back into my lap (as usual) to find out what the real
problem is, why it has happened and how to prevent it (or at least mitigate
its damage) in the future.

Let's begin with what we can control....

The Outlook Client - first I stopped all automated mail retrieval and
increased the server timeout value to its maximum (10 minutes). Then I
tried to get mail again - thinking that an unusually large email may have
taken more time than the time between email retrievals or more time than in
the timeout field.

No luck. Outlook starts gettings all emails again (duplication is always
fun in Outlook), and promptly fails - freezing before finishing the email
retrieval again.

Thinking there may be a problem with the size of the Outlook PST, I deleted
all emails from spam folders and the deleted email folder and compacted the
Outlook PST file to about 1/2 its original size.

I re-ran Send/Recieve with the same results as before.

Thinking this may be a larger problem with the PST file, I deleted it
entirely, created a new PST file and assigned it to Outlook for the email
default location.

I re-ran Send/Recieve with the same results as before.

In desperation, I began by logging into the webmail provided by Brinkster.
I created a "testing freeze" folder on the email server and moved the most
recent 100 emails into this folder (he had 309 in his inbox). Then, I
restarted Outlook and tried to execute the Send/Recieve in the client's
Outlook program again.

All 209 emails were retrieved successfully - no freezing.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 25 oldest of the 100 emails
from the "testing freeze" folder back into the inbox and re-ran Send/Recieve
on the client's PC.

Outlook froze on message 19 of 25.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 14 newest emails from the inbox
back into the "testing freeze" folder, restarted Outlook and re-ran
Send/Recieve on the client's PC. (I chose the top 14, of the 25 I had added
back to the inbox from "testing freeze", simply because they were the most
recent in the inbox and all were on the same day.)

Outlook ran with no problems. (I was closing in on my prey....)

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 7 oldest of the 100 emails from
the "testing freeze" folder back into the inbox and re-ran Send/Recieve on
the client's PC.

Outlook ran with no problems.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 4 (leaving 3 from our original
"testing freeze" batch that caused Outlook to freeze) oldest of the 100
emails from the "testing freeze" folder back into the inbox and re-ran
Send/Recieve on the client's PC.

Outlook foze retrieving 2 of 4.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 2 newest emails from the inbox
back into the "testing freeze" folder, restarted Outlook and re-ran
Send/Recieve on the client's PC.

Outlook foze retrieving 2 of 2.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 1 newest email from the inbox
back into the "testing freeze" folder, restarted Outlook and re-ran
Send/Recieve on the client's PC. If Outlook freezes, the newest mail in the
inbox is the culprit. If not, the email moved to the "testing freeze" box
is the culprit.

Outlook froze again. So, now I had found the cuplrit freezing Outlook. To
verify this, I moved this one email (only 852 kb in size - which is small
for this client) from the inbox to a special folder of its own and moved all
remaining "testing freeze" emails back into the inbox, restarted Outlook and
re-ran Send/Recieve.

It worked like a champ.

So, what did we learn today?

1) emails can freeze Outlook. At this time, I do not know if the email was
maliciously crafted or simply improperly formatted.
2) Outlook is pathetically unable to recognize or skip (delete) emails that
cause it to freeze.
3) Outlook is incapable of recognizing and eliminating duplicate emails.
(How pitiful is this?)
4) Brinkster tech support is pathetic.
5) Brinkster adopts a code of silence concerning outages and successful
hacking of its customers' account passwords. (This just makes me all warm
and fuzzy as a Brinkster customer.)
6) Brinkster tech "support" is unable to help a customer locate a bad email.
(Just thinking about how inept Brinkster tech "support" is makes me glow.)

So, I am off to write a simple (SIMPLE) email client that can handle today's
email without the 150+ settings in Outlook 2007.

150 settings! Wow! It's just a damned email people!

jim

 

[Peter Foldes]

And have you thought about disabling your Anti Virus email integration(scanning). Using Norton or Mcafee by any chance

 

[jim]

No - using NOD32.


And have you thought about disabling your Anti Virus email
integration(scanning). Using Norton or Mcafee by any chance

 

[Peter Foldes]

And did you try disabling the email integration on Nod32

 

[jim]

Petey,

Read the damned post buddy. It was a mangled email.

jim


And did you try disabling the email integration on Nod32

 

[jim]

Once again I find myself at the threshold of one of life's greatest
mysteries - namely a freezing in Outlook 2003 when downloading files to
the inbox.

This mystery has befallen me before, on various occassions. And, although
I think I may have found what is causing it, I cannot seem to find out
why.

Microsoft admits no liability concerning this malady. Why should they?
After all, they've already sold you their product and its not like their
email is being impacted by your problem.

Brinkster (the email host) admits no liability and (according to Ronald at
Brinkster's technical "support") has no way of helping a customer with
this issue. (BTW, again according to Ronald, they also have no way of
posting a status page to tell their customers when they are experiencing
any of various outages either - which I see as quite odd for a web hosting
company. (And, we won't even get into the fiasco of hacking that lead
Brinkster to force most (or all) of its customer base to change their
passwords with no explanation as to *what* actually happened, *how* our
website passwords were compromised or *what* (if anything) Brinkster is
doing to make sure that the hack doesn't compromise its customers in the
future.)

So, it falls right back into my lap (as usual) to find out what the real
problem is, why it has happened and how to prevent it (or at least
mitigate its damage) in the future.

Let's begin with what we can control....

The Outlook Client - first I stopped all automated mail retrieval and
increased the server timeout value to its maximum (10 minutes). Then I
tried to get mail again - thinking that an unusually large email may have
taken more time than the time between email retrievals or more time than
in the timeout field.

No luck. Outlook starts gettings all emails again (duplication is always
fun in Outlook), and promptly fails - freezing before finishing the email
retrieval again.

Thinking there may be a problem with the size of the Outlook PST, I
deleted all emails from spam folders and the deleted email folder and
compacted the Outlook PST file to about 1/2 its original size.

I re-ran Send/Recieve with the same results as before.

Thinking this may be a larger problem with the PST file, I deleted it
entirely, created a new PST file and assigned it to Outlook for the email
default location.

I re-ran Send/Recieve with the same results as before.

In desperation, I began by logging into the webmail provided by Brinkster.
I created a "testing freeze" folder on the email server and moved the most
recent 100 emails into this folder (he had 309 in his inbox). Then, I
restarted Outlook and tried to execute the Send/Recieve in the client's
Outlook program again.

All 209 emails were retrieved successfully - no freezing.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 25 oldest of the 100 emails
from the "testing freeze" folder back into the inbox and re-ran
Send/Recieve on the client's PC.

Outlook froze on message 19 of 25.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 14 newest emails from the
inbox back into the "testing freeze" folder, restarted Outlook and re-ran
Send/Recieve on the client's PC. (I chose the top 14, of the 25 I had
added back to the inbox from "testing freeze", simply because they were
the most recent in the inbox and all were on the same day.)

Outlook ran with no problems. (I was closing in on my prey....)

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 7 oldest of the 100 emails
from the "testing freeze" folder back into the inbox and re-ran
Send/Recieve on the client's PC.

Outlook ran with no problems.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 4 (leaving 3 from our
original "testing freeze" batch that caused Outlook to freeze) oldest of
the 100 emails from the "testing freeze" folder back into the inbox and
re-ran Send/Recieve on the client's PC.

Outlook foze retrieving 2 of 4.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 2 newest emails from the
inbox back into the "testing freeze" folder, restarted Outlook and re-ran
Send/Recieve on the client's PC.

Outlook foze retrieving 2 of 2.

Using Brinkster's webmail, I then placed the 1 newest email from the inbox
back into the "testing freeze" folder, restarted Outlook and re-ran
Send/Recieve on the client's PC. If Outlook freezes, the newest mail in
the inbox is the culprit. If not, the email moved to the "testing freeze"
box is the culprit.

Outlook froze again. So, now I had found the cuplrit freezing Outlook.
To verify this, I moved this one email (only 852 kb in size - which is
small for this client) from the inbox to a special folder of its own and
moved all remaining "testing freeze" emails back into the inbox, restarted
Outlook and re-ran Send/Recieve.

It worked like a champ.

So, what did we learn today?

1) emails can freeze Outlook. At this time, I do not know if the email
was maliciously crafted or simply improperly formatted.
2) Outlook is pathetically unable to recognize or skip (delete) emails
that cause it to freeze.
3) Outlook is incapable of recognizing and eliminating duplicate emails.
(How pitiful is this?)
4) Brinkster tech support is pathetic.
5) Brinkster adopts a code of silence concerning outages and successful
hacking of its customers' account passwords. (This just makes me all warm
and fuzzy as a Brinkster customer.)
6) Brinkster tech "support" is unable to help a customer locate a bad
email. (Just thinking about how inept Brinkster tech "support" is makes me
glow.)

So, I am off to write a simple (SIMPLE) email client that can handle
today's email without the 150+ settings in Outlook 2007.

150 settings! Wow! It's just a damned email people!

jim

One of Brinkster's senior tech support reps called me today and apologized
for the wait and the way the whole situation was handled. That was nice.
But, what was impressive was that they have already taken my suggestion and
implemented a status page for their users so that we can see what is going
on and feel more "in the loop" and a little less paranoid about our websites
and email.

Then, he even asked for copies of the email that I eventually found on the
Brinkster servers that caused the problem so that they could analyze it and
get me a solid answer as to why it was hanging Outlook up.

All in all, I was impressed. It's not everyday (or every multi-national
company) that bothers to acknowledge (much less fix) a problem in such a
timely manner.

When this whole fiasco happened, I was re-thinking my decision to move my
customers to Brinkster. But, now it seems that my faith may have been well
placed after all.

While all software and computing systems will experience glitches from time
to time, having a host that is not afraid to put its status online and
openly discuss its issues makes those times seem not quite so bad.

(BTW, Level3 had problems upholding their portion of the internet backbone
and was a major source of the frustration and calls recieved by Brinkster on
the day that I called about my email problem - although my problem may have
been unrelated to Level3, Brinkster's technical support lines really were
clogged up because of the problem Level3 was having that made a lot of
websites no longer accessible.)

What have I learned today?
1) Brinkster actually listens to their recorded phone convesations to learn
from them.
2) Brinkster is not so large (headed) that they dismiss customer concerns
outright.
3) Brinkster senior technical support is really concerned about the level of
care that their customers get.
4) Brinkster responds quickly to suggestions that help improve the customer
experience.
5) Brinkster is a better host than I gave them credit for.
6) I should cool off before posting to a newsgroup like a raving lunatic - a
dip in the pool may help. ( )

Thanks for stepping up Brinkster!

jim

 

[Peter Foldes]

Once again I find myself at the threshold of one of life's greatest

mysteries - namely a freezing in Outlook 2003 when downloading files to the
inbox.

Jimbo buddy

I read the post. You said the above and no mention of mangled email. Only freezing.

You only mentioned mangled after my post namely tonight. Get your facts straight

 

[jim]

Missed this part of the original post didja?

"Outlook froze again. So, now I had found the cuplrit freezing Outlook. To
verify this, I moved this one email (only 852 kb in size - which is small
for this client) from the inbox to a special folder of its own and moved all
remaining "testing freeze" emails back into the inbox, restarted Outlook and
re-ran Send/Recieve.

It worked like a champ.

So, what did we learn today?

1) emails can freeze Outlook. At this time, I do not know if the email was
maliciously crafted or simply improperly formatted.
2) Outlook is pathetically unable to recognize or skip (delete) emails that
cause it to freeze."

Petey, don't skip your meds.

jim

Once again I find myself at the threshold of one of life's greatest
mysteries - namely a freezing in Outlook 2003 when downloading files to the
inbox.

Jimbo buddy

I read the post. You said the above and no mention of mangled email. Only
freezing.

You only mentioned mangled after my post namely tonight. Get your facts
straight