Outlook crashes when attempting to attach file to email

[Guest]

I am trying to attach a file to an email in Outlook. I navigate to Insert
File and click the drop-down arrow. I am able to choose a folder but when I
try to click on a subfolder, Outlook crashes. It either shuts down
immediately or will sometimes get hung up. Does anyone have any experience
with this problem? Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Jenn

 

[William Lefkovics [MVP]]

I've only seen something like that when antivirus was messed up. Does the
problem persist when third party things are eliminated from the equation?
Is this consistent with any attachment (different size and extension)?

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately, I am on a work computer and cannot uninstall my antivirus
protection.

Before I am even able to select a file to attach, Outlook will crash (during
the navigation to select the file). I have searched all over and am not able
to find an answer to this question.

The closest I can come to an answer is addressed at:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/04/17/77479_HNpatchproblem_1.html

Part of the article states:
"For example in Outlook when I try to attach a file the dialog will come up
and when I click on the down arrow to select a drive, Outlook will crash and
have to be killed with task manager."

That is just what happens to me. I have tried to use "Option 2", as
suggested by Microsoft's Stephen Hui, in the article. Did not help.

Would this provide any further info for you to help me out? I would be
forever in your debt!!

Thanks!
Jenn

 

[Brian Tillman]

Unfortunately, I am on a work computer and cannot uninstall my
antivirus protection.

William didn't explicitly say it, but he's not advocating uninstalling any
AV program. He's advocating removing its integration with Outlook, said
integration often being problematic.

Before I am even able to select a file to attach, Outlook will crash
(during the navigation to select the file). I have searched all over
and am not able to find an answer to this question.

This sounds more like a Windows issue because the browser window is not
specific to Outlook but is a Windows component.

The closest I can come to an answer is addressed at:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/04/17/77479_HNpatchproblem_1.html

Do you have an HP printer?

 

[Greg]

I am trying to attach a file to an email in Outlook. I navigate to Insert
File and click the drop-down arrow. I am able to choose a folder but when I
try to click on a subfolder, Outlook crashes. It either shuts down
immediately or will sometimes get hung up. Does anyone have any experience
with this problem? Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Jenn

Thank goodness for Google.

I just had the identical thing happen tonight and googled the problem
and found this thread.

When I click on the down error to select a folder to get an
attachment, Outlook crashes and can only be stopped with Task Manager.
Then, I get a weird message that says it can't stop the program
because it must be getting debugged. Are you getting that message?

Then in a little while, it does get shut down. Sometimes, however, it
doesn't and I have to give the three-fingered salute, CTL ALT DEL.

I was writing a VB program to automate Outlook when I noticed this
happening.

I don't know if the automation has anything to do with it, but I hope
not.

The other thing is that I am using the EZ Firewall and eTrust
antivirus programs provided by RoadRunner.

I am going to put in a help call to the RoadRunner national help desk
and see if they know anything about this.

I am anxious to hear if anyone else is using those particular
antivirus tools or was trying to automate Outlook.

Thank you very much.

Greg in Cincinnati

 

[Greg]

Thank goodness for Google.

I just had the identical thing happen tonight and googled the problem
and found this thread.

When I click on the down error to select a folder to get an
attachment, Outlook crashes and can only be stopped with Task Manager.
Then, I get a weird message that says it can't stop the program
because it must be getting debugged. Are you getting that message?

Then in a little while, it does get shut down. Sometimes, however, it
doesn't and I have to give the three-fingered salute, CTL ALT DEL.

I was writing a VB program to automate Outlook when I noticed this
happening.

I don't know if the automation has anything to do with it, but I hope
not.

The other thing is that I am using the EZ Firewall and eTrust
antivirus programs provided by RoadRunner.

I am going to put in a help call to the RoadRunner national help desk
and see if they know anything about this.

I am anxious to hear if anyone else is using those particular
antivirus tools or was trying to automate Outlook.

Thank you very much.

Greg in Cincinnati

I called RoadRunner, which is where I get support for the firewall
product mentioned above.

He had me shut the firewall down

Then I opened Outlook and started a new message.

Then I put the cursor into the body of the new message.

Clicked on the paper clip attachment icon.

It flickered and looked like it was going to crash ... BUT

approximately 18 seconds later the list of folders appeared and I was
able to make an attachment successfully.

Then we fired the firewall back up (pun unintentional) and the
identical thing happend, including another 18 second delay.

The RoadRunner rep, who was very helpful, thought that just turning
off the firewall reinitialized something or other.

However, an 18 second delay seems like an eternity to wait for the
folder listing to come up.

Can you reproduce anything like this on your machine, Jenn?

It takes a while for my machine to reboot, so I am going to shut it
down in a little bit and reboot it. Hopefully, that will do something
about the 18-sec delay. Rebooting did not help with the problem
before calling RoadRunner.

I will post an update after I reboot.

Please let me know what type of antivirus you are using and if you can
get to anything like the 18-sec. delay.

Thanks.

Greg
Cincinnati Ohio USA

 

[Greg]

<snip>

I think I found out what was causing my problem. Perhaps something
like it is happening for you.

I just installed a virtual private network two days ago and linked a
virtual drive to it. However, the connection was down last night. I
think that when Outlook was making its list of drives and folders for
the selection dialog it could not find the connection for the virtual
drive and it would not be able to find it and does not handle that
very well.

Clicking on any part of the dialog while it was searching was causing
it to crash. Apparently, waiting for the search to time out allows
Outlook to "recover" and not crash.

Perhaps you have a similar problem in your drive structure that is
causing the problem for you.

My attachment process is working fine now and this seems to be the
explanation because my virtual drive is "connected" and the attachment
process is working fine.

Please let me know if this worked for you or if you need any help
checking it out.

Thanks.

Greg in Cincinnati

 

[Brian Tillman]

I think I found out what was causing my problem. Perhaps something
like it is happening for you.

I just installed a virtual private network two days ago and linked a
virtual drive to it.

This is what I was going to suggest. The delay you mentioned sounded like a
network time-out in the Windows browser to me.

 

[taylog1]

Jenn,

Did you ever get to the bottom of this ? as I've got the exact same issue.

In the hope that more info might help someone divine the solution, I've also noticed the following:


As well as Outlook 2003 crashing when trying to attach files through the browser, I get the same problem with Serif Pageplus <insert file>, so would agree with Greg that it looks to be a Windows browser problem.

They only crash when browsing C: (true for both Outlook and Pageplus) - I can attach files from My Documents, or another hard drive with no problem.

And the weirdest thing - Outlook automatically restarts after the crash. If you crash it twice, the third time it opens Outlook works fine thereafter until the machine is restarted (home machine, no network) - but this doesn't fix Pageplus.

So I have workarounds for both programs, but would really like to get to the root cause.

Any suggestions ?

Gareth