Outlook/ISP Problem

[limafred]

I use Outlook 2003 with Earthlink (Dial-Up) as my ISP. Windows XP Pro, 80Gb
HD and 512Mb RAM.
My problem is as follows: within the past few days Outlook tried to download
a message with a 1.2Mb attachment. (I never had any problems with such
e-mails before) The message could not be downloaded, an Outlook dialog box
popped up telling me the “operation had timed outâ€. I then received an e-mail
from Earthlink telling me the message was in an “Undeliverable Messagesâ€
folder at the web-mail site. There, I was able to read the message and see
the attachment(s).
The same happened again yesterday: a message (from the same sender) with an
attachment of 560Kb. No problem receiving any other messages…
Do I have a problem with my ISP or with Outlook?
If somebody could enlighten me I would be very grateful,
Thank you,
Fred.

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP-P/I]]

Outlook has no interest in message or attachment size, ISP email servers
very often do. That would probably be the place to start.

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[Peter Foldes]

Aside from what Hal posted it can also be your Anti Virus scanning incoming emails and possibly timing out the email from downloading because it was scanning it and not able to make up it's mind . This is happening more often and the main culprits being Norton MacAfee and Trend

 

[limafred]

Peter,
I just installed VIPRE a couple of weeks ago... maybe that might be the
culprit? I am not new to computers, (let's say "intermediate") and wonder if
I would be much more at risk if I disabled the e-mail checking portion of the
anti-virus program?
I never thought about it, but this could really be the cause of my problem!
Thanks
Fred.

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP-P/I]]

You would be at ZERO additional risk by eliminating email scanning
altogether. Email scanners are entirely redundant, they add nothing, the
only thing they do well is create problems where none exist, and your system
is fully protected without them, provided you keep the resident file system
scanner portion of your A/V application up to date. The file system scanner
will catch anything evil sent you by email. Why? Any file that isn't pure
text must be encoded before it can be attached to an email. This file must
be decoded when received before it can do anything. The decode process will
write the file to a temporary folder on your hard drive. The instant that
happens, the file system scanner takes over and KILLS it, if its malware.
There is no way around this, hence an email scanner is a redundant
troublemaker you are much better off without.

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com