Outlook Stops Downloading emails

[Terry James]

Can anyone help with this.

My Microsoft Outlook in Office Professional 2016, used as an email client with Coogle, keeps failing to download emails.

This is now happening almost weekly. & has happened 29 times in 2021.

I close Outlook & it will not reopen. Then have to ‘Repair Office in ‘Settings - Apps & Features’. To do so I have to close all office programs & re-open them after the repair. A big-time waster.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

 

[Ian]

Hi Terry,

Do you get an error with your e-mail syncing at all, for example is it giving you an authentication error... or is the problem only when Outlook closes but doesn't re-open?

I've had a problem on rare occasions where Outlook 2019 will not open, and it appears to be because it's already running in the background. I can close it via Task Manager and re-open it successfully, or reboot and it'll work again. It's only happened to me a couple of times in many years though.

 

[Terry James]

Hi Ian

Yes, I get an error with my e-mail syncing in as much that the mails don’t download even when I click ‘Send Receive All folders or press F9’. I keep Google Mail live in my taskbar & can see that when there are several mails sat in Google, they don’t appear or download to Outlook. I don’t get any authentication error.

When Outlook won’t open, it is always after I have shut it down when it won’t download, then after ‘Repair Office in ‘Settings - Apps & Features’ it opens normally by clicking the taskbar icon & then all the mails sat in Google, download.

Yes, mine also, after a reboot & in my case after ‘Repair Office in ‘Settings - Apps & Features’ it opens normally.

Next time it happens, I will try shutting it down with the Task Manager unless you have any more thoughts.

 

[Ian]

In the bottom right corner of Outlook there should be a status display, what does yours show? Here's mine for example:

 

[Terry James]

Hi Ian.

In the bottom right corner of Outlook there should be a status display, what does yours show? Here's mine for example:

No, I have no status display, perhaps because I connect through Google & not Microsoft Exchange.

Mail’s stopped downloading AGAIN yesterday.

This time I clicked the X at the top right corner. In the past, when I have done this I get a message saying that Outlook is sending & receiving all folders, or something like that. I have always ‘Cancelled All’ because it takes a long time, after which Outlook would not re-open.

This time, I let it run & re-opend Outlook it opened OK & immediately downloaded all mails.

I don’t know if this is the fix, but will do the same next time.

Thanks for your help, Terry

 

[Terry James]

Just a follow-up, I decided that I could not go on with the constant problems with Outlook 2016.
As I was uncomfortable with the prospect of Office 365 (web based) I purchased Office Home & Business 2021.
This was 15/10/21 & since then I have had only 1 indecent of Outlook failing to down load instead of several times a week with Office 2016. Its not cheap at £250 but has cured my Outlook issue plus everthing in Office works better & faster.