Redundant Personal Folders and SharePoint Lists folders created

[Eric]

One of our IT staff members sent me this email along with a screenshot of
Outlook with a great accumulation of Personal Folders and SharePoint Lists
folders:

A couple of times a day Sharepoint creates a bunch of Personal Folders
pointing to nothing and then another slew of Sharepoint Lists. I can’t use
Outlook until I resolve the errors on them, only to have them reappear a few
hours later. This has been happening for 3 days now. This is most
annoying.

 

[Mike Shen]

Hello Eric,

Thank you for posting.

From your post, I understand a lot of Personal Folders and SharePoint Lists
folders are created automatically in Outlook. If I'm off base, please feel
free to let me know.

At this time, in order to know the problem more clearly, please help me
gather following information:

1. Whether the issue occurs on all Outlook users or only on specific
user. If the issue occurs only on specific users, please also let me know
whether the issue still occurs if you create a new profile for the user on
another computer.
2. Would you please send the screenshot your IT staff members sent to me?
3. In addition, from your description, you described "I can't use
Outlook until I resolve the errors on them". Please let me know whether any
error message is received. If yes, please also capture a screenshot to me.

In addition, I suggest we attempt the following method to help
troubleshooting the issue:

Suggestion 1: Please remove all third-party Add-Ins of the Outlook and
start Outlook in Safe Mode:
==================================
1. Export and Remove the following registry keys:

Hkey_local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
HKey_Current_user\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins

2. Start Outlook by using command (Outlook.exe /Safe)

Please check whether the issue still persists when the Outlook runs in Safe
Mode

Suggestion 2: Check Custom Feature of the problem user's personal site
============================================
Please also check out whether any custom features exists in "Site Settings

Site Administration > Site Features" and "Site Settings > Site Collection

Administration > Site Collection Features"

You can also temporarily de-active the custom features to check whether the
issue still persists.

Sincerely,
Mike Shen
Microsoft Online Community Support
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[Mike Shen]

Sorry, you can send the screenshots to me at (e-mail address removed).

Regards,
Mike

 

[Eric]

1. The issue occurs only on specific users. The issue still occurs on some
users if a new profile is created on another computer.
2. See screenshot in email.
3. No error message is received. Some users can’t use Outlook when the issue
appears and some can.

Following actions were taken to troubleshoot the issue but we still have the
same problem.

1. Removed Outlook profile and re-added back in
2. Removed all third-party Add-Ins of the Outlook and start Outlook in Safe
Mode

 

[Dottie]

This sounds like the same thing we have going on at work. It's driving me
nuts. I myself haven't experienced it, but there are quite a few that have.
Most of them have been laptop users, but not all. I've been searching and
wracking my brain to try and figure this one out. At first I thought maybe
it had something to do with the Sharepoint connection? But I'm not sure.
Some users have 6 personal folders (or more) listed in Outlook...and the user
did not create them.

Have you found a resolution?

 

[Eric]

Dottie,

Others on our team took over this problem and I believe also worked with
Microsoft on it. Here are the directions for solving the problem. Hope it
works for your organization.

Eric

Possible resolution for flickering Personal Folders/ Sharepoint List problem:

1. Must be logged in as User who is experiencing the problem.

2. User must be Local Administrator to have ability to make these changes.

3. Exit Outlook. Use Task Manager to make sure Outlook is completely gone.

4. Delete *.obi (usually found in . . . AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook –
hidden folder under User’s Docs & Settings folder). However, search entire
C: drive to make sure all are found and deleted.

5. Delete the following registry entries:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AppDataLow\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Portal\
PersonalSiteURL
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Server
Links\Published\My Site
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Server
Links\Published\My SiteHosts
KEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-…(UserSID) . .
..\Software\AppDataLow\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Portal\PersonalSiteURL
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-(UserSID) . .
..\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Server Links\Published\My Site

6. Repeat the above steps on all computers where the user has configured an
Outlook profile.

7. On primary computer,
a. Start > Run > Outlook /cleansharing. Exit Outlook
b. Start > Run > Outlook /cleanroamedprefs

8. Advise user to use Outlook on one and only one computer. If email access
from another computer is needed, use OWA.

9. If MySite synchronization is desired, go to MySite and select “Set as
default MySiteâ€
a. After Sharepoint Lists folder appears, set ‘Don’t Display this List on
Other Computers I Use’ checkbox under Tools | Account Settings | Sharepoint
Lists Change
b. If flickering Personal Folders or Sharepoint Lists returns, repeat steps
1-6 and inform user that MySite integration is not working for them at this
time.

 

[Dottie]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the info.. I'll have to give it a try. Appreciate the quick
response.

 

[Nizzrah]

Hi Eric,

We have been experiencing the same problem within our organisation. I've discovered the following:

When users connect a sharepoint list to outlook 2007 a "personal folders" is created in outlook. Inmedialtely users where experiencing problems with that new folder. It kept flickering and recreating in outlook and caused ntuser.dat to get bigger and bigger. After some searching I discovered that PST files where forced to be created in a network share where PST file creation wasnt allowed. (FSRM is used to forbid PST creation on network shares)

Once this forced PST creation path was adjusted to a folder where users could create PST files the problem was gone.

Maybe this helps.