Rule errors in Outlook's Rules Wizard occur during download.

[baobob]

Every time I receive mail in Outlook 2000 SR-1 9.0.0.3821, the Rules
Wizard chokes on one or more of my automatic junk mail deletion rules.
A box displays saying that a rule is "in error". It doesn't say what
that error is, natch. It furthermore obnoxiously un-checks the rule's
"active" checkbox, so if I don't remember to re-check it, the rule
henceforth remains inactive.

All my rules are created with the Rules Wizard. The rules delete, or
permanently delete, messages containing keywords in the subject.

What is Outlook, or what am I, doing wrong? Thanks much.

 

[George Hester]

Nothing. This issue is why I stopped with rules and went to VBA. But as Microsoft comes out with updated versions of Outlook our ability to use VBA in a constructive way diminishes.

What you might try to do is start over. Are there rules which catch more then some others? Remove the ones that get used less often and keep the ones that are used most often. But first remove all of them and then put the ones back in you think catch the majority.

At this point test it. See if any e-mail messages cause the error. Note the issue can be just in the e-mail itself. The writer produced the e-mail with the specific intent of causing these errors, thereby shutting off all the rules, and thereby making you more vulnerable. It's a game that rules do not give you much defense against.

 

[baobob]

Mr. Hester: Thanks much for your reply.

Dingbat as I am, I discovered that the error is more specific,
something like "You don't have permission to run this rule." Yet I
have a 1-user system running Win 98, so if it's some rights issue, it
seems subtle.

And thanks for raising the idea that it could be being deliberately
caused by the sender. I never thought of that. Thanks again.

 

[George Hester]

Oh yeah I used to get maslformed email from a yahoo account. There was nothing in the email but gibberish. But boy when that came in my rules went kaput.

I still have them. That was Outlook XP.