8 Common MS Outlook Problems and their Resolution
Microsoft Outlook is
one of the most popular email clients, especially in the corporate environment.
In this post, we will present several most common problems with the program,
and some ways to resolve the issues.
Outlook not
implemented
Users may receive this error message when they try to open Microsoft Outlook.
It indicates that Outlook cannot open because it has been damaged. How you
repair Outlook depends on which versions of Outlook and Windows you're using.
If you're running Outlook 2010 on Windows 7, open the Control
Panel and go to Programs -> Programs and Features. Select the
Microsoft Office listing and then click Change. When the Office 2010
splash screen displays, choose the Repair option and follow the prompts
Outlook closing at random or not starting properly
When your email
client is refusing to start properly, and you see that the program performance
looks crippled or corrupted, you can follow the steps, recommended below, one
by one. After each step completion check if performed action resolved the
issue, otherwise continue to the next step.
- Run scanpst.exe on your Personal Folder. The default location of
scanpst.exe is:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\ - Rename outcmd.dat to .old and restart Outlook to reset all the
toolbars (a common Outlook problem). The file location is: C:\Documents
and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
- You can try recreating the profile in Control Panel > Mail >
Show Profiles
- Try running Outlook with the /safe switch: Start > Run > type:
outlook /safe
In some cases you may have to enter the full path to Outlook: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe" /safe
Once Outlook is running, run Help > Detect and Repair - Start in safe mode again and disable individual add-ons in Tools
> Options > Other > Advanced E-mail Options > Add-In
Manager/COM Add-ins
Unable to send emails
The problem with complications to send emails is usually related to the
address of the outgoing email message. If you encounter this message, check the
To: address first. Some versions of Outlook will state that the
destination email address is unrecognized. This error can also occur when there's
a problem within HTML-based email messages. Changing the outbound message's
format from HTML to other formats may resolve the issue.
Unable to delete emails
Outlook error can prevent you from removing unwanted messages from you inbox. The problem is usually attributed to corrupt file. As a result of this a copy of emails that have been removed already end up in the deleted folder of Outlook. This prevents your program to delete unwanted messages. To fix the problem, you can follow the below step:
- Select all the messages of ‘Delete’
Folder and copy them to another folder.
- Close Outlook
- Set hidden files to be displayed by
going to the Windows setting
- Search for the file ‘Deleted
Items.dbx’
- Delete the file
- Re-hide the files by going back to
settings
Unable to receive emails
This Outlook
error prevents new mails from being received by the program and could be
quite frustrating as you will no longer have access to the received messages
till the problem is fixed. Usually this problem is caused by overabundance of
messages and therefore this error is easiest to eliminate. When you reach the
limit of storage capacity of your email account, no more messages can be added.
In order to have access to those messages again and start receiving new ones,
you should do the following:
- Delete older messages that you no longer
need
- Shift messages from Outlook to a
different folder on your hard drive
- Increase the disk space allotted for
your email account
Common Outlook problems with reminders
Reminders represent
very useful feature in the MS Outlook, helping you to survive in the fast pace
modern environment. The common problems with reminders might be: not triggering
any alarms, reminders not showing up, or “Cannot turn off the reminder” error.
- Start Outlook and go to the “Tools” menu
and select “Options”.
- Go to the “Advanced Option” button and
choose “Reminder Options”. Make sure that the “Display reminder”
check box is highlighted and click “OK” (If the check box was not
selected, enabling it will fix the problem). If it was already
selected, continue fixing the damaged reminder files.
- Close Outlook and click on “Start”,
choose “Run”. Type the following command “outlook /clean reminders” in the
“Open” box and choose “OK”.
- Check whether your Outlook problems with
the reminder are fixed. If not, let’s try something else.
- Click the “Start” button and select
“Run” and type “outlook/resetfolders” in the “Open” box and click
“OK”.
- Outlook should immediately replace the
missing or corrupt files and fix your Outlook problems.
Error 0x800420CB
PC users simply loathe this cryptic error message and once you get this message, you would not be able to open or read your messages, which could be very frustrating. Most commonly this error is caused by a corrupt .dbx file associated with Microsoft Outlook. The real culprit behind the corruption of the file is not always known. The problem can be fixed in a few steps:
PC users simply loathe this cryptic error message and once you get this message, you would not be able to open or read your messages, which could be very frustrating. Most commonly this error is caused by a corrupt .dbx file associated with Microsoft Outlook. The real culprit behind the corruption of the file is not always known. The problem can be fixed in a few steps:
- Click on ‘Tools’ in the main menu
- Select ‘Accounts’
- Click on ‘Mail’ from the tab options.
- Select ‘Duplicate Mail Account’
- Click on ‘Remove’
Following these
steps, make copies of all the accounts and remove old ones. Most of the time
this fixes the error but if the problem persists, try using the Windows Search
Utility to locate the Microsoft Outlook .dbx file and rename it.
Mapi32.dll
Mapi32.dll, also
called Windows messaging application programming Interface, is a critical file
present on all versions of Outlook. Unfortunately, a lot of Outlook
problems occur because of this important file, such as Mapi32.dll is missing,
Mapi32.dll not found, Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook as MAPI32.DLL is
corrupt or the wrong version…
There are some
recommendations on how to solve the problem:
- “Mapi32.dll is missing”: If you are getting this error message,
use the “Fixmapi.exe” program to find a fix for such Outlook
problems. This program was created by Windows to repair and replace
missing files in Mapi32.dll.
- “Mapi32.dll not found”: This error message occurs when
you can’t use various mail or mail merge functions. As
mentioned above, the best option is to better replace the Mapi32.dll file.
But be careful while downloading the replacement file from the Internet.
Outlook problems will pop up if you don’t download the right version from
the right website.
- Outlook problems due to viruses: Most Outlook problems happen due
to viruses. So, it always better to scan for viruses regularly to avoid
conflicts. Small .dll files are more vulnerable to virus attacks as
compared to larger files. So keep your antivirus updated.
- Registry cleaner can resolve Outlook
problems: Registry cleaner is the easiest fix for
a number of small issues. Whenever various files and programs get damaged
in the registry, the registry cleaner gets initialized automatically to
repair the issue.
Sources and
Additional Information:
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