Problems with Outlook

[Tosh McCaber]

Something weird going on.

For many years, I have set my Outlook up so that outgoing mail resides in my Outbox, with a max 15 minute delay in sending out the mail items, unless Send/ Receive was pressed in the meantime . This has saved my bacon on several occasions, when I have inadvertently included recipients that I shouldn’t have, or more than often, I have needed to edit the email before it had been sent.

Up until now, if I did need to go into the Outbox, I could see which emails had still to be sent, highlighted in italics. Above was a header, with the date that the email was being sent. I could then either leave them, or edit them, and they would be sent at the end of their alloted time.

However, a few days ago, I noticed that an email had not been sent, after the prescribed 15 minutes. It was not in italics, rather, it was in upright lettering, and the header stated “Date: None”. On double clicking the entry, and then trying to re- send, the same thing- upright lettering in the Outbox, and it would not send.

On testing, I found that this only seems to happen when I open up the Outbox to see the status of emails in it. But I’m sure that this did not happen before.

Has anyone got any suggestions, please?

[The late XV105]

I have very occasionally experienced e-mail stuck in the outbox with every version of Outlook used (currently 2007 and about to move to 2010). Usually closing and restarting Outlook (not the PC) solves it so given the infrequency I have never dug in to "why?".

I do though use a different way of reducing the chance of inadvertently sending e-mail that I implemented many years ago as a result of accidentally pressing the keyboard shortcut for "send" a few times when speed typing (I pick up a furious pace when I'm in full flow)

I simply include a guff e-mail address amongst the recipients. ddddddddddddddddddddd or fffffffffffff or tttttttttttttt or whatever key I choose to press. This causes Outlook to stop and ask what I want to do as it doesn't recognize the address.

Nice and simple. :)

[Mike-Bracknell]

Usual reason for mail stuck in the Outbox unsent is due to not being able to to connect to the SMTP server. Especially so if you tried to force the send and it still remained in the Outbox.
It might have been down temporarily.

Usual reason on a POP/SMTP service and Outlook, when the message appears bold but not in italics, is due to an issue with the addressing or (more rarely) a corruption within the message body or attachments.

Remedy is to check the recipients and re-hit SEND, then check for sending, and if the problem still arises then cut&paste the message body to a new email, address it and add attachments, and re-try sending.

If the above fails again, delve deeper into configuration issues, including telnetting to port 25 of the receiving SMTP server and manually sending emails using SMTP commands.

[gizmocat]

Something amiss with your auto-correct options?

[Mornington Crescent]

Gizmo has it.

If you have Office 2007 and Outlook 2007 you may have a Style set

Try turning off styles in Outlook.