Disappearing address book

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Robert E. Brown

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Outlook version
Outlook 2010 64 bit
Email Account
POP3
I've been using Outlook 2010 for a couple weeks. Suddenly clicking on 'Address Book' (on the 'Home' tab in the 'Mail' module) no longer displays the address book. The contact search facility just above the 'Address Book' button still works. And when creating an email, clicking 'To' lets me select any of my contacts from the address book. So the address book data is still there, but I can't bring up the address book itself.

Here's a clue: At about the same time, five new icons appeared on the Quick Access Toolbar. Among those icons are one labeled 'Contacts' (which displays contacts in sort of a business card format) and another labeled 'New Contact' (which works fine); the other three new icons are 'Address Book' (which also doesn't work), 'New Email' and 'Inbox'. I definitely didn't add any of these items to the Quick Access Toolbar, yet no one else touches my computer. What's going on? And how do I get my address book to display properly?​
 
Diane,
After rebooting, I could bring up Address Book...but only briefly. A bit later I could no longer

bring up Address Book...perhaps because whatever is causing the problem had eventually been

loaded.
I was surprised to find so many add-ins:

Active
Evernote Outlook
iCloud Outlook Add-in
Microsoft Outlook Social Connector
Microsoft Exchange Add-in
Microsoft SharePoint Server Colleague Import Add-in
OneNote Notes about Outlook Items
Outlook Change Notifier

Inactive
iTunes Outlook Addin
Microsoft VBA for Outlook Addin

Disabled
Windows Search Email Indexer

I don't know what most of these add-ins do. I'm especially surprised to

see Microsoft Exchange Add-in since I don't use a Microsoft Exchange server.

I'd appreciate any insight into which of these are generally harmless and

which might possibly be the culprit.
 
i think i misunderstood the problem - is this what you see? If so, which radio is selected at the top (in the red box in the screenshot)? You want Name only selected to see the list of names.

address-book.png

if its not that, disable the outlook change notifier and icloud and restart outlook.

ETA: or maybe i'm just ot tired to read. :) Disable those two addins and see if it heps- they are both from apple.
 
Diane,
We're talking about the 'Address Book' button on the 'Home' tab of the Mail module. I now have some

additional information. When Outlook 2010 is first brought up, this 'Address Book' button works fine...exactly once.

Once Address Book is closed, it can't be reopened. (Yes, an obvious workaround is to bring it up once and then

minimize it, so it never gets closed.)
There's also a more alarming symptom: Once Outlook 2010 is closed down, it can't be reopened without

first rebooting the machine.
Re 'disabling' some of the add-ins, I don't know the difference between 'Inactive' and 'Disabled'.

I know how to make an add-in 'Inactive': Remove the check mark. I don't know how to 'Disable'

an add-in.
So far I've made 'outlook change notifier' and 'iCloud' inactive...which didn't change either symptom.
 
On the outlook not reopening, go to task manager, processes tab - is outlook.exe running? (my guess: yes, it is) This means something is interfering with its ability to shut down - usually an addin but it can be any program that uses outlook data.

Try this: close outlook and make sure its not listed on the processes tab of Task manager (or reboot) - then hold ctrl and click the shortcut to start it in safe mode. Does outlook work as expected?

Removing the checkmark should be good enough for testing - it keeps the addins from loading in outlook.

Another thing you can try is a new windows profile - see if outlook works as expected in the new profile. if so, either your profile, support files, or some program that was installed for 'the current user only' is the problem.
 
Now a new problem: When I 'save' a message being composed it (usually) doesn't get

into the Draft folder. I lost a lot of work this morning that had been saved

many, many times this morning: After closing down Outlook, rebooting (the

only way to bring Outlook back up), I found that the work wasn't in the

'Draft' folder. And I've now determined that nothing I save gets into the

draft folder. This is really becoming an emergency.

Test procedure: If I create a new email with the subject line 'xxx this is a test',

save it, look in Drafts, arrange by subject, then I see the newly saved test msg.

But if I take a more substantial message--several pages in length with several

hundred addressees that I sent last night--use 'resend' to edit it, add 'xxx' to the

beginning of the subject line and save it, and then check 'Drafts', it's not there.

This makes it virtually impossible to use Outlook until this problem is resolved.
 
Interesting. I'll see if i can repro that - it might be a bug.

How many data files are in your profile and are you looking in the correct drafts folder? Each data file will have its own drafts.
 
i'll keep testing it, but my quickie test worked as expected (the message is in drafts).

BTW, on the need to reboot - look in Task Manager, Processes tab. Is outlook.exe still running a couple of minutes after you close it? If so, something is keeping it open - often an addin.
 
Back to the original two problems: Address Book (on Home tab) only comes up once and, once shut down, Outlook cannot be restarted.

You were correct in thinking that the reason it can't be restarted is that it hasn't shut down properly. Task Manager shows it's still running.

After stopping the Outlook process via Task Manager, I can restart Outlook.

At this point all of the add-ins have been marked 'Inactive' (no check marks). But both problems persist.

I've tried running Outlook /safe, but both problems persist.
 
Well, we solved half the problem... now to figure out what is keeping outlook loaded. I think whatever it is, is also responsible for the address book problem.

I'm assuming that clicking the To button fails too?
 
No, clicking the 'To' button works just fine.

After I made all the add-ins 'Inactive', the 'Address Book' button worked several times in

succession but then stopped working again. Now it's back to just working once.
 
I'm happy to report that all three Outlook problems have been resolved: 'Address Book' on the Home tab can

now be brought back up after being closed down. When Outlook is closed it now closes down completely

and hence can be restarted. When composing messages, 'Save' now reliably puts the message in the draft folder.

I'm not 100% sure what solved the problems. I'll mention the three possibilities and let you decide.

I downloaded and then ran the free version of Ad-Aware, an anti-virus program. It found no problems.

In anticipation of disabling some startup programs, I installed the free version of CCleaner because the

'Tools' module of that program provides a nice way of selectively disabling startup programs. But I didn't

actually disable anything. The only thing CCleaner did was a smart cleanup of the cookies.

Lastly, I use TeamViewer to remotely control a computer at another location. A few weeks ago version 6

of TeamViewer reported that version 7 was available and volunteered to do the upgrade...I accepted the

offer. The new version seemed to work ok, so I had no reason to investigate further. But in the process

of examining what programs were currently installed via 'Programs and Features' in Control Panel, I noticed

that both Version 6 and Version 7 were installed. I uninstalled Version 6...and I then noticed that my

Outlook problems had been resolved.
 
Forum Admin said:
I don't know enough about TeamViewer to know for sure if it was the problem, but it sounds like it was.
Click to expand...

Thank you SO much for this!! This has been driving me mad for months, but I haven't had time to research. I wanted to confirm that it was indeed TeamViewer causing the problems on my Windows 7 Outlook 2010 machine. I didn't uninstall it, I just simply exited out of the program and it works properly.

Thanks again! I signed up to get an account just to let you guys know ;-).
 
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