Question regarding contact links

[sbarber5]

I can reproduce the issue at will with contacts that existed on my exchange server prior to the account being added.

For contacts that I have added to my account since, the issue does not exist and the behavior of links is normal (full name only).

I have done ZERO experimenting on my wife's account contacts and would like to keep it that way.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

No experimenting with her account.

Do one of two things:

Go into control panel, find mail and Copy the profile. Remove her account from the profile. Open Outlook using the copied profile and see if you can repro. The advantage of copying the profile is that you won't be creating another data file.

Or just make a new profile with only your account in it and test. The advantage of this method is that if your data file is somehow corrupt, the new profile will have a new data file.

 

[sbarber5]

Diane and all,

Finally worked up the time and frustration level to begin playing with this in search of a fix using the suggestions made here.

Tried the copied profile first and deleted my wife's account. No change.

Then out of frustration, started from scratch again. Blew out the profile. Even forced the recreation of all files and folders in Users/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Outlook.

Readded my own exchange account only in the new profile.

Same issue persists!

Where do I go from here if all my older contacts have this permanently etched into them?

I am now noticing that ii I remove the Company fields and allow the contact to save to the server, the behavior returns to normal after entering the company again.

I do not want to do this on 2000+ contacts. I might rather eat a bullet.

Please help!

 

[sbarber5]

Perhaps there is a script of some sort someone could assist me with that would open up each contact, select the Company Name, cut, Save, paste Company Name, Save and Exit, next contact...

- - - Updated - - -

And why, how could this happen. Am I correct in understanding that some corruption or glitch on the client side must have copied over to the server side for each contact?

 

[sbarber5]

To make suggested script even easier, you can take out the first save step. It works by just cutting and pasting existing company name and then saving once. Behavior returns to normal. so weird.

My biggest fear would be manually fixing this and then re-adding my wifes account and it gets corrupted again.... What are the odds of that?

 

[Diane Poremsky]

I have a change phone # script that can be repurposed to do this.

Bulk Move Phone Numbers to a Different Phone Field - Slipstick Systems

You'd change the lines one of two ways. Either save the company name to a string, then set company name to "" then set it to the string or copy it to one of the user fields, clear and copy back.
With objContact
If .companyname <> "" Then
.user4= .companyname
.companyname = ""
.companyname = .user4
.Save
End If
End With

It may be necessary to save it with the blank company name then put the user4 value back, then resave, for outlook to detect the change. You could set user4 to "" after moving it back to companyname.
With objContact
If .companyname <> "" Then
.user4= .companyname
.companyname = ""
.Save
.companyname = .user4
.Save
End If
End With

 

[sbarber5]

I cannot take this anymore. I have manually edited one third of my contacts in select folders only. Readded those folders as outlook address books. All looks fine.

Now adding my wife's exchange account and hoping for the best.

If everything behaves normally after her account is in, I will finish editing the rest of my contacts that have the Company Name field populated throughout the rest of my contacts sub-folders.

I would, at the end of the day, win or lose, still like to know what could have caused this and how to prevent something like this from happening again.

 

[sbarber5]

Just seeing the script recommendation, thanks.

Thank goodness this didn't change all the calendar items and such that are related to these contacts. Birthdays, anniversaries... Although my attempt at correcting the issue is creating duplicate events.

Looks like I will have some calendar cleanup when all is said and done... if I am so lucky. Geez...

 

[Diane Poremsky]

If you have a lot of appt duplicated you can remove them using a tool- Duplicate Appointment Remover Tools - Slipstick Systems - should be at least one free one.

If only birthday and anniversary are duplicated, find and delete them. I have a macro somewhere that can touch each contact so the birthday and anniversary is recreated.

Actually, you can use this same script - if birthday field not empty, copy it, set the birthday field to nothing, add it back and save. Outlook will auto generate the calendar events.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

I wish I knew what caused this - it's weird and I have never seen it before. But, my years of tech support have taught me that you aren't the only one to suffered this problem and I'd like to know the answer before I meet them.

 

[sbarber5]

Ha! I am slowly piecing this back to behaving as expected.

Very nervous about it happening again. If it occurs, it appears like you wouldn't know until it has already happened, and on exchange, your contacts will be overwritten on the server and that's that for all that have a Company Name populated and new records. I guess since this has happened once all time to me, I probably shouldn't sweat it with those odds.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Does the company names get replaces with that hypbrid or does it just show in the Contacts field?

 

[sbarber5]

I finished correcting each instance manually earlier and my wife's account was added again successfully without the issue resurfacing. The contact record itself was merged so at the top of the contact the name would appear as FULL NAME COMPANY NAME for each record that had a company name. This appeared there, in the address book, and on any new links created between contacts in calendar or tasks.

Here is a side question for you now that I have both accounts running side by side without lingering problems.

Is there any way to disable reminders from my wife's account from coming through on my client side without dismissing the reminder on her - she would still need the reminders active on her main client and other devices. Also, any way to disable the new mail messages from displaying a thumbnail of new messages as they come in and reporting to te little mail icon on the system tray?

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Reminders: no. You can't stop reminders in mailboxes. (You can enable or disable reminders in pst files not used for mail delivery, but that won't help you at all.)

Notification: Yes. Turn off all forms of notification in Options then create a rule for messages from your account - show Desktop alert (the blue window thingy) and play a sound. The envelope is not controlled by rules - its either on or off.

 

[sbarber5]

So if I ignore a reminder on my client that is for my wife's appointment from her calendar, the reminder would disappear on her from her main client side?

In other words, I just have to live wither reminders cluttering up my reminder window? Seems silly that this cannot be remedied on a client per client basis.

Notifications and the envelope system tray thing maybe I should just disable altogether then. I have already opened my wife's messages by accident on more than one occasion hen they pop up in the corner.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Yes, if you dismiss or snooze, they will disappear from her side. You can't even turn off reminders as it will cancel any past due reminders of hers too.

I would definitely turn off notification and use rules to display notification for your account.

 

[sbarber5]

Thanks for all the help! I would still consider the issue origination unresolved, but the issue is fixable manually or by script tweaking as offered previously.

Thanks again to all who chimed in and especially you Diane for sticking with me.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Yeah, workarounds are ok, but knowing the cause is even better.