Duplicate Reminders

[Joel Schwartz]

I have a problem with getting duplicate reminders for my calendar events in Outlook 2010 32-bit. When this happens, I get the reminder, dismiss it, and then the reminder immediately pops right back, usually after 1 or 2 seconds. When I dismiss it again it goes away. I never get more than 2, and almost always get 2, but sometimes when I test a new reminder it doesn’t give me the duplicate. So let’s say I get a duplicate reminder about 90% of the time. Now let me give you some other background information:

This only happens on one of my machines even though my calendar is propagated to 3 PCs in my home running Outlook 2010. I use Google Apps and the calendar is synchronized on the PCs with Google Apps Sync for Outlook.

This problem started happening when I first upgraded from Outlook 2010 to Outlook 2013. Actually, I replaced Office 2010 with 2013, then didn’t like it since it introduced this particular problem and a few others, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled 2010, but this problem remains.

I’ve run Outlook with /Cleanreminders and with /Cleansniff but that has had no effect.

I opened a problem record with Google Apps support thinking their sync tool might be involved, and they recommended deleting my profile and starting over. I did that and the problem went away – for about a week, and mysteriously came right back again.

I’ve disabled most every Com add-on in Outlook, with no improvement.

I’ve done a repair on Office and that has had no effect either.


So basically I’ve run out of ideas and am hopeful someone has some other suggestions to eliminate my duplicate reminders.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Clean reminders should have fixed it, but because it went away when you made a new profile then came back, it sounds like it is related to either the sync utility or something unique to this computer. Since to only affects one computer (and I'm assuming) you use the sync utility on all 3, it has to be something outside of the utility.

Is the reminder dialog identical for both reminders?

Open the registry and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Profiles and delete the entire key. Actually, since you uninstalled 2013, delete the entire outlook key.

 

[Joel Schwartz]

Diane: OK, I deleted the entire Outlook key for 15.0. For whatever reason I have a feeling that may actually fix it. I didn't reboot, just restarted Outlook again after the registry deletion. Is that all I need to do or should I reboot? Last, I likely won't know for several days if it's had any effect but I'll update this when I know.. Thanks - Joel

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Outlook reads the registry on startup, so you should be fine. I have no idea if it will help, Outlook 2010 shouldn't be looking at those keys, but maybe it is -I forgot why I thought it might be the problem

 

[Joel Schwartz]

I just wanted to update this record. I think my problem is resolved now that it's been a few weeks and things are working as they should be. When I deleted the registry key for Office 2013 (15.0) that didn't in and of itself correct the problem, but when I later created a new profile after doing that it did. Here's my theory. I use Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook since I use a Google Apps email account. I believe that when that utility runs and it see registry keys for both Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 it created the problem. So I first starting getting the problem when I added Office 2013, and apparently the Office 2010 key remained in the registry, and the problem stayed after I uninstalled Office 2013 but the registry key for it remained. So, bottom line, once the 15.0 key was deleted and a new profile created, all was fine. Thanks Diane. - Joel

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Thanks for the update - it makes sense and may help others.