Outlook 2007 not sending/receiving until restart (send/receive stuck at __%)

[Parish Mills]

My boss is using Outlook 2007, and he's having an issue where his Outlook won't receive any new emails. Sometimes he'll notice that the send/receive get's stuck at __ % and just hangs. He can't retrieve any new emails unless he restarts Outlook. New emails will come in, and then later on he'll need to restart again to retrieve emails.

• Outlook 2007 (he tried 2010, and didn't like it)
• Windows 7 Professional
• Outlook is only managing 1 email account.
• IMAP account (through Godaddy), using PST (not Exchange)
• The PST file is 6.2 GB
• Inbox only contains around 50 emails (he keeps it cleaned up)
• Antivirus: recently moved from AVG Business to Norton 360, but still encountering issue.
• He receives very little spam.
• He does receive large email attachments, large PDF jobsite drawings.

I've Googled to no end, and I'm seeing people report the same problem with every version of Outlook going up to Outlook 2013.

 

[Parish Mills]

I should add that I have started this in Safe Mode with no improvement in performance.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

How frequently is outlook set to check for new mail? it should be at least 5 minutes.

 

[Parish Mills]

It is scheduled to check for mail every 5 minutes.

Also of note, monthly I run SCANPST on the PST file. I just performed that operation, and had to run it 3x before it showed no errors.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Well, you shouldn't need to run scanpst at all - it's always going to show a little corruption, but unless another program is accessing data, it shouldn't be a lot of corruption. Outlook will run scanpst in the background (on load) if the corruption passes a threshold. But that shouldn't cause this problem...

How many messages does it get at one time? If a lot, or if they are very large, you might need to go above 5 min on the send and receive. Outlook, and especially older versions, can hang on mapi spooler if a new send and receive kicks in while one is still working. For best results, let the automatic send and receives handle it - don't do a manual S/R.

Turn on logging and check the log after it hangs - I'm wondering if it's fully downloading the message or having problems talking to the server after its downloaded.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the Other tab, click Advanced Options.
3. Select the Enable logging (troubleshooting) check box, and then click OK two times.

 

[Parish Mills]

I enabled logging.

There's no other program that I'm aware of accessing any of the data off his Outlook. I wasn't aware that Outlook did the scanpst in the background. I'll stop using it.

As for how many messages does he receive at a time, they are just a couple here and there. He probably get's a max of 20 emails per day. Occassionally he'll get a large PDF come in containing drawings. These can big at times, but I'd say most of these large emails download in 2 minutes or less. Our internet is on a T-2 line.

 

[Parish Mills]

I'm beginning to wonder if this is not an issue related to how Outlook communicates with Godaddy's IMAP servers. I setup Outlook 2010 on my PC, and plugged in my email account information. I'm a longtime Thunderbird user, so this is a new PST. It did take several hours yesterday to complete, and in fact I left it connected last night because it was still My Outlook 2010 is doing mostly the same thing that my coworkers Outlook 2007; it's not receiving emails unless I change folders. The coworker must restart Outlook to retrieve emails on his system. Thunderbird isn't encountering any connection issues on either system.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

You could be right - unfortunately. i don't have a godaddy imap to check (i only have the free pop accounts).

what are you using for a firewall? There have been issues with a NAT firewall blocking outlook - i thought it only affected exchange accounts though.

 

[Parish Mills]

Firewalls: both pc's are using Norton 360 "Smart Firewall". I don't think the problem exists with Norton, unless it's just a setting that needs to be tweaked. I just switched him over to Norton from AVG. If I'm not mistaken, he was using Windows Firewall at that time.

 

[Parish Mills]

Updates:

• We left Outlook open over the weekend, and no new emails showed up in the client (although emails were received using other clients (Thunderbird and AOL).
• If you change to a different folder, and then go back to the Inbox, then new emails appear in Outlook (this is better than having to restart Outlook).
• I've got some troubleshooting logs now, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for, or what I should be posting here (the file is rather long!)

 

[Parish Mills]

Update:

I downloaded and installed the Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool Realtime Monitor. I ran a full scan, and it said I needed 3 updates. I installed each and rebooted. Started Outlook back up. Sent over a test email, and waited, and waited. Automatic send/receives are still not working. Did a manual Send/Receive, and I still did not receive the test email. Double checked my Send/Receive Groups settings, and everything appears to be fine.

I have to believe that the issue is somewhere in the Send/Receive command, both manual and auto. I just don't know what else to do. If you restart Outlook, or just change folders and then go back to the Inbox, the new emails will appear.

I'm thinking about creating a Macro to automate the process of changing folders. Not sure if it can be done, but at this time it's crazy that trying to get one's email should be this difficult.

Currently I'm experiencing this problem with the following computer setups:

• Outlook 2007 on Windows 10
• Outlook 2007 on Windows 7
• Outlook 2010 on Windows 7 (brand new PST file)

 

[Parish Mills]

Can someone please explain this weird behavior?

For this test, I'm using both Thunderbird and Outlook together, side x side. Both are setup with the same IMAP account, and no other email accounts. This is using Windows 7 with Outlook 2010.

So I sent myself a "test" email using Thunderbird. Thunderbird receives the email instantly. Outlook did not receive the email, and only received it once I changed folders and went back to the Inbox. This was expected.

So in Thunderbird, I deleted the so called "test" email from the Inbox. Here's the strange thing, Outlook deleted the email almost instantly.

If the IMAP server can sync properly on deletions of emails, why can't it sync new emails?

(For the record, I performed this exact test on a Windows 10 system with Outlook 2007, and had the same results.)

 

[Chuck Bell]

I am having what appears to be this exact same problem with about 15 of my users at my company. The most chronic are having this problem with Outlook 2010 but at least one is having it with Outlook 2007. New emails do not appear in the Inbox but if I click on any other folder, such as 'Sent Items' and then click on the Inbox, they appear. We've been having this problem for at least a couple of weeks. I've changed the default send/receive times from 30 minutes to 10 minutes, created completely new .pst files, run the scanpst program on them, repaired Office, etc., etc. and nothing I've tried seems to fix it. I'm not having this problem with Outlook 2013 on three computers. It seems to primarily be on Outlook 2010 and 2007. Most of these computers are running Windows 7, but I am having this problem on my own computer running Windows 10 with Office 2010. We are using GoDaddy also, but I doubt if that is the problem since it works fine with Outlook 2013 and Thunderbird.
I strongly suspect something in one of the Microsoft updates since all of these computers with this problem started having this problem at about the same time.

 

[Parish Mills]

Hi Chuck. Could you please check something for me? Without changing folders, if a user were to delete an email off their inbox say from their phone, does the same email delete from the Outlook inbox almost immediately?

On my end, I'm noticing that the Inbox is synching almost immediately on deletes. I would think this would happen then with new emails arriving, but they are not. What is the difference?

 

[Parish Mills]

SYNOPSIS
Outlook won't sync new emails in Inbox, but will sync instantly emails that have been deleted from another email client.

MY SETUP(S)
Godaddy IMAP email (non-free), no SSL
Single email account on each email client

• COWORKER #1A, Outlook 2007 on Windows 7 Professional (additional clients: Thunderbird and iPhone)
• COWORKER #1B, Outlook 2007 on Windows 10 (additional clients: Thunderbird and iPhone)
• MINE, Outlook 2010 on Windows 7 Ultimate (additional clients: Thunderbird and Note 4)

NOTE: all 3 setups are behaving in same manner. They absolutely will not sync new emails unless you change to a different folder and then go back, or restart Outlook.

WHAT I'VE TRIED - WITH NO LUCK IN SOLVING THE NEW EMAIL SYNC ISSUE

• Ran scanpst.exe several times on file until no errors found.
• Tried all available port settings that Godaddy offered.
• Disabled email scanning in AVG Business.
• Removed AVG Business antivirus, and installed Norton 360.
• Installed Thunderbird (inbox syncs new email instantly without issue).
• Changed settings to check for mail every 5 minutes (was originally set to every 1 minute)
• Confirmed the IMAP and SMTP settings.
• Created a new profile.
• I use Thunderbird, so I setup my Outlook 2010 with my email to see how my system would react. My Outlook is behaving in the same manner, it's not synching new email, that is, until you either change folders or restart Outlook.
• While having both Thunderbird and Outlook open side x side, I happened to notice that when I deleted an email from the Thunderbird inbox, the same email over in Outlook deleted almost instantly. I ran a few tests, and everytime the deletions would sync almost at the same time with only a second of delay.
• I installed and ran OffCAT, whis is the Microsoft Office Analyzing tool. I ran a full scan on Outlook, and it found 3 issues related to updates. I downloaded and installed each of the 3 updates. Rebooted the computer. The result is still the same, Outlook is not syncing new emails.
• I right-clicked on his IMAP account, and selected Properties. I unchecked "Automatically generate Microsoft Exchange views".
• I changed the Server Timeout setting to 10 minutes

LINKS TO SIMILAR ISSUES

• Unstable GoDaddy IMAP email in Outlook 2010
• Constant Outlook 2013 and GoDaddy syncing issues via IMAP
• Outlook 2013 IMAP doesn't sync automatically

 

[Chuck Bell]

Hi Chuck. Could you please check something for me? Without changing folders, if a user were to delete an email off their inbox say from their phone, does the same email delete from the Outlook inbox almost immediately?

On my end, I'm noticing that the Inbox is synching almost immediately on deletes. I would think this would happen then with new emails arriving, but they are not. What is the difference?

Ok. I tried that. I deleted an email from my Inbox on Outlook 2013 and saw it disappear from my Inbox on Outlook 2010 on another computer almost immediately. That is very, very interesting. At the same time I see several emails in my Inbox on Outlook 2013 that are not visible in my Outlook 2010 Inbox.

What the heck????

Chuck

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Ok. I tried that. I deleted an email from my Inbox on Outlook 2013 and saw it disappear from my Inbox on Outlook 2010 on another computer almost immediately.

This is how it's supposed to work when you use imap.

At the same time I see several emails in my Inbox on Outlook 2013 that are not visible in my Outlook 2010 Inbox.

Are the missing messages marked read? What view are you using? I'm thinking a filtered view is hiding them.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Have you checked the send and receive settings?

I would find the SRS file and delete or rename it. This will revert to the default send and receive settings.
Type or paste this in the address bar of windows explorer and press enter to open to the location where the SRS file is.
%appdata%\microsoft\outlook

I'll have to boot my 2010 and 2007 VMs to refresh my memory on the settings in those versions, but you might need to change the send and receive settings - ctrl+alt+S, end click Edit.

 

[Parish Mills]

I would find the SRS file and delete or rename it. This will revert to the default send and receive settings.
Type or paste this in the address bar of windows explorer and press enter to open to the location where the SRS file is.
%appdata%\microsoft\outlook

This, and changing the View Setting corrected the issue with my Outlook 2010. Neither however had an effect on my Outlook 2007.

 

[Parish Mills]

I spoke too soon. It's been 36 minutes since I last sent myself a test message, and the new emails are no longer syncing correctly in Outlook 2010. I thought renaming the SRS had fixed the issue, but it was only for a short while. Is it possible something is corrupting the SRS file?