Outlook locks up when opening "Manage Rules & Alerts"

[Wayne]

Windows 10, Outlook 2016.
I open up 4 email accounts when I launch Outlook. Office365, Hotmail, a personal one and one with a group that I help with.
This week, I found that some rules (that run VBA scripts) didn't run. Normally, I just go and run the rules manually. (Normally, windows decides to restart and I have to log in again)
However, this week when trying to go to Manage Rules & Alerts, it frequently will just do nothing. After a short while, the mouse changes from the pointer. Sometimes Outlook dims. Other times, the Manage Rules dialog does open, but going to Run Rules Now does the same thing. In any event, the "Run on this Computer" rules are not running.

I have tried removing a lot of the rules (most are on the Office365 account - I logged in manually and just deleted a bunch that I hope I can consolidate), but this still happens.

Any help in figuring this out would be gratefully appreciated. This is greatly affecting my productivity.

Thanks!
Wayne

 

[Wayne]

Update: After a reboot of the computer, the rules do run. However, this issue of not being able to go into Manage Rules is still existing. Does anyone have any idea on this?

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Are the accounts all exchange accounts? Do you have a shared mailbox in your profile that was added as an account? Manage rules is goofy when an automapped account is also added as an account.

 

[Wayne]

In my profile, I have 4 accounts. 2 are exchange accounts (one O365, one Hotmail). The other two accounts are personal email accounts; one is IMAP, one is POP3. There are no shared mailboxes in the profile.

 

[Wayne]

Just an update...
As mentioned earlier, all of the rules do run.
On a hunch, I used the web outlook to delete all of the rules that utilize the "run a script". With all of them deleted, the Outlook Client will now open "Manage Rules & Alerts".
As soon as I add a rule that runs a script and close the "Manage Rules & Alerts" dialog, it goes back to locking up with trying to go back into "Manage Rules & Alerts".
All of the scripts save attachments to specific directories.
I'm working on a consolidated script to minimize the number of rules that I have.

So, the end status is that if I have just one rule that has a "run a script" action, I can't go into "Manage Rules & Alerts" in the Outlook client. Remove the rule, wait for Outlook to sync up, and I can go into it.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

I'm working on a consolidated script to minimize the number of rules that I have.

how many did you have? It shouldn't matter... the only important thing as conditions in the rule, all actions in the script.

You might want to consider using an itemadd macro - it watches a folder for new mail and runs the script. It could use if statements and call macros based on the if.

I'll see if I can repro the issue.

 

[Wayne]

I had 36 rules. Of those, over 20 could be consolidated into one rule running a script that determines the subject and sender and saves the attachment to the appropriate folder on disk, and moves the email message to the appropriate Outlook folder.

I'll have to look into the ItemAdd Macro

 

[Wayne]

Another update... it seems that I can add one rule for running a script. If I add a second rule, I can run it immediately, but if I close the "Manage Rules & Alerts" window, when I open it up again it will not be present.