Re: Outlook is bugged--stops sending email.
From: Jim mc (jim_at_missile.demon.co.uk)
Date: 10/20/04
- Next message: peg: "posting a " Message" format folder in Public Folder"
- Previous message: DL: "Re: deleted or sent items"
- In reply to: Stephen Porter: "Outlook is bugged--stops sending email."
- Next in thread: Stephen Porter: "Re: Outlook is bugged--stops sending email. FIXED!!!"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:25:03 +0100
Hi Stephen
NAV does not catch everything, and if you have a trojan / worm (eg Blaster)
that uses your address book as a mail source it may explain high activity
and therefore timeouts.
It is common for these to fox the AV software (by camouflage) once
established, as most of the av software in mail acts when the virus moves
in. Try running specific fixers from the web (eg blaster fix from Symantec),
and make sure you do a "suspiscious exe" scan. I find ESET NOD-32 better
than NAV. In the end though, get a firewall - cheaper than recovery!!
Jim Mc
"Stephen Porter" <stp@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1bde44f0a68a2a7b989683@msnews.microsoft.com...
> Help! Strange things have begun happening to some of the
> computers on our small network. There are 7 computers on a
> simple network. All the computers involved are running Windows
> 2000 and Office/Outlook 2000. Outlook is not running on an
> Exchange server--each station has its own copy and receives all
> the mail for the company. Norton Systemworks 2003 and the
> corresponding Norton Anti-Virus is running on all the machines
> and is set to scan both incoming and outgoing email. Internet
> connection is via a DSL account. There have been essentially
> no problems with Outlook/email on the network for the past
> several years.
>
> Recently two of the computers started timing out when sending
> email. Error message indicated that "Connection to the server
> was unexpectedly broken" (paraphase). These types of problems
> usually end up on my plate and when the problem persisted for a
> couple of days one of the users told me that the problem had
> started after he had opened an email from a client that had an
> attachment, which was one of those internet scam chain letters
> of the "I have 20 million dollars...." variety. He said this
> particular email had been opened only on two machines and both
> those machines had lost the ability to get email sent out.
> (BTW, all other machines on the network were working fine, so I
> ruled out anything really being wrong at the ISP's SMTP server.)
>
> With the NAV outgoing email scan enabled, messages would
> *appear* to be sent--they would disappear from the Outbox and
> show up in the "Sent Items" folder, BUT, then the NAV scan would
> time out. I checked all the normal settings and when nothing
> seemed to be wrong, I first disabled the NAV scan of outgoing
> email, but the only change there was that the attempted sends
> now stayed in the Outbox as unsent. Then I completed
> uninstalled Norton Systemworks from one of the computers with
> the results the same--no send, messages remain in Outbox.
>
> I called Microsoft and paid for a support incident. I have had
> very mixed results with them in the past and this time was
> extremely disappointing. The tech rep seemed to have very
> little understanding of Outlook (even to ME!!!) but insisted
> that the error message had something to do with Norton Anti-
> Virus. I told her that NAV was completely GONE from one of the
> computers experiencing the problem. She said she would try to
> get someone with more ideas to call me back.
>
> Then I tried a "repair" install of Office 2000 on the computer
> without NAV, and voila! Working again. Feeling pretty good, I
> reinstalled Norton Systemworks and that seemed fine also. I
> did the same thing with the second offending computer--did a
> "repair" install and that one started working again, even
> without un-installing Systemsworks/NAV at all.
>
> So I thought I had solved everything...until....
>
> Two days later the problem showed up on a 3rd computer, AND the
> original offending computer started acting up again. (More
> background: all these computers were checked for viruses with
> Norton and two of them were also checked for Spyware as part of
> the "fix.") The 2nd computer continued (and continues) to run
> fine. I was able to get both of the malfunctioning computers to
> run again, but it was much harder than the first time. I had
> to uninstall NAV/Sysworks completely, run the "repair,"
> reinstall Sysworks, then "Modify" Sysworks so that the only
> remaining component was NAV itself. This was done on the
> theory that some other component in Sysworks was causing some
> problem that was corrupting Outlook. Whether or not this is
> true, I dunno... but that's what worked. On the second
> computer I just uninstalled NAV/Sysworks and ran the "Repair" of
> Office. I then bought a brand new copy of NAV--without all the
> extra Systemworks stuff and installed that. That one is
> working again. So all three computers were running properly
> and under the protection (???) of NAV and I was hoping that was
> the end of it.
>
> But...today the manager called me from the office (closed on
> Mondays) and told me his computer, which had been working fine
> during all of this previous trouble was refusing to send out
> email. He spoke with Microsoft under the same repair ticket and
> was told to open up Outlook in Safe Mode, disable some items in
> the the Add-In Manager, and the Com Ad-Ins, and also did some
> changes to the Registry. He called me saying that everything
> was FIXED!!! But even as we talked on the phone the problem
> returned...so that wasn't the entire answer, for sure.
>
> I've got to go back in tomorrow and I'll attempt my previous
> "fix" and hope that handles his computer also. But I'm
> starting to think that something is amiss and am hoping for some
> ideas/help here.
>
> My current theory is that perhaps Norton SystemWorks, through
> LiveUpdate, is subtly changing something in Outlook's internals
> so that this problem manifests on a machine that has run
> LiveUpdate and been affected. As I mentioned, there are no
> viruses or known Spyware showing up, but of course if Symantec
> is inadvertently causing the problem in the first place I'm sure
> they'd be the last to tell me.
>
> Bottom line is I have no clue as to what is actually causing
> this strange behavior, but I'd sure like to find out and get it
> stably handled. Maybe my "Repair" install and installing a
> stripped-down NAV-only, will work.
>
> If you've read this far, well, thanks! All pointers and
> suggestions appreciated.
>
> TIA.
>
> ------------------
> Stephen Porter
> Los Angeles, CA
- Next message: peg: "posting a " Message" format folder in Public Folder"
- Previous message: DL: "Re: deleted or sent items"
- In reply to: Stephen Porter: "Outlook is bugged--stops sending email."
- Next in thread: Stephen Porter: "Re: Outlook is bugged--stops sending email. FIXED!!!"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
