SillyDog701

[old woman]

outlook has suddenly stopped sending and receiving emails. The error message is the usual one about servers/ports, but these have not changed. I've tried removing and re-adding the account, but the problem persists. Internet connection is fine. I've scanned (AVG Free) and found downloaders which I've mainly removed (though one is embedded). The only thing that's happened between when outlook worked and when it stopped is installing a microsoft update requiring a restart. But if the email account still works from control panel ...?

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; BTOW V9.0; YPC 3.0.2; SV1)

[Josh]

A while back, I had a few Outlook problems. A good clean restart did the trick. In your case, I would contact your ISP to see if there has been a change in settings or an outage.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1

[old woman]

Thanks v much Josh. I've tried the restart thing - it used to work like a dream when outlook would occasionally malfunction when we had router problems. This isn't the same, though. I've also tried asking my server's webmail (Yahoo) to configure my email settings, in case their settings have changed, but to no avail. Weird that I can send a test message from control panel - identical dialogue box, identical settings - but not from inside outlook. I wonder if it's an AVG thing?

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; BTOW V9.0; YPC 3.0.2; SV1)

[Fulvio]

How do you send from the Control Panel? I am not familiar of such a thing.
As for the cause, since it happened after the Windows Update, you may look at the possibility that it is the culprit.
Did you see if the settings in Outlook are still the same?
The fact both Send and Receive makes me wonder. I have AVG, but not Outlook. Have tried Outlook Express? And, what about the website.?
You say Yahoo. what is the part of the e-mail address after the @. Don't give your entire address. Is it @yahoo.com?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.13) Gecko/20050914 K-Meleon/0.9

[old woman]

Thanks, er, Fulvio ... What a nice name.

My email is @btinternet.com. The control panel thing is control panel/mail/email accounts, which gives me the box for viewing/changing my outlook account. It's the box I get for configuring my settings from within Outlook too. One of the things it lets you do is send a test message, which is handy. As I said, I can do this from control panel but if I do it from within outlook I get an error message about servers and ports. The settings, reading from either control panel or outlook, are identical. How weird is that?

The Yahoo webmail pages give you the option of allowing Yahoo to "configure my email settings" so that Yahoo is the default source for email: I have used it successfully in the past when I've had glitches. However, this time it makes no difference - well it wouldn't, I suppose, because my computer (control panel) firmly believes that everything is hunky dory. It's just outlook itrself that has the problem. I think I'll have to switch to Outlook Express, which is a pain (I work from outlook professionally, and will have to transfer everything) - but I have trouble there too because I can't ever update it because I never had an Office XP disc. (Not my fault. Dell didn't pack it.) So it's shaky.

But mainly I'm curious. I just don't get how it can be fine as far as the computer is concerned, but not from within outlook where it counts.

How do I find out about what was in a particular Windows Update?

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; BTOW V9.0; YPC 3.0.2; SV1)

[Fulvio]

I don't have Outlook, and, so the Control Panel feature does not exist ( I have OE, though).
I was having some problems understanding how you would set Yahoo mail as default over your ISP. Yahoo is, primarily, a webmail, although it can be set up in mail clients, if you pay for the service (there may be excpetions, but I will not go into it). That is why I was asking what it was.
As for the windows Update, I do my updates manually, just because I want to see I am getting. Not all updates are critical, so there is no need for me to download them, although Windows Updates does an excellent job of presenting with what I should get.
You should find the Windos update in a very long list in your Add/Remove of the control Panel. I have a series of Security Updates, and also a separate set of Hotfixes (the lattter may have been provided by the service from the computer maker, which I have, since, disabled). If you highlight the item, and click on it, you should see a KB number, and support from Microsoft. That should give you information on the item. In what order are they arranged I don't know. There are some SP2 fixes, although I have not installed the full SP2.
I hope that this helps.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.13) Gecko/20060319 Firefox/1.0.8

[old woman]

Fulvio,

Oooh. That was fun. Trying to find out about updates and what they're for. Thanks v v much for the directions - I knew I'd seen lists and lists of Hotfixes somewhere, but couldn't remember where. I spent a happy hour or so playing with the info pages and if I feel brave later on I might try uninstalling the most recent likely culprit. Bit scared though because there can be issues if you try to uninstall, apparently. Also I'm not sure whether the damage will already have been done ...

Interested to see someone on the Microsoft discussion boards for Outlook is having a similar problem. We can't be the only two in the world ...? No one knows the answer there, either.

Anyway - thanks. My next move will be to try uninstalling the updates that came last week; thereafter it's BT Yahoo Broadband Help for me. (That's a nasty thing you have to download, and it slows your computer down to a stop and they never reply to your questions - but at least they're my server and they can sort it out. In principle.)

I'll let you know if I ever get my email back! meanwhile, thanks for your patient help.

Sue

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; BTOW V9.0; YPC 3.0.2; SV1)

[Fulvio]

I sure that there others with Outlook problem, and, perhaps, of unrelated origin. I wish you the very best. Fortunately, for me, I don't have to depend on any particular mail client, and, I never had to deal with Outlook.
I don't know what to say, other than looking at the Microsoft pages, and even leaving a question. I have had to deal with them twice, and they are very thorough. The last time I contacted them, I had solved the problem, without using any of thereir suggestions, and they were very interested.
The previous time, they hit it right on.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.13) Gecko/20060322 Firefox/1.0.8

[old woman]

Fulvio,

Thank you for these kind words ...

BT Broadband Help don't 'do' Outlook: only Outlook Express. They advised changing the outgoing port to 587, though - so I tried that but it didn't help. meanwhile over on the Outlook message board there are (in all the wprld?) two other people with the exact same problem as mine. They can send/receive from control panel/mail, just like me. And they get the same error message when they do it from Outlook. And - and this is diagnostic I think - they all dowlnlaoded Windows Updates immediately before the problem kicked in.

I've tried uninstalling the most likely culprit - an update to Outlook that's to do with security and general running, I think - but sadly it didn't make any difference. Maybe the harm's already been done. I'm going to try again though, unintsalling all the updates from that date. Somewhere in the microsoft update pages it said that some uninstalls don't work, though.

I suppose my next move should be to uninstall and re-install Outlook? There's a safe way to keep all my data somewhere, and so on?

Don't worry about replying if this has gone on too long. I know nothing, and this must be quite boring for you - a bit like a grown-up version of when I try to troubleshoot for my dad.

Sue

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; BTOW V9.0; YPC 3.0.2; SV1)

[Fulvio]

I would try before doing anything else, to read up about Outlook and support thereof. As I had said before, unless your program is no longer supported, Microsoft has done a great job of replying, and, quickly.
I cannot point you directly to the web page, but you should be able to come up with something which will lead you to Outlook support. And, the fact that a Windows Update may be involved would definitely pique their interest.
I wish I could help you more, but I have never had to deal with Outlook before.
But, there have been unhappy customers with btinternet
I don't know if the above link would help.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.13) Gecko/20060331 Firefox/1.0.8

[old woman]

Thank you! I'll try Outlook/Microsoft direct, and I'll have another go at BT but not with their Help program, which can only 'do' Oulook Express. I've only used Microsoft's message board so far, where two other users have the same problem and a moderator is keenly swapping error logs with one of them. I can't even find my error logs, and he won't talk to noobs like me. Anyway I think he's barking up the wrong tree. I think the time might have come to talk to someone Microsoftish, for nine million dollars a minute or whatever.

I loved that message board link you sent me, the let's-all-hate-bt one. I might try asking someone there, only obviously I won't be able to swear in American like they can. I'm going to study it in more depth now.

Thank you so much for your help, Fulvio. I'll let you know if I ever get this sorted out.

Sue

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; BTOW V9.0; YPC 3.0.2; SV1)

[Fulvio]

*$*?&#*$&%! I was told that it is an all-purpose cussing and mumbling statement. Feel free to use it.
I contacted Microsoft by e-mail only, and it cost me nothing.
Good luck!
fp

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.13) Gecko/20060331 Firefox/1.0.8

[Citereh]

I read the whole string that took place in March and I'm wondering if the problem was ever resolved. My Outlook all of a sudden will not send or receive. I think it began when I downloaded AVG Free. I don't remember if I also got new Microsoft updates at that time. I tried deleting the account and adding it again but that didn't help. I can read my email on the web but can't download it.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)

[old woman]

Citereh,

No it isn't resolved! How long have you got? Eeesh.

I'm in the middle of an email correspondence about it with Microsoft, who keep on telling me to uninstall Office and re-install it. They make me use a clean-uninstall program, and so far I've lost a) the ability to get Office updates and b) my Access program. Each time I follow their instructions I lose another vital bit of software. And still Outlook won't send/receive. I have Outlook Express, from the Olden Days when I used to have Office XP, so I've brought all my folders into that and am using it instead of Outlook. It works fine. But guess what Microsoft's nerds want me to do next ... uninstall Outlook Express. Yeah right, I'll do that then.

Their argument, I think, is that the problem is my old Office XP stuff interefering with the newer Office (Student and Teacher) stuff - but as I installed Student and Teacher over a year ago and everything had been fine, this seems unlikely. I still think it was the Windows Update from mid-March (I've seen one or two similar messages on other boards, though not the thousands I was expecting) and maybe some interaction between that and AVG Free ...? I've tried disabling AVG, to no effect - but perhaps it's more radical than that? Do you have any old bits of other Office setups on your computer?

I'm reaching the point where I think I'm going to end up "reformatting the hard drive" - a distant threat I've lived with (without understanding it) for ages. My fate beckons. But not this week: I work from this computer and have to do crucial things this week. I'll try their advice to uninstall Office XP and Office, and re-install Office, find it hasn't worked, then just wipe the hard drive and start from scratch.

Maybe we should both have a go at completely removing AVG, rather than just disabling it, and see if that works? The trouble with all these solutions is that I get the feeling that some kind of wider damage has been done, and just removing the original cause isn't going to be enough.

I live with an unremovable Trojan (Downloader Alchemy, and Agent - something like that) but I don't think that's the problem. Again, the hard drive beckons ...

I can only sympathise with you, and express ambivalent delight that you've joined the discussion - I mean, delighted to hear from you, but sorry it's happened to you too. Do you have any other thoughts?

And hi Fulvio!

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; BTOW V9.0; YPC 3.0.2; SV1)

[Fulvio]

Sorry to hear that everything is still up in the air. You may be right on all count, or only some, but I am not qualified to give you any suggestion other than trying some Microsoft newsgroup. Look at the bottom of the page for the different newsgroups. A few years ago there was a web site from someone in Australia, who gave excellent advice. I, personally, gave up on Microsoft software, primarily because it costs me nothing, and it is compatible with most Microsoft software (like Open Office).
Good luck!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.13) Gecko/20041220 K-Ninja/Samurai