The bugs reported here are from Outlook Express 5. This is because OE5 has been released lately and it's more interesting and full of new bugs than OE4. For suggestions or more bugs, please send me an e-mail at [email protected]. Any help is appreciated.
Outlook Express is unable to download Hotmail messages
Unnecessary delay when starting Outlook Express 5
The AutoComplete feature doesn't work correclty
Outlook Express doesn't disconnect even if "Hang up when finished" is checked
After installing OE5, users don't see any contacts in their Address Book
Some email messages sent with OE5 only contain the "��" text
OE5 autocompletes the nickname of a contact but then says it's not a valid email address
I get an invalid page fault every time I try to start Outlook Express
After OE5 imported my news servers settings from OE4, I've lost my subscribed newsgroups
OE5 is unable to post messages to some newsgroups
Outlook Express doesn't appear in the list of programs that can be used by IE5
OE5 adds a signature too all outgoing message
When running OE5, it produces an error referring to "mobsynch"
The "Leave messages on server" feature doesn't work
Digitally signed messages take a lot of time to open
Outlook Express disconnects from the ISP while downloading messages
Cannot access OE while it's syncronizing with mail or news servers
Outlook Express is unable to download Hotmail messages
This problem sometimes appears when the user is trying to download messages from Hotmail. This makes Outlook Express display an error dialog. The main problem is with the Hotmail offline server, which is still in the beta phase. Maybe in the future, the will be no such errors. Anyway, it seems that for some users, the solution is to select Tools | Send and Receive | Hotmail, instead of All Acounts.
Unnecessary delay when starting Outlook Express 5
Some users have to wait 15-20 seconds when starting OE5. During this time, it seems that OE is not doing anything.
This problem may be solved by compacting all your mail and news folders. If there are lots of wasted spaces in your mail and news data files, it will take longer time for OE to be loaded.
The AutoComplete feature doesn't work correctly
There is a problem with AutoComplete when typing e-mail addresses. Although it completes the rest of the address by itself, OE generates an error when trying to send that message. This problem is usually generated by a bug concerning Address Book sharing. To be able to use AutoComplete right, open your Address Book, go to Tools | Options and check the Do no share Address Book option.
Outlook Express doesn't disconnect even if "Hang up when finished" is checked
Sometimes, even if the "Hang up when finished" option is checked, OE5 won't disconnect the dial-up connection. This is because other program may be using that Internet connection. To be able to force Outlook Express to disconnect when finished syncronizing, open Internet Explorer, go to Tools | Internet Options | Connections, highlight the connection you want to be disconnected by OE, click on the Settings button, then Advanced in the Dial-up settings frame and check "Disconnect when connection may no longer be needed".
After installing OE5, users don't see any contacts in their Address Book
With Oulook Express 5, Microsoft has included two folders in the WAB (Windows Address Book). One is for the current identity's contacts and one for shared contacts that all identities can see, but the user can't see the other folder because incorrect view settings. To fix this, open your Address Book, select View | Folders and Groups option. Usually, two folders will appear to the left of the contacts list and the contacts you were looking for should be in one of those folders.
If you still can't find your contacts, then the .wab file is probably corrupted. You can try to fix this by doing this:
1. Close Outlook Express and the Address Book.
2. Search you hard disk for .wab files and move them to a temporary folder.
3. Open your Address Book again, and the import the contacts from the folder you moved your .wab files ( File | Import | Address Book (WAB)...).
Some email messages sent with OE5 only contain the "��" text
This is a very annoying bug in OE5 that has occured to many people who use this program. Usually, only replies are affected by this bug. To fix it, go to Tools | Options | Send, click International Setting and check "When replying always use English headers". The click the four buttons (Mail and News plain text/HTML) and uncheck "Allow 8-bit characters in headers". If this still doesn't fix your problem, go to Tools | Options | Read | Fonts and make sure Western European is the default character set.
OE5 autocompletes the nickname of a contact but then says it's not a valid email address
There are two temporary solutions for this bug:
1. Open Address Book | Tools | Options and uncheck the box that allows the Address Book to share contacts with other applications.2. Use the WAB (Windows Address Book) to select a contact, click Action on the toolbar then Send Mail (this requires a lot of clicks).
An alternative would be to click the Show More Names button in the error window. Outlook Express will highlight the closest match which is exactly autocompleted address.
I get an invalid page fault every time I try to start Outlook Express
This error has been reported to point to many .dll files or .vxd files. For example, OE could generate something like "MSIMN caused an invalid page fault in DDRAW.DLL", sometimes it's "EXPLORER caused an invalid ...", "MSIMN caused an invalid page fault in module DIRECTDB.DLL" or "MSIMN Caused an Invalid Page Fault in module INETCOMM.DLL". For the last one, even Microsoft has something to say about it in the Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q182/0/22.asp. Usually, this is a failure to load DirectX libraries. Try reinstalling DirectX (or even better - get a newer version) or updating your video driver. Another soultion may be resetting Graphics Acceleration to a lower value (open Control Panel - System - Performance tab - Graphics). If there is an improvement it means it's a DirectX problem.
After OE5 imported my news servers settings from OE4, I've lost my subscribed newsgroups
When you install Outlook Express 5 after Outlook Express 4, when you open it the first time it imports all your news settings. Unfortunately, it doesn't import your subscribed newsgroups list. There is now fix for this bug. You have to re-subscribe to those newsgroups and download all messages to have your newsgroups settings again.
OE5 is unable to post messages to some newsgroups
If Outlook Express displays the error "The message could not be sent. No sender was specified. Please check your news Account configuration" when you try to send a message to a newsgroup it's because it didn't import your settings correctly. You must re-enter the data in Tools | Accounts, double click the server name, even if it's there and looks correct. Also, it looks like upgrading to version 5.00.3214.1300 seems to make OE import your settings correctly.
Outlook Express doesn't appear in the list of programs that can be used by IE5
If you uninstall Microsoft Outlook after installing Outlook Express 5 (or other email client), it can cause OE5 to disappear from the list of programs used by Internet Explorer (to see it, open IE and then go to Tools | Internet Options | Programs). You can reset the Outlook Express settings from registry by going to Start | Run and typing "C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\MSINM.EXE /reg" (without the quotes). The path of MSINM.EXE should be modified to match yours if Outlook Express has been installed in other folder than the usual one.
OE5 adds a signature too all outgoing message
Even if you specify that Outlook Express should add a signature only to some news and mail servers, it sometimes adds that signature to all outgoing messages, even the ones sent through servers that are not checked in the in Tools | Options | Signatures | Advanced. Microsoft knows about this bug, and, so far, the only thing you can do is create a signature that only contains spaces and add it to the servers you don't want a signature (to have a signature for each server).
When running OE5, it produces an error referring to "mobsynch"
If you get an error saying something about MOBSYNCH.DLL or MOBSYNCH.EXE, it usually because of an incorrect registry data. To fix this, open Start | Run and type REGSVR32 MSHTML.DLL. This should fix the problem. If the problem still persists, you should reinstall Internet Explorer 5 and Outlook Express 5.
The "Leave messages on server" feature doesn't work
If you have two or more mail accounts set up in your Outlook Express and one of them has the "Leave a copy of messages on server" option checked, it will not work. OE5 will keep downloading the same messages again and again. Although this feature worked fine in OE4, in OE5 is not working at all if you have more than one mail account. You have two choices: either you abandon the "Leave ..." option or you create a single mail account.
Microsoft is aware of this serious bug and they should get it fixed in the next release.
Digitally signed messages take a lot of time to open
When the Revocation Checking option is used, it will cause the certificate check to delay sending. That's why it takes so long to open the message, while OE5 is checking for revocated certificates. To get rid of this delay, you will have to lower your security options. Open Tools | Options | Security | Advanced and select Never under the Revocation Checking panel.
Outlook Express disconnects from the ISP while downloading messages
This error usually occurs when there is a connection conflict. Actually, Outlook Express is trying to connect to another DUN connection, and he has to disconnect any active connection. To get this bug fixed, open OE, then Tools | Accounts, double click every account and go to the Connection tab. There, you should see some conflicts between accounts. The idea is to use the same connection for every account.
Cannot access OE while it's syncronizing with mail or news servers
If you see this odd behaviour (while OE displays the syncronization window, the main window is disabled), you can try selecting Quick Logon in Control Panel | Network | [Highlight "Client for Microsoft Networks" in the list] | Properties.
Last updated: May 1, 1999