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Disappearing Email - Operation Failed Message

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Klssri

MIS
Nov 5, 2001
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We are having a problem with a few users where they receive an email from outside the agency and when they try to open it they get a message that says "Operation Failed" and then the message disappears completely like they never got it. I have also had the message disappear as soon as it arrives in my inbox. I get the message notification and it even says I have unread mail but the message is gone. It is not a rules issue, we have verified this. We do not know what the problem is. It happens with emails with and without attachements from outside addresses. We also do not think it is our anti-virus (Trend Micro) as we have reviewed the logs and it does not show that it has taken any action. We can see the emails come in to our spam filter and then go to the exchange server and get delivered. It is something at the end users account. We would not have believed this had we not tried it on one of our (IT guys) computer and got the same thing. It does not seem to happen all of the time, but we can't see what could be causing it. We are using Outlook 2003.
 
Is it the same sender, or the same organization that sends these e-mails to you?

Matt

Please always take the time to backup important data and verify that backup, before making any changes suggested.
 
Yes and no. For each user this has happened to, it has been from different senders, but is usually the same sender for that person (hope that makes sense), but even then it does not happen with every email from that person. It seems to be very random. When I tested this on my own account I used my home email and it was either deleting them immediately or I could see the email in my inbox but get the Operation Failed message if I tried to open it and then it would disappear. Very weird.
 
This may take some time to work out.

The tough part is that the e-mail deletes itself, so you can't try viewing it in OWA, or some other method.

On the client end, do you use PSTs for storage, or do you use the Exchange Mailboxes to store the e-mails when they come in?

Matt

Please always take the time to backup important data and verify that backup, before making any changes suggested.
 
We are running in Cached Mode, loading Headings only until the open the email. We only use PST's for archiving. And these are not getting archived either.
 
Have you tried disabling the cached mode on a few PCs?

Also read this, talks about a possible filtering problem. I'm assuming you've looked for any rogue PST folders by turning on the "Folder List" view.


Matt

Please always take the time to backup important data and verify that backup, before making any changes suggested.
 
We finally resorted to contacting Microsoft about this and believe we came up with a solution. There are some options for how Outlook handles junk email and one of those is to permanetly delete junk email automatically. As we were running in Cached mode we would get the header but then once it tried to download the rest of the message this rule that isn't a rule would be applied and we would get the operation failed message. The tech we talked to at Microsoft wasn't even aware of this setting but luckily a co-worker of his was and pointed it out. It is under Actions on the main tool bar and then junk email - junk email options and then make sure the box that talks about deleting junk email is unchecked.
 
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