Disappearing Emails in Outlook 2K

[max7600]

Hi everyone, I hope someone out there can help me with this.

I have 3 people in my organisations, the MD and 2 salesman (obviously!!!) who for the past couple of days have had the contents of their inboxes disappear in front of their eyes. Scroll down through their inbox and the messages are nowhere to be found, they are not in another folder such as deleted items or sent items etc. they are just gone. But fortunately in order to get them back all they need to do is close outlook and re-open it. (the problem is they have to do 30-40 times a day which is unacceptable!!)

This will happen either after they move and email from their inbox to another folder or when a new email arrives.

This has nothing to do with PST files or filters on their inbox or the anti virus software installed on their machine.

None of these people use filter on their inbox, nor is their mail delievered to Personal folders (in the Tools==> Services menu) and the antivirus software is not too blame as the email scan is not enable on their desktop.

This is a completly new problem, I was busy patching up all the systems last week that is the only work I have done on their 3 machines. (I installed SP4 and most of all the security fixes on everyones machine)

Can anyone help?

 

[Silmarillion]

Can't help, but we have just encountered a similar problem (just cropped up in the last couple of days). Brand new machines, running O2K SP3 on XP Pro SP1. These are both replacement PCs for older machines, so I am not sure if the problem started with the new machines or not. They are also using Palm Sync software, VersaMail, MaxLink for Maximizer - not sure if any of these may be a factor. It was all installed new just a few weeks ago.

We are running Exchange 2000 on W2K Server, no PSTs, no desktop e-mail scanning.

They get a new mail notification, but if decline to read it, the mail is not showing in the inbox. If they choose to read it, it comes up OK. It is intermittent, and I have not been able to reproduce the problem.

 

[max7600]

Hi, Sorry I haven’t replied back sooner but I've been desperately trying out everything I can think of.

Here is what I have learned maybe it will help you identify your problem more clearly.

1-I am now 100% sure this problem was accidentally caused by me scanning the M:\ with Norton Anti-Virus 7.5 corporate edition. Apparently this is a big NONO.

I have re-installed Exchange sp3 and installed the post sp3 rollout as well. I have loaded window 2K sp4 on the server as well.

I have run ISinteg on the mailbox store (dismounting it first and all) rst = problem still occurs

Unfortunately the problem is still occurring. I have PSt one of the affected mailboxes, and imported it's content into a new user's mailbox. rst = problem occurs.

I have run the scanpst fix but it has not found any problem within the pst.

As soon as one email from an affected inbox gets copied to another folder (either in a new or the same mailbox) the problem start occurring (assuming there are messages there in the first place)

I have now run out of ideas. I think all I can do now is restore the inbox to what is was before the problem occurred and copy the email that has arrived after the problem. Either that or transfer the current contents of the affected peoples inbox into a new folder and as long as no new email go to that folder the problem should not occur anymore. (The affected users have on average 3000 items in their inboxes.)

Any ideas, or opinions

 

[jerdel]

Hi Guys,

I am experiencing the exact same thing with one of our users. Her email will disappear, but on closing and then opening outlook, the messages will appear okay.

We have exchange 5.5 and she is on an xp system with outlook 2000.

It all started when I manually moved her mail to back it up, then moved it back into her mail box after i created a new account for her.(I had to do this for a different problem).

I have tried alot of what you have tried, but the result has always been the same. Nothing has worked so far.

Jerdel

 

[alfiedude]

Do your users have local folders set up on their PCs in Outlook? If they don't have the mail set to be delivered to their mailbox on the exchange server, but rather to a Personal Folder, everytime you try to synchronize (send/receive) the new messages will appear and then disappear right before your eyes. But if you go down your folder list and check under the Personal Folder, you may find them there.
This happened to one of my users recently. HTH.

 

[max7600]

*******SOLUTION**************
Ok everyone, I though I would put down what I have done to solve this problem in order to save everyone all the heartache I had to go through in order to realise there was nothing else to do.

This problem happened after I scanned the M Drive with Norton AV !!!!!!

1- Determine when this problem started happening. (you will notice that all the emails after a certain date will disappear from the inbox when a new mail arrives, that is your the date and time of the event)

2- Create a new folder under the INBOX, call it OLD INBOX or something, copy the entire content of the Inbox into that folder. (iWhat I had to do was restore the users mailbox using my backup tape to the day before this all happened

3- Use you backup from the day before this happened to restore the users mail in his now empty mail box.

4- Copy the the new email that arrived after the day of the event back into the inbox and PRESTO you have fixed the problem.

NB:1- Remember the problem appears when new mail arrives into the mail into the default folder (Inbox).

2- I suggest creating a test/dummy new user account and mailbox to do all the work in, then when you are ready to implement the solution you .PST the folder and restore it in the mailbox, thereby minimising the amount of time you actually spend on the user' account and doing all the work and testing.

3- You will not be able to restore all the mail so when you import the newer mail do it bit by bit and test.

Good luck