How Do I clear a Rogue Mail

[pegleg]

In Outlook 2003 I have a rogue mail which when any thing is done to it delete/open/edit/double click etc, it gives the error can't open this item unknown error.

I have been told that I can manually edit the exchange database but I can't find anything on Microsoft support site, can anyone help ???

 

[TomGuy]

I wouldn't want to start editing the database! You're just looking for trouble there.

I've had this same problem before. Sometimes you can delete it if you just use the shift+delete option (to permanently delete it). Other times, this doesn't work, possibly because of corruption in the edb database.

I recently had to recreate my database from scratch because my backups were corrupt. I used the exmerge utility to create a bunch of pst files. I then created a new empty database and had to upload all the pst files back in. This got rid of all of the emails that were like this. It's a bit extreme but it worked!

Cheers,

Tom

 

[kmcferrin]

If it is a single message there are a couple things to try:

1. If you have Outlook 2003, it will catch and correct these bugged messages.

2. Shift-deleting the message will get rid of it, but if you have the preview pane turned on then you may get the error message instead of the opportunity to delete the message.

3. Use EXMERGE.EXE to export the mailbox, then run SCANPST.EXE on the exported PST file to fix all the errors. Then delete the mailbox from the server and re-import the repaired PST file back into Exchange using EXMERGE.EXE.