Outlook 2003 Hanging connecting to Exchange 2003

[Steve74]

I have recently installed Small Business Server 2003 and am trying to set up a workstation using Windows XP Pro (SP2) and Outlook 2003.

Having configured the profile for the user's Exchange mailbox, Outlook on startup hangs at the splash screen. On clicking on it, the title bar displays "Microsoft Outlook (not responding)" and the Outlook icon in the systray says the following:

"Outlook is not responding. If you are using an Exchange server e-mail account, you can cancel pending server requests by clicking the Outlook icon in the notifications area, and then clicking Cancel Server Request on the shortcuts menu."

There is no cancel Server request option and the only thing you can do from here is end the task in Task Manager.

If you create a profile with just a local PST it is fine, and if you subsequently add the Exchange Server to the profile, you can use the mailbox without any problem, except Outlook will not close properly.

Sometimes if you are just trying to reconfigure the outlook profile it will also hang the RunDLL process it is using.

I have tried running outlook with the RPCDIAG command switch and it appears as though it is connecting to the exchange server, and having switched on logging, Exchange reports a successful authentication from the user.

I have completly service packed Office and Windows and have also tried completely uninstalling Office 2003 and removing all trace with the ORK and re-installing.

I have also tested using Outlook 2000 on this machine and it does seem to open the mailbox OK, I then tried upgrading to Outlook 2003 and the same problem occurred.

I have tried a different computer on the network using the same username and mailbox and Outlook 2003 and they works fine.

I have performed a virus check, adware scan and have removed any program (including Anti-virus) that I think may interact with Outlook, but to no avail.

I have now started to run out of ideas!!

 

[adrianc85]

Do you have a DNS server? In my case with all XP machines and outlook 2003 running on Exchange 2003, Outlook would always hang untill we set up a DNS server.
Outlook 2003 uses the server name instead of its IP address so maybe your name resolution is really slow.

Also the cancel server request option is in the tray icon. You right click on the tray icon and click cancel server request.

I hope this helps

Adrian

 

[Steve74]

Thanks for the reply.

It seemed more like a application hang rather than really slow as I left the machine on overnight and was still in the same state the next morning.

I do have a DNS server which appears to be running correctly, and all other machines on the network connect to the Exchange Server without trouble.

Although the Outlook message said to use the 'cancel server request' option, this was not an option listed when you right-clicked.

I have now had to take the slightly more drastic measure of re-installing this machine and the problem has now gone, it's just frustrating now that I didn't get to find out what the cause was and we haven't learned from it.

Again, thanks for the reply.



Steve