Some E-mails Not Arriving While Others Do

[powderkeg1]

Hello there all,

I'm rather new to PC's so excuse if the title Technical User implies otherwise....wasn't sure which title to use really.. I recently have discovered that some people are not getting the e-mails i'm sending while others are. I'm using Outlook2000 on Win2k. I am also using Outlook Express which came with IE5.5, for pop mailing my Hotmail accounts. I'm using an ISP e-mail service as well as a hosting service e-mail service. The mail that has been going missing has been sent via both of these services. Some of the e-mail addresses I'm sending to are Hotmail and others are ISP's. I'm wondering if there's anything specific I shold be looking out for that might lead me to solve this problem. Any help is greatly welcomed and appreciated in advance.

P.S. Would sending the e-mails via my other OS, WinME, maybe help...? It's on another partition. I imagine that if it's a problem with my e-mail software then via ME might be the alternative for the short term. Thoughts Please..

 

[powderkeg1]

Just like to add that i also found that one of my folders in Outlook2000 moved to within another folder by itself. Is this normal..?

 

[powderkeg1]

another addition...sent 2 test e-mails to my wife's hotmail account, 1 through my ISP provider and one through my companies server. When my wife checked them they had an attachment that i didn't send. hotmail said that the attachments didn't contain viruses. we saved the atachments to our harddrive and checked them out through properties. they were winmail.dat files. can anyone explain to us what exactly they are..?

 

[powderkeg1]

another addition...sent 2 test e-mails to my wife's hotmail account, 1 through my ISP provider and one through my companies server. When my wife checked them they had an attachment that i didn't send. hotmail said that the attachments didn't contain viruses. we saved the atachments to our harddrive and checked them out through properties. they were winmail.dat files. can anyone explain to us what exactly they are..? thanx in advance..

 

[pansin]

The winmail.dat files could be signatures or electronic business cards you've added to your outgoing mail. Don't know about missing mails though. This happens to me too and I don't know why.


Pat A.

 

[powderkeg1]

thanx for the reply and the input on the .dat files. yes, in fact i think you're right about the suggestion of what causes them to show. I do in fact have such things in my e-mails..thanx again.

 

[DomiKnoW]

Question: How are you addressing these mail messages?

Are you simply typing a name and presuming Outlook is finding/will find the actual email address for this recipient?

or

Are you typing a full SMPT/Internet email address for same?

If the former, perhaps the true email address is missing from your address book (Global Address List if On-Line, connected to Exchange Server, or Offline Address Book file, if working "Off Line&quot. Also, do you perhaps have duplicate names stored in either your "Contacts List" or "Personal Address Book"?

If you're using just a username to address the message,
you may want to look at the records in your local address book(s) for these usernames and make sure all of the appropriate/required fields are filled in, correctly and completely, and in the correct order.

If you are typing the SMTP/Email address COMPLETELY in the address line (To field) be sure that you've spelled the address correctly and completely. You might also try sending a "blind cc" of the messages to yourself.

Good Luck

 

[powderkeg1]

DomiKnoW,

yes I'm pretty sure the addresses are correct and I've also sent dummy e-mails to myself, which have been fine. I always do my e-mails online and input the addresses from the address book within the mail software. I must confess though, 3-4 mths ago I opened an e-mail titled hahaha@sexyfun.net, think that's the title which I belive is the 7dwarfs virus. After that I began to experience some strange happenings on my PC....like folders within my e-mail software moving around by themselves. Contacted my virus scanning company and they helped me remove something but I think it could still be infected. I've gone online and sent e-mail from the hotmail server and the mail has arrived fine, but it doesn't seem to arrive if I send it from within my e-mail software. I haven't experienced any folders moving around lately. I really don't know what to do as everyone keeps telling me not to worry as mail just sometimes doesn't arrive. Any further thoughts on this one...? Thanx in advance.

 

[mrcoons]

Have you checked your copy of Outlook to see if it is OK? In Outlook on the task bar select Help -> Detect and Repair -> Start (you may need your Outlook installation disk). This should restore Outlook, if in deed your virus did cause it a problem. I had a problem some time ago where Outlook was acting oddly (I don't recall exactly what was happening) and this fixed my problem.
Hope this helps.

 

[powderkeg1]

mrcoons,

did as you suggested and the system checked for repairs. although, after doing the repair, whilst trying to reply directly to a sender in a forum I got the following message: "A program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this? If this is unexpected , it may be a virus and you should choose "no". which i did. What does this mean..? I've scanned both OS' on my machine using Inoculate and found nothing. Scanned also with Panda and nothing as well.
I'll be back if i experience anymore probs. thanx for the tip though..helpful indeed.