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Outlook 2003 - Outlook crashes when opening email from specific user

Answered Outlook 2003 - Outlook crashes when opening email from specific user

  • Thursday, May 24, 2012 10:24 AM
     
     
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    We have strange issue with a user who cannot open an email from a specific user. When she clicks to open the email, outlook crashes without any error pop ups. If she has the reading pane view on and clicks on the message, again it crashes.  She has received emails from this user before but then for some reason this issue has started to occur.  It also crashes certain other users who are sent the same email  from the specific user but not everyone crashes. Also we are still unable to tell if the error lies with the sender or the user receiving the emails.  It doesn't matter what is sent either i.e length, size or it has any attachments it always crashes.  The majority of our users use 2003 while some do use 2007/10.   The exchange servers are currently 2003 as well.

    Things we have tried:

    uninstalled outlook and reinstalled no change, ran detect and repair still the same.

    The user sending the email is using 2007 while the receiving user is on 2003.  We upgraded the sender to 2010 and tested again still crashes the user receiving the mail.

    Tested to the user who had 2007 installed also crashed.

    Got the sender to send from web outlook still crashes the other user. 

    Ran Outlook in safe mode and with several different /clean commands, no change.

    Re-profiled both users outlook profile no change.

    Moved the mailbox on the exhange servers to different mailbox areas, no change still crashes.

    Checked Add ons but user doesn't have any.

    Checked that HTML is being used and word which is correct.

    What we have found as a temp work around is that if we remove the reading pane view and get the user to forward the email to themselves they can then view the email. But if they click on the original email it will crash outlook. 

    Just wondering if anyone has any ideas to try or have they ever heard of something like this before?

     

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  • Friday, May 25, 2012 7:02 AM
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    Hi,

    Base on the searching, two causes could result in the similar symptom. One is corrupted Contact items in Outlook and the other is related to the Attributes which are assigned to User Objects in Active Directory.

    To narrow down the root cause, please firstly back up all of the recipient’s Contact items out of Outlook. (i.e. you can export these items.) Then remove the items from Outlook. Restart the Outlook and see if the issue can be reproduced. If not, the issue may be caused by the corrupted Contact items. Please add the Contact items back carefully and try determining which could be the reason.

    If it doesn’t work, the next step is to monitor on the Attributes of User Object. Go into Active Directory Users and Computers (Need to have rights inside a Windows Active Directory Domain), find the sender's account, Click Properties then Click the Attribute Editor Tab. A similar case is caused by the invalid data in the following AD Attributes in Outlook 2010:
    * Photo
    * jpgPhoto
    * thumbnailPhoto
    You will have to run some tests to see if there are some invalid data in Attributes that cause the Outlook crash when the recipient preview the emails from the specific sender.


    Sincerely
    Rex Zhang

    Rex Zhang

    TechNet Community Support




     
  • Friday, May 25, 2012 7:21 AM
     
     
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    Just another idea, is there something like default signature configured in Outlook of the user whose mails are causing Outlook to crash? If yes, is there some reach content, such as links, embeded images etc.? What about sending in plain text? Does an email sent as plain text cause recipients's Outlook to crash?

    Kind regards

    Eduard

     
  • Friday, May 25, 2012 7:25 AM
     
     
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    Thanks both for the response i will give that a try and post how i get on.
     
  • Friday, May 25, 2012 8:59 AM
     
     
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    It looks like it was the thumbnailPhoto attribute. I checked the senders properties and this was the only field that was populated with some HTML code. I cleared this and asked him to send to the user again and this time she was able to open the mail as normal.

    Thanks very much for the help on this.