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  • #2333807

    Outlook 2000 Not Responding

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    by lynne’s honey ·

    We are running Outlook 2000 under Windows 2000 connecting to an Exchange server 2000. Some of our users are experiencing problems with Outlook locking up. We go to the Task Manager and see that it is not responding, so we end task. However, this leaves MAPISP32.EXE in memory, and restarting Outlook will get you nowhere unless the process for MAPISP32.EXE is ended. Upon restart, then, everything is fine. We think the problem may revolve around the MAPSP32.EXE, since I have ended the task on Outlook in a test, and MAPISP32.EXE will exit most of the time.

    We have narrowed the problem down to just a few users, located near each other, and connected to the same hub. Moving them to a port on the hub whose user does not experience the problem results in no change, so it is not a communications problem, that we can see (it happens mostly when sending or receiving messages).

    We have checked the event viewer to find nothing that may indicate a problem with those machines and Outlook, so we do not have an Event ID we could look up.

    In several tests, we have found that MAPISP32.EXE will exit if we terminate Outlook using the Task Manager, if there is no apparent problem with Outlook, so we have kind of narrowed the problem down to a problem with MAPISP32.

    Office has had SP1 applied, along with all the subsequent patches that do not hinder attachments, as we block on most attachments, and the few we allow to come in seem to be covered by MS’s draconian stance of handling attachments–pretty much blocking them in effect.

    We have SP2 applied to Win2K, and do have IE 6.0 installed with all the patches except this last batch that just came out. We are holding out on further patching until we can resolve this problem for those users.

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    • #3595235

      Outlook 2000 Not Responding

      by benwagg ·

      In reply to Outlook 2000 Not Responding

      When Outlook locks, rather than clicking the End Process button in task manager, right-click on the Outlook process in the list and select End Process Tree. This will end the errant MAPISP32 process.

      I have noticed this same problem, but it happened more typically on stations that are configured to “Use Microsoft Word to edit e-mail messages”. This is set in Outlook’s Tools > Options dialog, on the Format tab. What I saw in those cases was that WinWord pegged the performance cardiogram at 100%. My more knowledgeable users would End Task on Outlook, and then restart it several times, not realizing that if you don’t sort Applications or Processes by name, you won’t see all the Outlooks listed together. They would usually end up with 4-5 Outlooks, 1 MAPISP32, and 1 WinWord devouring resources. End Task on WinWord.exe and life returns to normal… for a while.

      I still don’t know the root cause for sure. I still use Word for email because it’s awful handy having some of the advanced features available. It hasn’t happened recently (knock on wood) so one of the Office/Word updates may have caught it.

      • #3578752

        Outlook 2000 Not Responding

        by lynne’s honey ·

        In reply to Outlook 2000 Not Responding

        Word is not used as the editor, mainly because of the problems that it causes when it is used as an editor. The users are the ones who normally end the application, and we get called when they cannot get Outlook running again. We would rather not teach them how to end a process, for fear of them ending an important process while they are in the middle of some important work. We would, of course, be the ones blamed for the ensuing results, even though we were not the ones to precipitate the results.

        Thanks for the tip, though. However, it is interesting, if I end the task while Outlook has no problem, it also ends all the associated processes.

        \\Steve//

    • #3591488

      Outlook 2000 Not Responding

      by tforce ·

      In reply to Outlook 2000 Not Responding

      Since you didn’t mention these…did you check the user accounts on the Exchange server? Are the settings different than the other users NOT experiencing any problems?

      Also, are those PCs hardware components lower than users NOT experiencing problems?

      Finally, have you tried the Detect and Repair option under Help?

      • #3579665

        Outlook 2000 Not Responding

        by lynne’s honey ·

        In reply to Outlook 2000 Not Responding

        The Exchange settings are the same for all the users who are experiencing problems, and for some of those who are not. The hardware varies amoung users, and is not a criteria in this problem as those with much less powerful hardware have no problemsat all, and there are those with the same generation of machines that do not experience the problem.

        The first thing we did was to run the Office repair on the installs. This had no effect. We had also considered hardware and/or network problems since the users were isolated to one floor in one building, but changes in the hub and switch ports have not resolved any problems, and the problem is intermittent at best. We are considering taking the machines down to bare disk and rebuilding them, but woul dlike to see if there are other options we may not have thought of yet.

        \\Steve//

    • #3604734

      Outlook 2000 Not Responding

      by lynne’s honey ·

      In reply to Outlook 2000 Not Responding

      This question was closed by the author

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