Hi
My name is Ian and for the past two weeks I have been having major problems with emailing using Outlook 2003.

I can create a new email and send it with or without attachments OK.

When I want to reply or forward emails to anyone they are sent as normal (without any error messages) but they nevery get delivered to the recipient.

This has been a very sudden thing and started 2 weeks ago - Can anyone suggest what might be wrong?

I use Trend Antivirus software and have tried turning off the 'Scan Outgoing Mail' option without success

Please can you offer advice

Regards
Ian
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That's a strange one, I'd do some basic tests first to see if you can pinpoint the source of the problem.

First, turn off any software firewall running, including windows xp if you're running xp.

Next, turn off any antispyware and antivirus stuff you may have running.

Try forwarding yourself an email and see if you get it. If you do get it, turn on the above components one by one until you localize the application causing the error.

If you still can't forward emails, turn back on all of the above, and run a full system virus scan using these tools. Run all of them, adaware, spybot, pandasoft, trend, then for good measure run antivir too, that one tends to catch little evil things the others miss. When you run the antivirus stuff turn off your local machine antivirus program or it can cause various issues.

If your machine is trojan,virus, etc, free, you've probably found some weird Outlook bug.

At that point, I'd try installing Thunderbird Email Client, then set up a test account, set it to leave a copy of the mail on the server so you don't have to try to synchronize the two email apps, which is a real pain, then download your emails from the email account, same one that isn't forwarding on outlook, then try forwarding one of them from thunderbird. If it forwards fine, you have a problem with Outlook.

I can't give any deeper insights into outlook bugs, I really hate that program, the only times I ever deal with it is on client support calls.
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Hi this is Ian
I don't know your name but I really appreciate the time you have put into responding to my problem.

I shall certainly try all of your suggestions and see what transpires.
I did download Eudora email to see if that made any difference but I was still getting problems.

I have just installed some more memory on the computer today (someone suggested this might help) - but I am still having problems.

Because I am able to send new emails but not forwarded ones it does sound like it is a virus or bug - but I'll keep you informed of progress. It looks like my weekend is mapped out trying to resolve this issue

Thanks again for all the suggestions and let's see what happens
Regards
Ian
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Hi
Just noticed your forum name - Ericz
Ian
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If you still are having problems with Eudora, definitely do the antivirus and spyware scan. I'm not sure why people say things like: add more memory. That's almost never the cause of issues, all having not enough memory does is make your system run more slowly, sending an email is not a processor or memory intensive task.

There would be one single exception to this: your current memory has a flaw in it. You can download and run the memtest memory testing utility if you want to know if your memory is damaged or not. Download the iso, burn it to cd rom, boot into it, run the test for a few hours, if no errors, your memory is probably fine. You can also get a Windows version here, that will just run like a regular program in windows. I prefer running memory testing when nothing else is on, including the operating system.

However, bad memory would be one of the last things I'd suspect in this case, especially if the stuff was working fine before. That type of new behavior is very often a warning sign of malware infection. It's entirely possible that your system is under the control of some type of malware, which is controlling your email under certain circumstances.

Definitely do all the spyware and antivirus scans right away.

Use as many different products on your system as you can. When I do real cleaning of machines, I always run at least 2 or 3 spyware products, and 3 or 4 antivirus products, I run new ones until no new spywares, trojans, viruses, etc, are found. Once you've run all the scans, gotten rid of all the malware, and the problem persists, you can probably rule out spyware / malware issues, but not until then.

By the way, if you are not behind a hardware firewall like a router, and if you use broadband, dsl or cable, it's extremely likely that your system is taken over by some worm, backdoor, trojan, or whatever. Routers are very cheap security.

If those all come back clean, or if many items are found and deleted, and the forwarding problem still persists, it may be a dns issue with your ISP.

Memory is not the problem, but here's some memory information anyway
Adding more memory is always a good idea, as long as you make SURE NOT TO USE CHEAP NO-NAME MEMORY. And avoid mixing memory types and speeds. Windows XP is especially sensitive to memory problems from my experience. Good memory is made by the following:

1. Crucial / Micron
2. Kingston
3. Corsair
4. GeIL
5. Samsung

And some others, there's usually good deals with low end kingston or corsair, crucial.com is always a great source.
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Thanks Ericz

The memory I did buy was from Crucial so I am reassured that I have some decent hardware.

I will continue with the antivirus & spyware scans and see what happens

The first scan found some viruses and disinfected them, it also found some spyware & diallers but could not disinfect these

I shall use the various software programs you suggested and see if they can get rid of them

If all fails I will ty the memory tests.

Thanks again
Ian
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Some spyware and trojans require that you run the antivirus and spyware scans in safe mode.

To do this, download and install spybot and adaware. Do the internet update to make sure the definitions are current. Once everything is ready to go, reboot, then while windows is starting, hit F8 key. You have to hit it fast, right when windows [not your computer] starts.

This will bring up windows safe mode screen. Select 'safe mode'. Windows will boot into a mode where all unnecessary services, including your viruses and trojans, will not be running. Then run spybot, adaware, antivir, trend. This will catch a bunch of viruses and trojans.

Important: If you cannot get into safemode, or if windows crashes when you try to boot into safe mode, your system is severely compromised, and you'll probably need to reinstall windows. This is a worse case scenario however, usually it's not that bad.

Once you're done, boot into normal windows again, then run all the spyware / antivirus stuff again. Make sure to update all of the definitions before you do this, or you'll waste your time.

Once the system comes up clean consistently, you can be fairly sure it's no longer infected.

Again, if you use broadband and do not use a router, it's almost certain that your system will get reinfected no matter what you do. Window's xp firewall sucks, zonealarm is decent. Keep in mind what that page I linked to says, a software and a hardware firewall are your best protection. A real software firewall tracks, and blocks if required, all outbound connections made by all your system, windows xp firewall is worse than useless, it only blocks inbound connection attempts. Which leaves any trojan free to phone home. One day, not today, Microsoft will start to understand security.
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Hi Ericz

Your advice and information provided has been invaluable.
I have spent most of this weekend running spyware & antivirus scans as you suggested - adaware, spybot, trend, antivir etc and this did find some spyware & viruses.

After all the scans I then tried Outlook & Outlook Express but no improvement was seen.

I have since downloaded Mozilla Thunderbird as you recommended and this email program does not seem to be affected. I can send new emails, forwarded emails, and reply to myself at Thunderbird without any problems.

Therefore it MUST be an Outlook & Oulook Express bug (as you also suggested it might be)

Tomorrow (Monday) I will be able to see just how well Thunderbird performs when sending to many other email addresses (friends, colleagues, business associates etc). I am keeping my fingers crossed that we have got to the bottom of this problem.


This has been two weeks of nightmares because this has seriously affected my business that I run from home (internet based).

If this has solved the problem then I cannot thank you enough for your very detailed suggestions.

If you are ever in my neck of the woods (Fife, Scotland) I will definitely buy you a drink. If you play golf I will take you on one of the top links course in Scotland (not far from St Andrews)

I will confirm to you tomorrow if everything seems to have resolved itself.

I will also try to run those spyware programs with system restore turned off.

Cheers
Ian
(frustrated English man living in Sotland who doesn't drink Whisky)
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Oh, I'm sorry, I always forget about system restore, the very best friend of any virus or trojan released since Windows XP was released.

I'm glad you mentioned that, obviously you need to turn off system restore in xp BEFORE doing any antivirus or spyware scanning.

So turn it off, reboot, run the antivirus / spyware stuff, then once the system is definitely clean, turn system restore backon. That's yet another 'feature' that really helps malware authors keep their stuff installed on your system.

Definitely get rid of all that stuff no matter what, backdoors, trojans, etc, can severely compromise your machine, your company, and your general level of security as a whole, since things like keystroke loggers can easily be installed with a backdoor program, then those keystroke loggers faithfully report back to their masters all your relevant passwords and usernames. And windows xp firewall lets them do this without notifying you.

The fact that both eudora and outlook report this problem suggests a spyware issue to me however, since it's unlikely two applications could both trigger the same error condition.

And the fact that Thunderbird does not trigger this condition seems to exclude DNS issues on your ISP's end, since those will either be there or not.

On the brighter side, I really like thunderbird, especially its antispam junk email filters, which are real bayesian filters, user trained, by you that is. It doesn't have calendaring, but that's not an issue for me, it is for some people though. You can also enter into real email security by using all the following:

1. do not allow javascript to execute in emails
2. do not allow images to display if they are not embedded in the email
3. do not view emails as html, always view as plaintext.

This last one gives you almost 100% protection, unless you open a virus attachment you'll never get a virus on your system unless you are very unlucky, or unless of course you use MSIE to browse the web. Thunderbird + Firefox + Good Antivirus + Zonealarm + Router gives a very good amount of security on windows, not perfect, but it helps.

Not sure when I'll ever see Scotland, though I wish I could, probably not going to make it to that part of the world though any time in the near future.
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Have to agree with that whole "clean routine" there. I've been EXTREMELY lucky: in almost 22 years of using computers and the 'net, I have not had virus/worm problems. I'm generally fanatical about backups, but I've seldom had to use them.

However, even though being lucky is better than being good, I still feel SO much more secure using FF and T'bird. The ONLY time I ever open IE is LOCAL - to check in-process site design on my local XAMPP server install.

I mean that literally. I have ZoneAlarm set to ask EVERY TIME IE is handed a url. IE + OE/Outlook is a recipe for disaster - if not immediately, at the very least over time.

[[Scot by blood, wishing she could hit every pub in Scotland and have a dram.... ADORE the whisky!]
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