1709 to 1803 pain

[stuck]

Yesterday evening my home PC (Win 10 Pro 1709) decided it was time to update to 1803. When the process kicked in it completely froze my PC and eventually everything seemed to die, though the power light was still on. I left it alone and returned later (couple of hours maybe) to find it had powered off. When I restarted it I got a notification that the new version had downloaded, would I like to install it now. I took a deep breath and clicked the button. When I went to bed another couple of hours later it was restarting. I left it to get on with it.

This morning it was done BUT when I tried to open Outlook 2016 I got a message about Windows search not properly closing the .pst file of the account that Outlook opens in (there are three accounts, one for me, one for my wife and another generic one we both use if we don't want to give out our personal addresses). It offered to repair the .pst file and that let me in to Outlook but the repair didn't last. As in, I could browse the default account folders as long as I stayed within that account but if I navigated to either of the other two accounts I couldn't then get back to the default folders, all I got was the error about Windows search not properly closing the .pst file.

Restoring a backup of the .pst from a few days ago didn't help either. Changing the folder that Outlook opens in to one of the accounts did mean I didn't get an error on opening Outlook but I still couldn't get into the account, unless I ran the repair tool again.

It looks like I've finally fixed it by using 'O&O ShutUp10' to restore the MS snooping settings to their defaults, restarting, running the repair tool and restarting again as Outlook then opened without an error. I've subsequently used 'O&O ShutUp10' again and applied the 'recommended' settings and restarting again. Outlook still seems OK.

Tomorrow is another day though...

Ken

[HansV]

Weird, but let's hope it keeps on working.

(I have set O&O ShutUp10 to turn off almost all snooping, and I too have different accounts in my Outlook profile, but I didn't experience any problems after installing Windows 10 version 1803)

[stuck]

From my Googling of the problem (which only turned up hits dated several years ago) it might be that there was some sort of process lock/hook left on the .pst file, perhaps because Outlook was runing when the update process kicked in, so once it was all over it looked as if it was in use, when it wasn't. No idea really though.

I'm sure the PC shouldn't have shut down / powered off after it had downloaded the update, suggesting that it wasn't as clean and tidy an update as it should have been.

I'll see how it goes.

Ken

[stuck]

The problem is back and this time in that the previous 'fix' hasn't had any effect.



Ken

[HansV]

Have you checked whether an add-in causes the problem?

[stuck]

I've not added any add-ins.

I've made the error about Windows search not colosing the file properly go away by turning of the indexing of Outlook BUT I still get 'there's a problem with one of your Outlook data files' and the offer to run the repair tool, which fixes things when you then start Outlook but the fix doesn't last and the next time you open Outlook you need to run the repair tool again.

My attempts at getting a clean back-up immediately after running the repair tool strongly suggest the root problem is some sort of corruption within one at least one, probably more, of the numerous sub-folders within the .pst file that's identified as the problem. Mailstore Home only archives about 800 messages before it gives up. Using Outlook's built in 'Export to file' sometimes re-creates part of the problem file but most often only generates an empty .pst file. I've yet to see what happens if I export to a .csv file.

I will return to this problem this evening.

Ken

[DaveA]

What is the full path of the PST files?

Try using the built in method of archive and see if it fails?
Yes try export to a csv file and see where it fails?

I have been using Office 365 (2016) and Windows 10 1803 and have not seen any issues with the past files.
Yes I have several email addresses both pop and IMAP type.

[stuck]

I'm making progress. I've narrowed the problem down to one or more of 59 messages that are filed in a particular subfolder AND I've got a good backup of all the messages, apart from these 59, in the account.

I need a break now, probably won't return to this until tomorrow evening.

Ken

[stuck]

A summary of this saga:
1) After 1709 to 1803 update my Outlook 2016 started reporting an error with the .pst file associated with my wife's account.
2) Runing the repair tool fixed the problem until Outlook was restarted.
3) Replacing the .pst file with a back-up had no effect.
4) Trying to get a fresh, alternative, back-up using MailSore Home also failed, it would archive some messages but not all.
5) Using Outlook's built in export to file option created a backup.pst but didn't populate it.

The fix was to:
1) Manually populate the backup.pst (which appeared in Outlook as 'Outlook Data File') by dragging and dropping each of the folders in my wife's account one at a time into the 'Outlook Data File'.
2) All but one of the folders moved without error / causing a crash requiring reruninng of the repair tool.
3) In the folder that would not move as a whole, messages were dragged and dropped in blocks, until the one message that was triggering the crash was the only one left in my wife's account.
4) Outside of Outlook / without Outlook running, the remnant .pst file containing the problem message was copied to a separate HDD.
5) Back in Outlook, removed my wife's account and set it up again from scratch.
6) Repopulated this new account by dragging and dropping all the folders in the 'Outlook Data File' back into my wife's acount.
7) Took good back-ups both by copying the .pst file onto a separte HDD and by running MailStore Home on the .pst.
8) Removed the now empty 'Outlook Data File' from Outlook.

Thinking it was all over I was about to relax but the next time I opened Outlook I got a message about there being a problem with the .pst file associated with my account. A repeat of the above fix this time left me with a remnant .pst file containing three messages in three different folders.

As yet the error has not shown up in the third account we use.

Thus at the moment Outlook is behaving as it did before all this kicked off and I have good backups (in two formats, direct copies of the .pst files and using Mailstore Home) of all three accounts that we use.

Ken

[HansV]

Is it just coincidence that these Outlook problems started after updating Windows 10?

[stuck]

Is it just coincidence...

Probably as in, I don't think it was the update itself that triggered this issue, more that the update process didn't go as smoothly as I think it should have done. I mentioned earlier that the PC powered off completely at one point. My guess is that shutdown was untidy and because Outlook was running at the time, that introduced corruption into the .pst files. Despite the fact the one bit of corruption in my wife's acount turned out to be in a message that dated from 2016 it was enough to be fatal to Outlook starting properly. The corrpution in my .pst file must have been less critical, even though that affected three (old) messages, and so that aspect didn't surface until after the main problem was fixed.

Alternatively, there are some bad sectors on the SSD that first impacted my wife's account and then mine so another problem may yet appear in a completely different part of the PC any time now...


Ken