Help! Outlook Express Problem on Macintosh!

Factual Questions
1

I’m a computer ignoramus (I freely admit that up front), and have a problem I don’t understand and can’t fix. Background: my Mac is a G3 266 megahertz desktop with 96 MB installed RAM, Virtual Memory turned off (if I recall correctly), running OS 8.1. I was previously using Netscape Communicator 4.0, but the email portion of that software couldn’t handle attachments properly, so about 6 weeks ago I upgraded to IE 5.0 and Outlook Express 5.0 (installed using the installation package provided by my ISP, Earthlink.) I had no problems until last night.

Last night, while downloading my email, Outlook Express quit unexpectedly during the download (after downloading about 10 emails). The error message was “The program Outlook Express has quit unexpectedly due to an error of type 2.” I cold-rebooted my computer; when I re-started and again launched Outlook, the program quit as soon as it made contact with the mail server and began the downloading process. Several cold-reboots later, and after rebuilding the Desktop, all sans success, I called Earthlink technical support. The Tech support person said it sounded like a memory problem, and told me to use the Find File function (under the apple icon) to find Outlook Express and allot it more memory (the memory setting had previously been the same as the Preferred Memory amount for the program). The program still failed, same error type, every time it connected to the mail server. The Tech support representative then told me that I’ll need to upgrade to a newer version of Outlook Express to fix the problem, which I don’t particularly want to do. I am running no other programs when I’m launching Outlook Express, so it’s not competing for memory with anything other than the OS, and I’ve made no changes in the OS or installed/uninstalled any software during the interval between my previous successful use of Outlook Express (on Saturday) and its failure last night. I had about 200 mail messages on the ISP’s mail server last night, and about 90 old emails in my Inbox in Outlook (which are still there), and about 30 in the Trash (which I subsequently deleted, not that it helped). In frustration, I upgraded Netscape Communicator to version 4.76 - and the email program in that version of Communicator had no problems downloading my mail from my ISP’s server (and it properly handled the email attachments - I think I’m in love :slight_smile: ).

Does anyone have any suggestions about what might be causing my Outlook Express problem, or how to fix it? Or should I just use Communicator 4.76 for my email, since it seems to work?

Artemis, who’s beginning to believe that using the computer at work (where the friendly IT department is available to fix things when they break) is the way to go :mad: .

2

You say the error happens when Outlook starts trying to download email? Does that imply that if you run Outlook and just look at your existing email (stay away from the “send/receive” button, and turn off the option that has it automatically check for new mail every so often), there’s no problem? If so, my WAG is that the problem has more to do with the email it’s trying to download. It’s not quite clear from what you say about using Netscape, but have you emptied the email from the server (either by downloading via Netscape or just deleting), and then tried Outlook again? There might be something about a particular email on the server that’s causing Outlook to barf.

Other things to try: Open the Preferences folder in the System Folder and delete everything associated with Outlook (I can’t remember off the top of my head, but the Outlook prefs might be in a folder named “Microsoft <something>”, or there could be a file named “Outlook prefs” or something like that).

If that doesn’t fix it, try trashing the entire Outlook folder (the one where the application resides) and reinstalling.

All that being said, my recommendation is to get Eudora. They have a light and free version that is a great, reliable, easy to use mail reader.

3

Thanks for the suggestions, Roadfoot! Yes, as long as I keep my finger off the “Send/Recieve button”, the program seems O.K. - at least, I can read the emails already in my Inbox without problems. I’ll try it again tonight, after downloading everything off the server with Netscape, and see if that fixes things.

I’ll also check out Eudora. We have Eudora Light installed on the PC I use at work, and I’ve been very pleased with it.