# OUTLOOK help needed

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-help-needed/565015>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 21, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-help-needed/565015 "2010-12-21T23:25:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-help-needed/565015/1 "2010-12-21T23:25:04Z")

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**The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the problem persists, restart Outlook.**

All of a sudden, that’s the message I get when I try to do anything in Outlook. I can’t delete messages or move a message from one folder to another. And I can’t send/receive. I can read my existing messages, and I can switch to different folders, but I can’t change or send anything.

Needless to say, I tried restarting Outlook. I also used the “repair” function on the start-up disk, shut down windows, and started it up again. No change.

Any idea what could be wrong? I’m wondering if I need to completely re-install MSFT Office, but I’m concerned that I’ll lose my messages and contacts. Thoughts?

Oh, I’m running Windows XP on a Dell laptop.

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**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-help-needed/565015/2 "2010-12-22T01:26:47Z")

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Outlook saves all its information in a file called something like \<profilename\>.pst. If the .pst file gets too large or becomes somehow corrupted, it will start spitting out that error message.

Here’s a page at MS’s knowledge base that talks about that problem:  
[http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283175/en-us](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283175/en-us)

That’s for Outlook 2000 - you don’t say but I assume you have an older version of Outlook? That page has a bunch of things to try, several of them quite simple.

For future reference, it’s not a bad idea to archive old .pst files and create a new one for each year. Outlook runs better if the .pst file is a reasonable size. And for back up purposes, you’ll want to keep regular copies of those .psts file in your backup plan.

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-help-needed/565015/3 "2010-12-22T02:28:21Z")

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Thanks. Yes, my version is older, vintage 2002.

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**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-help-needed/565015/4 "2010-12-22T10:05:52Z")

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Gotcha. 2002 is newer than that first page I linked. Here’s a page describing essentially the same thing but geared toward versions from 2002 and later. It’s a pretty common error. If this doesn’t help, maybe someone with better Outlook-fu than myself can be more specific.

Hopefully this helps!  
[http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814441](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814441)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-help-needed/565015/5 "2010-12-22T14:29:39Z")

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The first link did the trick! Thanks,