Strange Outlook 2003 crash problem

I have been navigating the Adventure game that is the Microsoft support site for an hour now* so I thought I would ask someone who can actually help me.

I have been using Outlook 2003 for at least a couple of years and suddenly it starts to crash when it tries to retrieve POP mail from one of the 6 or 7 accounts I have it configured for. Nothing about the account changed.

When I explicitly select that account for retrieval, it crashes, sends it little report to the mother ship, and gives no useful information (unless you consider a hex dump useful).

All Office SP’s have been installed.

Anybody ever seen a reproduceable crash during POP retrieval?


*Get the magic Passport key. Now try the key in the lock. You are now in a hallway with 6 doors. Go through the 2nd door. Now enter the secret phrase to search for the answer. “crash retrieving pop mail”. Wrong phrase, no matches. You are now in a hallway with 6 doors.

Try disabling that account from the list of ones it checks. Does it crash now? If not, can you check that account via a web browser? If so, I’d look at the next message waiting to be downloaded. My guess is that something about that message is causing problems. Perhaps you can delete it via the browser-based client.

No. Yes. I deleted all messages using the browser interface and it still happens, even if I set it to download headers only.

I never figured out what was wrong but the workaround was to delete the account in Outlook and recreate it. Same account, same POP server, but now it works. Thanks for the help!