Outlook 2011 constantly changes status to "Not Connected" and must be relaunched.

21. November 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Outlook for Mac · Tags: , , , , , ,
Using Outlook for Mac 2011 Version 14.2.3

A few facts:
1. It is not my company's policy to require VPN to access email.
2. On my Mac I can only access email when using VPN.
3. My Android phone has no problem receiving email and has become my primary email retrieval method.
4. Whether I am on ethernet in the office (no VPN) or on VPN from home or a hotel/cafe, I am constantly switched into "Not Connected" status.
5. When I am having problems I regularly get prompted for my password (even though I have saved it in my Keychain) and it NEVER works.
6. When I relaunch Outlook and am NOT prompted for my password, it connects and syncs fine.
This point deserves reiterating: When Outlook prompts for a password, it fails to connect 100% of the time and will always fail until relaunched. When Outlook is launched and successfully connects it does so without prompting for a password 100% of the time. This means the algorithm that decides whether or not to prompt for a password is fatally flawed.
7. I have used Charles Proxy[1] to log HTTP traffic and it is a complete mess.
7a. My email ends in @coxin.com, however, while at this company I have had @ajc.com and @cmgdigital.com email addresses and I still receive email that is sent to those addresses in my current account.
7a. I have seen Outlook request https://autodiscover.coxinc.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml and get an XML response that includes: <RedirectAddr>[name-hidden]@ajc.com</RedirectAddr>
7b. There is no autodiscover.ajc.com

When Outlook silently switches to "Not Connected" status I can find no way to get it to attempt to reconnect other than to quit and reopen Outlook. Everyone I know says that their iPhones/iPads and Android phones/tablets are the most reliable way to interact with an Exchange server. This should not be. There should be a lot of work invested in connection error handling, messaging, and logging.

[1] http://www.charlesproxy.com/

Outlook 2011 for MAC just autoupdated and unable to open outlook

20. November 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Outlook for Mac · Tags: , , ,
MAC OSX 10.7.5 and autoupdated Microsoft for MAC 2011 and now outlook will not open. Please help.

2011 Outlook response time slows with use

20. November 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Outlook for Mac · Tags: , , , , , ,
Using Outlook 2011 in a Lion environment has recently started to slow with use.  Every 3-4 days of heavy Outlook use starts a degradation of speed, nearly a minute response time for scrolling, and other tasks within Outlook.  The only solution I have found is rebuilding the database.  Things immediately speed up but ten start to slow in few days.  Does anyone have any thoughts on why this is happing and how to stop it?

Workaround for Outlook sync contacts w Address Book (Snow Leopard)

20. November 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Outlook for Mac · Tags: , , , , , ,
I just want to send this out there while it's fresh in my mind in case it can help anyone else. I'm in OS 10.6.8. Like so many others, I've had nothing but trouble with Outlook 2011, including not being able to sync contacts, calendars, etc, OR syncs that scaterred the data so wild and crazy as to be useless, forced to restore to pre-sync.

Following various how-tos at more than one Mac or Office forum, still unable to sync. Tried various import/export scenarios--file types just not swappable. Dumped Application Support Sync and Microsoft files as directed, which after Restart did fill in the totally blank Sync Services pref in Outlook, but setting contacts to sync w Add Book still didn't work. In other threads tried various Sync Services instructions, finally resetting at the Terminal level. All no-go. It's now four hours later...

In desperation I again exported contacts from Outlook, choosing the .txt format (tab-delimited text file). I know Address Book can't read this, so I right-clicked the .txt file to Open with..Excel. When the Excel doc opened I clearly saw a few anomalies, but mostly it looked more or less correct--Last Names in Last Name column, etc. From inside Excel, I used Save As... and chose as the format type: Windows Comma Separated (.csv), which created a second file as the csv file type I know Address Book can read. Then I imported from Address Book.

And it worked. I will have to do some manual cleanup--deleting some totally blank cards and fixing some cards where data found its way to a wrong field, but it's far better than reentering hundreds of contacts one by one.

Before doing this I backed up my Library>Application Support>Microsoft and SyncServices files and Documents>Microsft User Files, which I'd advise anybody do when troubleshooting anything.

Hope this might help somebody. 

Outlook loses sound

20. November 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Outlook for Mac · Tags: , , , , , ,
Using the latest version of Outlook and Mountain Lion. Usually about 2-3 days of using my Mac Outlook loses its sound and the only way to restore it, is to reboot. This is NOT a hardware problem as I am able to play music in iTunes and MOST other apps. Perhaps this may be a OS bug, or it may be that I need to re-install Mountain Lion. What do you say?

John

strange position of recent contacts and address list pane

20. November 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Outlook for Mac · Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Hello!
I have a strange problem.
When i try to write somebody, recent contacts and address list pane is opened from the top of screen on a distance from message window. The distance has fixed size, when message window is moved, address pane is moved too. On all windows view it looks like one long window.
Screenshots attached.

The new account has the same problem. Outlook restore didn't fix the problem. 

How to activate the Developer Tab in Outlook 2011

20. November 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Outlook for Mac · Tags: , , , , ,
Greetings,
How do you activate the developer tab in Outlook 2011?

Background:
In Word and Excel 2011, there is a ribbon customization "gear" at the far right of the ribbon, which is used to activate the developer tab. 
This is very easy to find and use. 
However, this icon does not appear in Outlook 2011. 

Searching for this simple option in the typical resources does not yield useful information:
The menu option View/Customize Toolbars provides no options to change the tabs.
Preferences contains no options for Toolbars

In Outlook 2011 Help, the term "developer tab" does not provide any results. Other terms such as "ribbon preferences", which is the term used on Word 2011's "gear" also does not provide useful results. 
If you search on "tabs", the "Customize Outlook window" result only offers the option to minimize the ribbon so that only the existing tabs appear.
When reviewing 

In the KB, ( kb "outlook for mac" "developer tab" ) provides no relevant hits, nor do any number of other searches using terms such as "customize ribbon", etc.  

Outlook for Mac 2011: Some folders are duplicating themselves.

20. November 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Outlook for Mac · Tags: , , , , , ,
Outlook for Mac 2011: Some folders (not all) on my computer are duplicating themselves. Deleting one duplicate results in both copies being deleted. If I rename or move as a sub-folder, clears for a time but then returns (out of the blue) as duplicate folder (never sub-folder). Not every folder seems to do this e.g.

Inbox
- Folder 1 < original as subfolder
Sent
Draft
Deleted

Folder 1 < duplicated
Folder 2
Folder 3 < original folder
Folder 3 < duplicated folder
Folder 4
Folder 5

running Outlook for Mac 2011 version 14.2.5 on Mac OSX Snow Leopard.
Hope someone can help! Thanks.
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