Out of memory or system resources (2003)

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We have a user who has just upgraded to Outlook 2003 (our whole office has). However, when she opens Outlook, although her messages are there, she can’t open any of them. She continually gets the message “Cannot open this item. Out of memory or system resources. Close some windows or programs and try again.” She has closed all programs so that Outlook is the only program running, however, she still gets this message.

We have uninstalled and reinstalled Office, but this hasn’t helped. We’ve deleted the user’s Profile and created a new one, but this hasn’t helped. I’ve done a search on MS KB (and on this Forum), but the only results don’t match the problem we’re having.

Does anyone have any ideas what’s wrong and how we can get this user back online?

Thanks heaps, in advance, for your help.

P.S. We’re on Exchange 2003.

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Did your user have the PGP e-mail encription program installed with OL 2002? If so, this is a known problem and PGP will have to be uninstalled. This message may also appear if the user tries to open a large Note file (see this KB article) .

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Thanks for your reply.

Unfortunately, none of us uses any PGP programs. As a company we don’t, and I don’t think this user would know what a PGP program is. Outlook XP was working fine. We just upgraded this user, and now we’ve got this problem.

Any other ideas?

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Does this occur only when trying to open an e-mail message, or does it happen with other events as well – i.e. calendar, contacts, etc.? You might try the Inbox Repair Tool .

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Does this occur only when trying to open an e-mail message, or does it happen with other events as well – i.e. calendar, contacts, etc.? You might try the Inbox Repair Tool .

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I created a brand-new Profile, so if this user had an OST (which I don’t beleive she would have had), then a new one would have been created, as I understand it. As we’re on Exchange, the user wouldn’t have a PST.

I’ve tested the user’s account by logging in as her on my PC and creating a new Outlook account. It works perfectly, so there’s nothing wrong with Exchange.

Does this additional information help?

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To be clear, does this mean that on your computer, you can log in as the user and open any e-mail messages? Although I do not use Exchange, I believe that all of the users still have pst files. The ost files are simply offline folder files (basically replicas folders on the server).

Edited to add: Yes, this KB article explains both pst and ost files.

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Yes. I can log in on my PC as this user (Anna), and everything is available to me. In an Exchange environment, Outlook is just a window into Exchange. No actual files are stored on the PC.

It’s only on this user’s PC that we have this problem. It’s just unfortunate that creating a new profile didn’t solve the problem.

Any other ideas?

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No, I’m out of ideas. Normally, creating the new profile should have solved the issue. What’s really puzzling is the fact that you can log on (as Anna) on your machine and everything works as it should. Hopefully someone else in the Lounge can come up with something.

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Well, thanks anyway.

If we suss it, I’ll post back (unless someone else has a brainwave!)

Thanks again.

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What is different on this machine compared to the others that work?
This is to include software and hardware that is NOT on the other machines.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Well, most our PCs are clones, so the hardware is all generic and different on each PC.

Software. This is all pretty standard: Windows XP, AVG, MSO, WordPerfect, and that’s about it.

As discussed, we don’t run any PGP programs or anything like that.

Easy one, huh?

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With the message “Out of memory or system resources” I would have looked to see how much memory is in that machine. Then check to see what size and control of the “Swap file” is. Also how full is the hard drive?

All of these may affect performance of the machine and/or programs.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

With the message “Out of memory or system resources” I would have looked to see how much memory is in that machine. Then check to see what size and control of the “Swap file” is. Also how full is the hard drive?

All of these may affect performance of the machine and/or programs.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

Well, most our PCs are clones, so the hardware is all generic and different on each PC.

Software. This is all pretty standard: Windows XP, AVG, MSO, WordPerfect, and that’s about it.

As discussed, we don’t run any PGP programs or anything like that.

Easy one, huh?

Reply | Quote

What is different on this machine compared to the others that work?
This is to include software and hardware that is NOT on the other machines.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

Well, thanks anyway.

If we suss it, I’ll post back (unless someone else has a brainwave!)

Thanks again.

Reply | Quote

No, I’m out of ideas. Normally, creating the new profile should have solved the issue. What’s really puzzling is the fact that you can log on (as Anna) on your machine and everything works as it should. Hopefully someone else in the Lounge can come up with something.

Reply | Quote

Yes. I can log in on my PC as this user (Anna), and everything is available to me. In an Exchange environment, Outlook is just a window into Exchange. No actual files are stored on the PC.

It’s only on this user’s PC that we have this problem. It’s just unfortunate that creating a new profile didn’t solve the problem.

Any other ideas?

Reply | Quote

To be clear, does this mean that on your computer, you can log in as the user and open any e-mail messages? Although I do not use Exchange, I believe that all of the users still have pst files. The ost files are simply offline folder files (basically replicas folders on the server).

Edited to add: Yes, this KB article explains both pst and ost files.

Reply | Quote

I created a brand-new Profile, so if this user had an OST (which I don’t beleive she would have had), then a new one would have been created, as I understand it. As we’re on Exchange, the user wouldn’t have a PST.

I’ve tested the user’s account by logging in as her on my PC and creating a new Outlook account. It works perfectly, so there’s nothing wrong with Exchange.

Does this additional information help?

Reply | Quote

Thanks for your reply.

Unfortunately, none of us uses any PGP programs. As a company we don’t, and I don’t think this user would know what a PGP program is. Outlook XP was working fine. We just upgraded this user, and now we’ve got this problem.

Any other ideas?

Reply | Quote

Did your user have the PGP e-mail encription program installed with OL 2002? If so, this is a known problem and PGP will have to be uninstalled. This message may also appear if the user tries to open a large Note file (see this KB article) .

Reply | Quote

Perhaps I can shed some light – although I don’t have a solution at hand without trying it and my installation is Office XP and Exchange 2000 so there may be differences.

I’m hearing “client PC setup” problems which plagued my site until I eventually rebuilt all machines. That is, I agree that it is not Exchange.

There is a quick test
– can another user attach to their own mailbox by logging onto that machine? If they can – Outlook is corrupted only for the user, not the install. (I’m presuming that you’re happy enough setting mail properties and Exchange settings for the changed account)

If it is confirmed as “only that user” – I’d suggest that you take the step of totally removing the local Windows user profile and and leave the system to re-add it. You do this as administrator on the machine in question in XP by right-clicking “My Computer”, “Properties”, “Advanced”, “User Profiles” and removing it.

When they next login – a profile will be created automatically from a “hidden one” called “Default User”.

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Thanks Andrew. You and I are on the same track.

I got the user to log in as the Administrator, and then I got her to delete her C:Documents and Settings folder.

I then got her to launch Outlook again, and this created a new profile for this user. Outlook is now working, although it’s only XP and not 2003. The next step is to try installing 2003 and seeing if it still works.

The only thing that puzzles me is that I got the user to create a new Profile, through Control Panel -> Mail , etc. That didn’t work. But the aforementioned did???

Thank you to all for your help and suggestions.

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Good to hear that you’re making progress.

The reason that a Mail profile doesn’t work is that MS software doesn’t really uninstall everything when you think it does – in particular it likes being helpful and leaving behind anything that you may want to use – heck – even uninstall doesn’t uninstall everything – there’s lots of junk left around as files and as registry keys – sometimes it’s what you want but mostly its a pain.

The windows level directory delete has obviously cleaned out extra files – its not done the registry as well as it could, but if you’re over the problem now you probably don’t have corruption to worry about any more.

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Good to hear that you’re making progress.

The reason that a Mail profile doesn’t work is that MS software doesn’t really uninstall everything when you think it does – in particular it likes being helpful and leaving behind anything that you may want to use – heck – even uninstall doesn’t uninstall everything – there’s lots of junk left around as files and as registry keys – sometimes it’s what you want but mostly its a pain.

The windows level directory delete has obviously cleaned out extra files – its not done the registry as well as it could, but if you’re over the problem now you probably don’t have corruption to worry about any more.

Reply | Quote

Thanks Andrew. You and I are on the same track.

I got the user to log in as the Administrator, and then I got her to delete her C:Documents and Settings folder.

I then got her to launch Outlook again, and this created a new profile for this user. Outlook is now working, although it’s only XP and not 2003. The next step is to try installing 2003 and seeing if it still works.

The only thing that puzzles me is that I got the user to create a new Profile, through Control Panel -> Mail , etc. That didn’t work. But the aforementioned did???

Thank you to all for your help and suggestions.

Reply | Quote

Perhaps I can shed some light – although I don’t have a solution at hand without trying it and my installation is Office XP and Exchange 2000 so there may be differences.

I’m hearing “client PC setup” problems which plagued my site until I eventually rebuilt all machines. That is, I agree that it is not Exchange.

There is a quick test
– can another user attach to their own mailbox by logging onto that machine? If they can – Outlook is corrupted only for the user, not the install. (I’m presuming that you’re happy enough setting mail properties and Exchange settings for the changed account)

If it is confirmed as “only that user” – I’d suggest that you take the step of totally removing the local Windows user profile and and leave the system to re-add it. You do this as administrator on the machine in question in XP by right-clicking “My Computer”, “Properties”, “Advanced”, “User Profiles” and removing it.

When they next login – a profile will be created automatically from a “hidden one” called “Default User”.

Reply | Quote