Outlook 2007 persisting hourglass (wireless)

happyman · #1 10-19-2011, 06:15 AM

I use Exchange with a top-rated hosting provider. I’ve been with them for a number of years with generally no issues. I have Outlook 2007 profiles for my mailbox set up on a few computers at the office with no issues and have been fine for a long time. Also had one profile on a laptop for a long time with no issues. I also run BlackBerry BES with no issues.

However, I recently set up a computer at home and Outlook is giving me problems.

It's an XP system that's imaged from my main machine, with the appropriate adjustments made after imaging.

It's a desktop that I made wireless-capable with a top-rated wireless USB adapter. The residence is a temporary place with cable Internet and a wireless router. I also have a Verizon 4G mobile hotspot.

The machine runs perfectly fine on the Internet using IE8 and Firefox through both the local wireless router and the Verizon hotspot (well, the hotspot isn't always perfect but when it stays connected it's fine).

OWA is fine, too. And the rest of Office 2007 works fine on the machine, too.

Outlook, however, is running okay except that it’s very often showing me an hourglass over the Outlook systray icon and saying "requesting data from the server" when there's no valid reason for it to be doing so. If I send an email it can sit in the Outbox with the Outlook systray icon showing me an hourglass for a long time.

And even when I didn't do anything and it just got through saying “All folders are up to date” (and there’s nothing new to download), it still sits like that with an hourglass showing for sometimes as much as 80% of the time. It often leaves me unable to work and I have to just wait it out. If I do a Ctrl-rightclick on the icon and click on Connection Status and look at Req/Fail it occasionally show lots of fails but most of the time shows few or no fails even while the hourglass is continually persisting.

It does the same regardless of whether I’m using the local wireless router or the 4G hotspot.

The behavior is intermittent. Sometimes it doesn’t occur at all. It seems to get worse the longer Outlook has been running and usually pretty soon it's occurring 70-80% of the time.

I've tried deleting the OST and letting it rebuild, and I've tried deleting the profile and recreating it, to no avail.

I've spoken at length with the tech support people at the Exchange hosting company (and also at the makers of the wireless USB adapter) and they have run out of ideas.

The only idea left is to uninstall and reinstall Outlook.

And, well, that's kinda what led me to posting here... since my attempt to do that left me a bit stumped. I tried Add/Remove and I tried using the disc and I still don't exactly see how to do a plain, clean uninstall and reinstall of just Outlook.

I see something online about “Cmd > Run > outlook.exe /resetnavpane” and about running a diagnostic. And I know the Repair feature available, which I can’t seem to quite figure out (I guess I have to apply the red X and make it say “Unavailable” for all Outlook items??).

But I think at this point I shouldn't do anything until I check in here for advice first.

Thanks!

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