Hi, I'm trying to help a friend with a windows PC problem and wonder if anyone can help. Google has been of limited success especially if your detailed technical knowledge is not that extensive.
After visiting a hotel abroad and using his laptop to access his emails there he now receives the following error message when he tries to launch Outlook that is part of office 2013:
The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.
The mail server id appears to be entered correctly.
The email address (strangely) has =SMTP: added to the front of it...getting rid of it manually doesn't help but I think it's a clue. It wasn't there before.
Using outlook in a browser works fine but my friend reports it's clunky and doesn't want to use it that way - he wants the Outlooks application in the Office 2013 suite to work again.
We have tried temporarily to turn off the windows firewall.
The email provider has spent 10 hours support so far trying to get this to work, and have now said it's a configuration problem local to the laptop and have said they can do no more.
Starting outlook in safe mode didn't work.
He's suggesting the next solution is to edit the registry, I'm a little reluctant to go there but will if necessary.
I'm sure this is a simple fix! We have re-installed office 2013 and re-installed Outlook to give a fresh install - problem still exists.
I wondered if I could tap into the vast forum pool of knowledge for help!
Last edited by catch21; 16th July 2017 at 10:56.
A non-techie's immediate response, so feel free to ignore...
1) When you uninstalled Outlook did you uninstall the old profile too, because a reinstall back to that profile is unlikely to help?
2) Have you tried deleting the account and then creating a new one from scratch?
*I'll get my coat*
Thanks for the thoughts, I'm fairly late to this party but spent two hours on teamviewer yesterday trying to get to the bottom of it.Originally Posted by learningtofly
Not sure how you uninstall the profile, but will check.
I've tried overwriting the email server and address fields, it doesn't seem to connect even with real/valid details, so I'm fairly sure it's to do with outlook settings rather than an individual account being faulty. Could be wrong.
Tautology of the week
The obvious base attempt would be to remove the profile and set up a clean version of it. The official Windows guide is here:
https://support.office.com/en-us/art...4-3b38e40e7cdd
Does your "friend" recall making any changes while connected at the hotel, or giving permission for any plugins to be installed?
(The firewall most likely has nothing to do with Outlook problems BTW. Windows Firewall is preconfigured to support standard ports for stuff like IMAP and SMTP.)
Firewall stuff, thank you, great confirms what we've seen. I will add the remove profile task to the list for tomorrow, I have sent some instructions on the plugins issues, including how to disable them but I don't think this has been done. We've arranged another teamviewer session for tomorrow so I'm building a list of things to try next.Tautology of the week
The obvious base attempt would be to remove the profile and set up a clean version of it. The official Windows guide is here:
https://support.office.com/en-us/art...4-3b38e40e7cdd
Does your "friend" recall making any changes while connected at the hotel, or giving permission for any plugins to be installed?
(The firewall most likely has nothing to do with Outlook problems BTW. Windows Firewall is preconfigured to support standard ports for stuff like IMAP and SMTP.)
Thanks, all advice really appreciated.
A couple of questions to take this further:
1. Who is the e-mail provider?
2. Have you done a scan with a good anti-virus product and Malwarebytes?
3. If you select the Send/Receive tab is the 'Work Offline' button selected i.e. grey? It shouldn't be!
Let us know.
Last edited by Skier; 16th July 2017 at 22:45.
1) Due to the circumstances and people involved I've pm'd this answer as I'd like to keep that private.
2) I'm not sure, haven't asked, but I'll put it on the list of things to try/ask.
3) I'm new to outlook but I'm not sure we are even getting that far.
Thanks so much for the thoughts.
Is he connected via a "public" WiFi as I have had connection issues when the connection has been deemed to be insecure. If he goes to Outlook.hs20.net he should be able to use mail via web client or if is he going customer site tomorrow Try there and it may well work.
Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app
Is it "installed outlook" or "web-outlook"?
It is likely to be the server POP and SMTP values which have been changed for the public access.
Google search POP and SMTP values for outlook.
You can change the values in the Outlook setup at any time, but make a note of the figs before trying any of the suggested ones from t'internet.
they have values like 110, 965 etc and it won't harm trying them (followed buy a test mail - which is part of the set up process).
AL
It's the installed outlook (I believe). The web outlook you access with a browser, yes? You might think I'm not necessarily the right person to be trying to solve this for him! You'd almost certainly be right but I do like a challenge.
It's a new install of office 2013, new install of outlook 2013, and still fails.
How does one access the installed outlook setup, e.g. the plugins etc? I couldn't figure that out.
I'm on a Mac just now, and it is in <Tools> / <accounts>.
You will see the settings for outgoing and incoming mails. (mine are set at 993 and 465 resp)
You can alter them, but first- do a google search for the settings according to the mail service you are using (I use Gmail).
There will be threads of people experiencing probs and the settings most likely to work for whatever e-mail client you use.
Al
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