Hi,
on a number of occasions (different users) new mails created in Outlook for sending via HTMO (v3.0.4) have become stuck in Outlook's outgoing mail folder not just once but many thousands of times within a couple of minutes. Thankfully, these emails do not get sent although in one instance a few did escape. I had another occurrence of the problem this morning - see screenshot - involving 5000+ copies of an email.
Is there a known cause and/or solution?
I have tried installing v3.0.5 a couple of times to resolve general synchonisation issues but the profile removal and installation of the v3.0.5 software necessitated a repair of Outlook both times, so I would like to avoid that if I can.
Hi Bill,
What is the Traveler version you are using? Try installing the latest Traveler version as well to make sure all known issues are fixed in your environment.
Is there something common with the emails created on those users? Same subject/recipients/etc?
There was an issue way before where blank draft mail is being created on the database. This was due to corrupted mail file, after running maintenance, it was fixed.
The maintenance I would suggest is as follows:
fixup -F (add -J if transaction logging is enabled)
updall -R -X
compact -c -i -D
If you are still having issue after this, I would suggest creating a Support Case for further investigation.
One or more "different" emails getting stuck in the outbox could be related to a Traveler sync issue (the sync request is failing). However, in this case, the scenario is a single email being rapidly (and excessively) duplicated in the outbox. That scenario is not related to the Traveler server version and not indicative of a mail server issue. Traveler NEVER syncs mail TO the Outbox on the client. I know you don't really care about this detail. I just wanted to clarify that this is unlike, for example, an explosion of "drafts" which is what Jesse is referring to. Upgrading Traveler will have no effect on what you are seeing.
I've looked back in the internal bug history for HTMO and, although I find a several references to a similar condition, it appears to be an elusive condition to isolate and fix. Most changes have been around trying to prevent the sending of these duplicates. On the Traveler server side, it does have a mechanism to try to prevent duplicate sends of the exact same content. Regardless, this still doesn't get to your question which is what you can do to resolve this. Apart from recreating your profile, I believe Outlook allows you delete mails in the outbox. Not sure how practical that is given the large # (see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/video-send-or-delete-an-email-stuck-in-your-outbox-26d5d34a-4e5f-444a-a9e8-44db04a94dec)
As Jessie indicated, it would be helpful to open a support case in the hopes we can capture the root cause.
Regards,
Curtis Ebbs
HCL Traveler Development
Thanks Jessie and Curtis for your comments.
On each occasion that I've seen this issue, it has been possible to simply highlight and delete all the messages in the outbox. The recipients have been different each time and have been a mixture of internal and external addresses.
We are a little behind the curve regarding our installed version of Traveler (11.0.1.1 Build 202005211639_30) but as an email migration to MS 365 is likely by mid-year I would like to avoid an upgrade of Traveler in the interim if I can; indeed, Curtis indicates that would not help. On that basis, I am looking for a quick fix.
From the comments regarding the elusiveness of this problem I infer that it has not been knowingly fixed in v3.0.5, so an upgrade of the locally-installed version of HTMO would also not help. However amongst the small number of users working with HTMO, this has only affected those working with v3.0.4 so far (one user twice, another user once). Note though that my sample set is VERY small - we have almost 200 mail users but only 5 are working with Outlook and HTMO, the rest have a pure HCL solution.
I am happy to open a support case if you wish, although I don't have ready access to either of the machines on which this problem has occurred, so trying anything you suggest may be difficult.
Thanks for the background. The Traveler Server level you are running is almost 2.5 years old. There are a lot of fixes since 11.0.1.1 (see the fixes by release article: https://support.hcltechsw.com/csm?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0028394). The problem with an issue where the root cause has not been identified is its also hard to know if a code change has inadvertently addressed the issue (fixing, avoiding, etc). However, I still don't see this as a Traveler server induced issue but as always encourage customers to be at the latest.
I do suggest upgrading to 3.0.5 (see fix list: https://support.hcltechsw.com/csm?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0036096).
For support, we will need the HTMO client logs from a system seeing the issue. If gathering those will be problematic then that (opening a support ticket) will not be a useful exercise.
Regards,
Curtis Ebbs
HCL Traveler development
Thanks Curtis, if you could let me know where I would find the logs, I will try to get access tomorrow to the machine which most recently experienced the problem to see if we have the raw material for a support ticket.
Bill,
Collecting logs for HTMO is documented here: https://help.hcltechsw.com/htmo/3.0.0/use_HTMO_reporting_a_problem.html
I do recommend electing to include confidential data. This sounds alarming but is more about including user specific information which can be very helpful when trying to narrow down an issue.
Since the issue may not necessarily recreate its ok to just collect whatever is already present (See the step on "Locate the logs").
Regards,
Curtis Ebbs
HCL Traveler development
