Using Outlook 2003 (all of Office 2003), all the latest updates, in Win
XPSP3.

I wrote a long important e-mail this morning, addressed to several people. I
clicked Send, then Send and Receive, and assumed my message was sent.

I received an e-mail from one of the addressees, indicating that the
received e-mail was blank, no message.

I went to my Sent Items folder, with the intention of forwarding that sent
message to this one addressee.

The message title appeared in Sent Items folder, along with the addressees.
But the message was blank--nothing at all in message window-although I had
written a long message. I cannot find that text I had written anywhere!

What could have happened?

Where could I possibly find that missing text, so I do not have to write the
message again?

Thank you in advance for your assistance. :-)

I will add a piece of information that I forgot to mention before. It is
probably not relevant to the problem, but just in case it is, I will mention
it here.

The original message in question was an HTML-formatted message. A long
HTML-formatted message was in the message body when I clicked "Send".

The message that now appears in my "Sent Items" folder has, as said, the
Message Subject and the Recipients listed, but the message body is blank.
Furthermore, the message body is listed as being formatted Plain Text.

Therefore, somehow in the sending process, all the text in the message body
was lost, and the formatting of the message was changed from HTML to Plain
Text.

I would still greatly appreciate help with this. Thank you.

"MS" wrote in message
...
Using Outlook 2003 (all of Office 2003), all the latest updates, in Win
XPSP3.

I wrote a long important e-mail this morning, addressed to several people.
I clicked Send, then Send and Receive, and assumed my message was sent.

I received an e-mail from one of the addressees, indicating that the
received e-mail was blank, no message.

I went to my Sent Items folder, with the intention of forwarding that sent
message to this one addressee.

The message title appeared in Sent Items folder, along with the
addressees. But the message was blank--nothing at all in message
window-although I had written a long message. I cannot find that text I
had written anywhere!

What could have happened?

Where could I possibly find that missing text, so I do not have to write
the message again?

Thank you in advance for your assistance. :-)

I'll add something else.

As that long e-mail took me hours to write, I many times clicked File, Save,
to save the message. Probably as well, pretty recently before clicking the
Send button, to send the message.

When one saves a message, I know it is saved in the "Drafts" folder. That
message is not there now, though. I guess when one clicks Send on a message,
and it goes to the Outbox, it is immediately deleted from Drafts. Such
messages do not appear in "Deleted Items" though.

I wonder, however, if the message might somehow still be under Drafts, but
hidden, and if there could be a way to revive it?

I hope someone can help with this problem. Thank you.


"MS" wrote in message
...
I will add a piece of information that I forgot to mention before. It is
probably not relevant to the problem, but just in case it is, I will
mention it here.

The original message in question was an HTML-formatted message. A long
HTML-formatted message was in the message body when I clicked "Send".

The message that now appears in my "Sent Items" folder has, as said, the
Message Subject and the Recipients listed, but the message body is blank.
Furthermore, the message body is listed as being formatted Plain Text.

Therefore, somehow in the sending process, all the text in the message
body was lost, and the formatting of the message was changed from HTML to
Plain Text.

I would still greatly appreciate help with this. Thank you.

"MS" wrote in message
...
Using Outlook 2003 (all of Office 2003), all the latest updates, in Win
XPSP3.

I wrote a long important e-mail this morning, addressed to several
people. I clicked Send, then Send and Receive, and assumed my message was
sent.

I received an e-mail from one of the addressees, indicating that the
received e-mail was blank, no message.

I went to my Sent Items folder, with the intention of forwarding that
sent message to this one addressee.

The message title appeared in Sent Items folder, along with the
addressees. But the message was blank--nothing at all in message
window-although I had written a long message. I cannot find that text I
had written anywhere!

What could have happened?

Where could I possibly find that missing text, so I do not have to write
the message again?

Thank you in advance for your assistance. :-)

First of all, since it took you so long to write that message, I assume
that it should be quite large. What is the size of the message in the
Sent Items folder? If it is not just 1KB or 2KB like an empty message,
then we must assume that the text is still there, but has somehow become
invisible.

If that is the case, open the message, right-click on the message body
and select View Source. Do you see now your original text (interspersed
with HTML tags)?

MS wrote:
I'll add something else.

As that long e-mail took me hours to write, I many times clicked File, Save,
to save the message. Probably as well, pretty recently before clicking the
Send button, to send the message.

When one saves a message, I know it is saved in the "Drafts" folder. That
message is not there now, though. I guess when one clicks Send on a message,
and it goes to the Outbox, it is immediately deleted from Drafts. Such
messages do not appear in "Deleted Items" though.

I wonder, however, if the message might somehow still be under Drafts, but
hidden, and if there could be a way to revive it?

I hope someone can help with this problem. Thank you.


"MS" wrote in message
...
I will add a piece of information that I forgot to mention before. It is
probably not relevant to the problem, but just in case it is, I will
mention it here.

The original message in question was an HTML-formatted message. A long
HTML-formatted message was in the message body when I clicked "Send".

The message that now appears in my "Sent Items" folder has, as said, the
Message Subject and the Recipients listed, but the message body is blank.
Furthermore, the message body is listed as being formatted Plain Text.

Therefore, somehow in the sending process, all the text in the message
body was lost, and the formatting of the message was changed from HTML to
Plain Text.

I would still greatly appreciate help with this. Thank you.

"MS" wrote in message
...
Using Outlook 2003 (all of Office 2003), all the latest updates, in Win
XPSP3.

I wrote a long important e-mail this morning, addressed to several
people. I clicked Send, then Send and Receive, and assumed my message was
sent.

I received an e-mail from one of the addressees, indicating that the
received e-mail was blank, no message.

I went to my Sent Items folder, with the intention of forwarding that
sent message to this one addressee.

The message title appeared in Sent Items folder, along with the
addressees. But the message was blank--nothing at all in message
window-although I had written a long message. I cannot find that text I
had written anywhere!

What could have happened?

Where could I possibly find that missing text, so I do not have to write
the message again?

Thank you in advance for your assistance. :-)

Thanks for the suggestion, Pat.

I already tried that, "View Source". All that I see are a couple HTML tags,
no text.

Any other ideas?

What happens to a message that has been saved, that is in the Drafts folder,
when one clicks Send (putting it in the Outbox)? One doesn't see it listed
any more under Drafts, but is the saved version there somewhere?

As data is changed in a .pst file, what happens to the previous version of
that file?

It sure would be nice if Outlook saved a .bak copy of the .pst every ten
minutes or so, so if something like this happened, one would have a backup
copy, still with the data. (I know there are backup programs for Outlook,
but they can only work when Outlook is not running, a very different
situation.

I tried Scanpst, Office Repair, and a few other things.

Yes, writing that e-mail took hours, but now I have spent more hours trying
to recover the text, more time than what it would have taken me to re-write
it. I guess it's the computer geek in me that wants to find a solution--that
thinks "that message must be somewhere". Of course, I never thought it would
take this long. I always think I'll solve it in the next few minutes.

Anyhow, I would still appreciate more suggestions. Thank you.



"Pat Willener" wrote in message
...
First of all, since it took you so long to write that message, I assume
that it should be quite large. What is the size of the message in the Sent
Items folder? If it is not just 1KB or 2KB like an empty message, then we
must assume that the text is still there, but has somehow become
invisible.

If that is the case, open the message, right-click on the message body and
select View Source. Do you see now your original text (interspersed with
HTML tags)?

MS wrote:
I'll add something else.

As that long e-mail took me hours to write, I many times clicked File,
Save, to save the message. Probably as well, pretty recently before
clicking the Send button, to send the message.

When one saves a message, I know it is saved in the "Drafts" folder. That
message is not there now, though. I guess when one clicks Send on a
message, and it goes to the Outbox, it is immediately deleted from
Drafts. Such messages do not appear in "Deleted Items" though.

I wonder, however, if the message might somehow still be under Drafts,
but hidden, and if there could be a way to revive it?

I hope someone can help with this problem. Thank you.


"MS" wrote in message
...
I will add a piece of information that I forgot to mention before. It is
probably not relevant to the problem, but just in case it is, I will
mention it here.

The original message in question was an HTML-formatted message. A long
HTML-formatted message was in the message body when I clicked "Send".

The message that now appears in my "Sent Items" folder has, as said, the
Message Subject and the Recipients listed, but the message body is
blank. Furthermore, the message body is listed as being formatted Plain
Text.

Therefore, somehow in the sending process, all the text in the message
body was lost, and the formatting of the message was changed from HTML
to Plain Text.

I would still greatly appreciate help with this. Thank you.

"MS" wrote in message
...
Using Outlook 2003 (all of Office 2003), all the latest updates, in Win
XPSP3.

I wrote a long important e-mail this morning, addressed to several
people. I clicked Send, then Send and Receive, and assumed my message
was sent.

I received an e-mail from one of the addressees, indicating that the
received e-mail was blank, no message.

I went to my Sent Items folder, with the intention of forwarding that
sent message to this one addressee.

The message title appeared in Sent Items folder, along with the
addressees. But the message was blank--nothing at all in message
window-although I had written a long message. I cannot find that text I
had written anywhere!

What could have happened?

Where could I possibly find that missing text, so I do not have to
write the message again?

Thank you in advance for your assistance. :-)

No, it's not still stored somewhere else. The item in the Drafts folder is
still the same item as that ends up in your Sent Items folder; it gets moved
depending on the status (composing- sending- sent).

My guess in what happened is that you have a virus scanner that integrates
with Outlook and corrupted the item by scanning it before sending it. That
also explains why it gets converted to Plain Text. You really should disable
your virus scanner's integration with Outlook. It is redundant and doesn't
offer any layer of extra protection. See
http://www.msoutlook.info/question/20

It sure would be nice if Outlook saved a .bak copy of the .pst every ten
minutes or so, so if something like this happened, one would have a backup
copy, still with the data.
Not a good idea. Considering an average pst-file is quite large, copying
such a large file every 10 minutes will generate way too much disk I/O and
renders your computer unusable.

Sorry to hear you lost your message, but this corruption is caused by a 3rd
party product.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003
http://www.howto-outlook.com/
Outlook FAQ, HowTo, Downloads, Add-Ins and more

http://www.msoutlook.info/
Real World Questions, Real World Answers

-----

"MS" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the suggestion, Pat.

I already tried that, "View Source". All that I see are a couple HTML
tags, no text.

Any other ideas?

What happens to a message that has been saved, that is in the Drafts
folder, when one clicks Send (putting it in the Outbox)? One doesn't see
it listed any more under Drafts, but is the saved version there somewhere?

As data is changed in a .pst file, what happens to the previous version
of that file?

It sure would be nice if Outlook saved a .bak copy of the .pst every ten
minutes or so, so if something like this happened, one would have a backup
copy, still with the data. (I know there are backup programs for Outlook,
but they can only work when Outlook is not running, a very different
situation.

I tried Scanpst, Office Repair, and a few other things.

Yes, writing that e-mail took hours, but now I have spent more hours
trying to recover the text, more time than what it would have taken me to
re-write it. I guess it's the computer geek in me that wants to find a
solution--that thinks "that message must be somewhere". Of course, I never
thought it would take this long. I always think I'll solve it in the next
few minutes.

Anyhow, I would still appreciate more suggestions. Thank you.



"Pat Willener" wrote in message
...
First of all, since it took you so long to write that message, I assume
that it should be quite large. What is the size of the message in the
Sent Items folder? If it is not just 1KB or 2KB like an empty message,
then we must assume that the text is still there, but has somehow become
invisible.

If that is the case, open the message, right-click on the message body
and select View Source. Do you see now your original text (interspersed
with HTML tags)?

MS wrote:
I'll add something else.

As that long e-mail took me hours to write, I many times clicked File,
Save, to save the message. Probably as well, pretty recently before
clicking the Send button, to send the message.

When one saves a message, I know it is saved in the "Drafts" folder.
That message is not there now, though. I guess when one clicks Send on a
message, and it goes to the Outbox, it is immediately deleted from
Drafts. Such messages do not appear in "Deleted Items" though.

I wonder, however, if the message might somehow still be under Drafts,
but hidden, and if there could be a way to revive it?

I hope someone can help with this problem. Thank you.


"MS" wrote in message
...
I will add a piece of information that I forgot to mention before. It
is probably not relevant to the problem, but just in case it is, I will
mention it here.

The original message in question was an HTML-formatted message. A long
HTML-formatted message was in the message body when I clicked "Send".

The message that now appears in my "Sent Items" folder has, as said,
the Message Subject and the Recipients listed, but the message body is
blank. Furthermore, the message body is listed as being formatted Plain
Text.

Therefore, somehow in the sending process, all the text in the message
body was lost, and the formatting of the message was changed from HTML
to Plain Text.

I would still greatly appreciate help with this. Thank you.

"MS" wrote in message
...
Using Outlook 2003 (all of Office 2003), all the latest updates, in
Win XPSP3.

I wrote a long important e-mail this morning, addressed to several
people. I clicked Send, then Send and Receive, and assumed my message
was sent.

I received an e-mail from one of the addressees, indicating that the
received e-mail was blank, no message.

I went to my Sent Items folder, with the intention of forwarding that
sent message to this one addressee.

The message title appeared in Sent Items folder, along with the
addressees. But the message was blank--nothing at all in message
window-although I had written a long message. I cannot find that text
I had written anywhere!

What could have happened?

Where could I possibly find that missing text, so I do not have to
write the message again?

Thank you in advance for your assistance. :-)

Just to add another voice here, Outlook lost the text from two messages of mine in the send process as well. My situation is very similar: several recipients (2 TO: and 2 CC: recipients), HTML formatting, long message, several saves (not at the end, though...) It happened the first time about three weeks ago and I should have been smarter about it when it happened again the other day.
There's one difference, though. I'm using McAfee now, and I just noticed that the setting that I have to scan email doesn't let me turn off scanning for outbound mail if I scan for inbound mail. Norton used to let me do that.
I'm not convinced that it's antivirus that was the problem, though. There isn't a single link or photo or file in that message. There would be no reason at all to delete the text, and certainly no reason not to notify me if it did.
I think it's Outlook that's doing it.

"Karen Strouse" wrote in message ...
Just to add another voice here,

WHERE? This is a global Usenet Newsgroup, NOT some sort of web forum. Please
quote the post you are replying to, reply to the thread, and do NOT change
the subject line.

Thank you.

No idea what problem you are talking about - but I will address the email
scanning. Unless you are clueless and can't identify spam/virus messages
without a program telling you it's a baddie, you don't need inbound scanning
any more than you need outbound scanning. As long as 'autoprotect' is
running and scanning all writes to the drive, you will be protected if you
attempt to open an infected message, just not forewarned.

The problem is that the scanners don't just scan messages with attachments
or links. They scan every message and the longer messages take long to
scan - that is usually when problems occur.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Outlook Tips: http://www.outlook-tips.net/
Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com

Outlook Tips by email:


EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:


You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...s/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.


"Karen Strouse" wrote in message ...
Just to add another voice here, Outlook lost the text from two messages of
mine in the send process as well. My situation is very similar: several
recipients (2 TO: and 2 CC: recipients), HTML formatting, long message,
several saves (not at the end, though...) It happened the first time about
three weeks ago and I should have been smarter about it when it happened
again the other day.
There's one difference, though. I'm using McAfee now, and I just noticed
that the setting that I have to scan email doesn't let me turn off
scanning for outbound mail if I scan for inbound mail. Norton used to let
me do that.
I'm not convinced that it's antivirus that was the problem, though. There
isn't a single link or photo or file in that message. There would be no
reason at all to delete the text, and certainly no reason not to notify me
if it did.
I think it's Outlook that's doing it.