I think that Microsoft Office programmers deserve some sort of an award for coming up with the most descriptive error message ever. Can you even be more ambiguous than [tag]Unknown Error[/tag] [tag]0x80040119[/tag]
? I submit that you cannot.
What does this error mean? In most cases it indicates that your [tag]PST file[/tag] is corrupted. If you are an [tag]Outlook[/tag] user, or someone who supports Outlook, you will probably already know that PST files always get corrupted on Tuesdays between 9 and 11 am. You can even keep your computer off all day – your file will still go to shit at a regularly scheduled intervals.
This is why Office ships with a tool that can be used to recover these files. It is called [tag]scanpst.exe[/tag] and it is usually well hidden somewhere on your system. On one of the office machines here it sits in:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033\SCANPST.EXE
But I have seen it hiding in other directories as well, depending on the version of Office you have installed. The scan usually takes around 10-15 minutes per file, and 99.9% of the time it will restore it to full usability. In fact, the only time you won’t be able to recover a file this way is when you get a Cyclic Redundancy Check error on top of ordinary Outlook madness. CRC faults are usually caused by bad sectors, and can often be repaired using chckdsk. Once you get rid off disk errors, you should be able to recover the file.
The point is, the recovery process seems to be quite painless, suggesting that most of the time PST files will be rendered unusable by very minor [tag]data corruption[/tag]. Which brings me to my point: WHY?
Why do they store emails in such a fragile, crappy file format? Instead of shipping scanpst.exe with Office why don’t they prevent Outlook from messing up the files in the first place? How come Outlook can’t calculate a checksum, and do error checking in real time? Why the hell do I need to repair stupid PST files every other week? Why do people keep using this POFS client???
Friends don’t let friends Outlook!
I’ve been using Outlook for the past year or so, and have never had my pst files go bad…
Perhaps it’s somethig else causing your problem ;-)
Yes, I am exaggerating a little bit. But that’s because I’m frustrated with Outlook.
You see, I have a user with 16+ PST files around 800MB each that absolutely need to be open at all times, who gets 100+ emails a day and never deletes anything other than spam. Most of the emails have 20MB+ attachments, and she sometimes keeps several copies for filing purposes.
She also has around 20 pst files with archival stuff that she sometimes needs to bring in. In total she has well over 15 Gigs of email that are absolutely crucial to the company.
This lady uses Outlook like a file repository, filing cabinet, a database, and god knows what else. 90% of her work related tasks revolve around managing all the shit she is receiving and sending out via email. She is responsible for scheduling and if her email is down, the business essentially stops.
Outlook is an email client. It was just not designed to be used this way – and with that workload I’m not surprised that PST files get corrupted. But she won’t even consider another solution.
That’s…. a lot of emails! :o
Tell me about it. Back in the day, I didn’t even know Outlook had issues with PST files over 1GB. Hell, I have been using Gmail for a long time now, and I don’t delete anything other than spam – and my space utilization % is still in like single digits. :P
I don’t know of anyone else who uses Outlook this way. But if a PST file gets corrupted or the email is down, half the company goes into panic mode.
When our ISP went down, I essentially went and bought 100 feet of cat5 so we can plug her into the wall DSL socket of another company located in the same building. Sigh…
WinDebug will allow you to lookup microsoft error codes
Usually I just hit up MS Knowledge base :mrgreen:
Yes sometimes I also get mad while my pst get corrupt and i want to repair it. I generally use Inbox repair tool to repair my pst folder. Sometimes it will helpful but when your pst is badly corrupted you are not able to recover it. This situation becomes very much frustrating. But do not worry you can also take help of pst recovery [stellarinfo.com/outlook-pst-file-recovery.htm] software.These pst repair software are easy to use and provides good recovery solution. Pst repair software uses latest technology to recover your data.
Hi, at HP i have got it as well
Try pst recover, can process corrupted files with *.ost and *.pst extension and save the data, that can be extracted, can convert corrupted mailbox to another mailbox in *.pst format, it can be opened by any email client, compatible with Microsoft Outlook, can extract all files separately: *.eml, *.txt and *.vcf documents will be placed to any folder upon your choice, is compatible with all supported versions of Windows operating system, starting from Windows 98.
They foul up on me all the time too. I realise I shouldn’t use them but I’m stuck in my ways now. Corrupt pst files are a pain but it’s not all that difficult to run a pst repair tool on them.
Here’s a brief guide on how to repair pst file.
At work with pst files and possible more than,try-recover pst file,software as far as i know is free,program recover lost Microsoft Outlook data is a sequence of operations involving scanning, identifying and saving such Microsoft Outlook items as messages, contacts, notes, reminders, journals, meetings, etc, recover data when a *.pst file completely or partially stops functioning, for example, it becomes completely or partially unreadable because of other applications, antivirus software or power failures,it scans, identifies and saves data from the pst file without modifying or indexing the source pst file,can save various Microsoft Outlook items as separate files with the .eml, .vcf and .txt extensions,reading data from files created in Microsoft Outlook versions 97, 98, 2000, XP, 2002, 2003, 2007 and saving recovered data in the format of Microsoft Outlook versions 97, 98, 2000, XP, 2002, 2003, 2007.
At work with outlook files advise use next tool-outlook fix,as far as i know program is free,it is used by a great many of individuals and businesses every day for a wide variety of tasks that require 100% stability and reliability: storing emails, business and personal contacts, as well as other important information, such as appointments, tasks and notes,restore data after internal software errors, power failures or hard drive crashes, let alone other possible reasons,can also be used to recover data from Microsoft Exchange .ost files and convert them into Microsoft Outlook .pst files,allows you to easily repair damaged .pst files and recover your information by making a few easy steps,knows how to fix Microsoft Outlook perfectly well, it will prompt you for the data recovery method you would like to use,saving the output data either as a single .pst file or as a set of .eml, .vcf and .txt files,can be easily imported by other applications supporting these formats, such as Microsoft Outlook Express or Windows Address Book.
Works. Thanks!!
I fixed this error with the help of this easy to use outlook pst recovery tool:outlook-pstrepair.com/