Outlook Not Getting E-mail Unless Restarted

My iPhone and iPad are connected to my Exchange server, and right after an e-mail is sent, both of them light up and receive it.

I also run Outlook 2010 (connected to the same Exchange server), and starting a few days ago it stopped receiving e-mail right after it is sent. Sometimes it will come in 10 minutes late, other times, it won't come in until I restart Outlook. All the e-mail will come in when I restart Outlook.

Any thoughts on what's going on?

Update 1: Here's an image of my connection status:

5 Answers

Repair the OST file. Sometimes the OST file becomes corrupt, go to Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12 and run Scanpst.exe.

I was having a similar issue as this and found a solution I figured I would share here.

Summary

In my case, the user has access to multiple mailboxes and was caching all of them. Which seemed to cause problems with immediate updates while the user was using Outlook.

What I did

1. I went into my user's account settings to Change

2. Opened up More Settings

3. Then went to the Advanced tab and unchecked Download shared folder under the Cached Exchange Mode Settings

This fixed my problem, although I am not sure if this fix is applicable to everyone.

Bear in mind

Cached Exchange Mode stores a local cache of your outlook files and folders on your local machine in an .ost file. This allows for users to use and manipulate their emails even when offline.

Turning this feature off, while it may fix the problem, will prevent users from viewing or using their email while offline. While the Download shared folders options will only do it for the extra mailboxes the user is given permission to in Exchange.

Extra: Shortening the amount of time it caches could also help.

Check the Send/Receive settings. I'm not at a computer now, so I don't remember the exact steps. Don't set the Send/Receive frequency to less than 15 minutes, it can cause you to get blocked out of the server, depending on server settings.

Also, you can always press F9 to trigger the general Send/Receive.

I'm using Outlook 2010. Somewhere along the line Microsoft updates broke the email notification banner (using Windows7). I found a tip on creating a rule to display a banner when emails are received. Turned out after much time trying to troubleshoot, the rule I created to notify me with an alert that I've received email was causing Outlook to randomly stop receiving new emails. I'd rather get my emails and only be notified by the little envelope in the task/status bar than to have to restart Outlook several times a day. I removed the rule and all is well.

Possibly overlooked solution - simpler than anything. I was having no luck on this same issue with days of combing the internet, repairing, reinstalling, etc. I thought Outlook 2016 might be just getting old or something. But it still worked fine on my laptop running same OS, so why not on my PC? Finally I found something basic I overlooked. In File > Account Settings > Server Settings I noticed that for one of my accounts I had a merely "workable" address for the Server address. ["mail.mydomain.com" vs something more specific from the host like "xxxx1234.hostingservice.com"] I should stress that a tech at the hosting service had me change it to mail.mydomain.com a while back, saying it was all the same. NOT. Once I switched it, it has been smooth sailing. I hope this is your easy solution as well.