Outlook Express won't display body of messages

[Michael Elleby III_1]

I've un-installed and re-installed Outlook Express several times on my WinXP Home machine, and everytime a message comes in, the body is blank, either in the preview pane, or even when I open up the message to view it.. All else with the message is fine.

Any suggestions?

[Jacob Paulus]

I haven't ever seen this problem before so here are a few guesses and an attempt at an explanation:

Outlook Express doesn't actually download the entire message when it updates with the server...it only fetches the email headers. There may be a very strange problem with your mail server whereby it removes the message from the server when Outlook Express fetches the header (the server may think it is getting the entire message..) You could try to leave a copy of the message on the server (set under the account properties dialog box)

Make sure your e-mail account is set up as a mail account and not a news account. Outlook express has a setting to delete message bodies of read news messages.

Also, see the attached picture for another method of troubleshooting.

[Robert Taylor_13]

This has recently happened to me. Outlook Express just stops showing the body of the message. I have tried all kinds of things to get it back and nothing seems to work.

I was hoping that someone had a solution to this problem.

I have had to start using a different email app just to be able to read my incoming mail.

[HGN]

Hi

This has happened in my environment also, you need to change preview setting and check view with auto-reply I think and then it will start showing.

Rgds

Gopi

[Robert Taylor_13]

I tried changing the Preview Pane setting. That didn't do anything.

Plus I have tried everything stated in the orginal post.

"I've un-installed and re-installed Outlook Express several times..., and everytime a message comes in, the body is blank, either in the preview pane, or even when I open up the message to view it. All else with the message is fine."

There must be a file somewhere that is corrupted. I even deleted the Inbox.dbx file hoping that when it got recreated the problem would be solved. It wasn't.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

[Shahed Sharif Eahsan]

I've had this problem the only was I could get round it was to rename my existing windows profile, and create another one. Then reimport all the message and etc back in this seems to solve it. But has any one else got a quicker way to resolve this...

[Rick Gudorf]

Try following please:

Start, then Run:

regsvr32 inetcomm.dll

(I found this on Experts-Exchange and it worked for me.)

Regards.

[Patrick Marotta]

Very nice, I have been having this exact problem since yesterday. Searching the internet with keyword revealed the conversation here. I just tried the run command and it works perfect. Rick hit it on the head! Thanks a lot...

By the way, does anybody know how to get an adware (at least I think it is adware) "advanced search" toolbar line off of my toolbar area. It has colored boxes with the topics "Hot Spots", "Pharmacy", "Gambling", etc...Please let me know if you do. (I have tried "toolbars", under the view option and it does not seem to help) Thanks for any help.

[angela_44]

You need to open the Outlook Express, click on tools, options, maintenance. On this tab you can try to use the clean up now and see if that will work. If it doesn't work then go back to the same maintenance tab and click store folder, copy the path, and then follow the path to the correct folder, after you copy the path close the outlook express. The last folder to open should be the \outlook express folder.. open this and delete all files within the folder. Then restart the computer, open the Outlook Express after restart, you may have to setup the email account again... Then test. The messages should display. I just used this with a customer and the problem was resolved.

angela

[Shahed Sharif Eahsan]

I'll try the

Start, then Run: regsvr32 inetcomm.dll

I've also found that the PC's that have this problem also cant print from IE just prints blank pages.Also oyher things line not opening older 16bit programs or missing autoexec.nt file. I wonder if its some sort of virus thats causeing all this.

[Steve Norton]

I have the exact same problem and I *believe* it has something to do with removing an BHO (browser helper object)... in other words, cleaning spyware from the PC.

I don't know what I deleted, but now I can't get OE to show any of my newgroup messages. The message is there as I can go to the message properties and see the text in the message source.

Any ideas anyone?

[Shahed Sharif Eahsan]

We discovered that in our case it was the user variables.

Temp & Tmp values had changed to a % sign. So we changed the value to c:\temp for Temp and tmp and all was well again.

[Firgia Nieves]

I did what was suggested:

Start, then Run: regsvr32 inetcomm.dll

It worked like a charm!! I re-started Outlook Express and the body of the email messages re-appeared. Thank you so much.

[Christina Lowe]

No, I don't have a suggestion. I was actually trying to start a new message but hit reply (first timer, sorry!)

I read everyone's messages/suggestions on the same problem and none of them are working!! I did the "run" suggestion w/ regsvr32 inetcomm.dll and I even deleted all of my folders under Outlook Express (so all my emails went bye bye!) but none of these are helping. Anyone else have anything else??

[D. Campa]

According to microsoft Article ID:312351

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/312351/en-us

When you view messages in Outlook Express 5.x, the body of the message may be blank and the message may contain an attachment named ATT000XX.txt or ATT000XX.htm. If you use Outlook Express 6.0, the body of the message is blank and there is no attachment.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this behavior, clear the Temp and Temporary Internet folders:
1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
2. On the General tab, click Delete Files, click OK, and then click OK again.
3. In Windows Explorer, click to expand the hard disk letter, click to expand Windows, and then click to expand Temp.
4. Select all of the files, and then on the File menu, click Delete.
5. Click Yes.

[Howard Hsiao]

Please check the value for your TEMP and TMP environment variables and make sure that they point to valid directories.
Did you accidentally delete your temporary directory (set in TEMP and TMP)?

[Edel Murphy]

I am having this problem with blank message body just from one person with whom I communicate - all other messages are fine. I've tried the Run instruction above to no avail.

Any other suggestions? Anyone having this "once-off" problem? I am running McAfee Virus protection - I thought that might be the problem?

[out look express]

I get most of the email but from one or two others the messages are blank. Ive tried to run "regsvr32 inetcomm.dll, but it has not affect. Anyone have any ideas?

[neilsav]

Ok, so my mother had the same problem and I couldn't figure out what exactly the problem was based on all of your help above.

After further research you need to deleted all of the information out of the C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp

Just fill in your username in the < >

Something similar was recommended above but that was with a temp folder not associated to the specific username. Outlook Express uses the temp folder in which XP is currently logged in to.

Neil

[Alan Lyons]

I tried everything that was posted but finally got onto our IT guy. Forget everything that has been suggested I spent 4 hours trying everything. Here's what to do:
Close down every program your not using
Open your internet browser
select tools
internet options
delete files (OK)
then select OK at the bottom
It will dissappear off the screen
Go to Start
My Computer
Select your hard drive (usually C drive)
Documents and Settings
Your User folder (It may be your name)
Local settings
Temp
Then delete everything in the temp file. I had 99903 files so it took ages, and there were 2 files it simply wouldn't let me delete.

However after I persevered and then went back into Outlook Express it was back to normal. Hope this helps. Alan

[MRC]

I have tried every suggestion listed here and none of it has solved this problem with Outlook on my laptop. I know the message bodies are there because I copied the message folders from my desktop computer to the laptop to be able to go through emails at work, which I have done many times before and always been able to read the messages just fine. Also, when looking at message properties-details-message source, the body contents are in that too, but still will not display in either the preview pane or the fully opened message. An additional problem is that when clicking on an attachment picture (under the paperclip) it will not open and basically ignores the click. I have to manually save the files somewhere and then open to view. I have also tried copying the Program Files\Outlook Express folder over from the desktop to the laptop in hopes of overwriting a corrupt file but that didnt' work either.

I know what will solve the problem: the next time I format and reinstall the system.

[Jim Kaufmann]

Check to see if you have a corrupted font, in particular the most used fonts, Arial and Times New Roman. I had Arial bold that displayed all blanks!

I had other symptoms also. Skype errored with "Out of Resource memory" Visual FoxPro Exceptioned Errored when trying to modify a Report Form. All using Arial Bold.

Solution in my case was to copy Arialbd.ttf from another computer.

[Knodge]

The blank message body happened to me with OE on XP SP2 after running anti-spyware software. I also found that after forwarding a message to Hotmail the message was blank there also!
After trying all the fixes suggested in this thread without success I found the following finally worked for me. I edited the Environment variables (accessed via 'My Computer@ - R Click - Properties) and changed the location for temp and tmp from the location in c:\Documents and Settings... Local Settings\ to c:\temp. Bingo! (without re-booting). Good luck.

[Jeffrey Starr]

My problem is not receiving emails with blank content, but rather, whenever I type in the body of the letter, only blanks appear. The cursor moves right along, but nothing shows. Any ideas how to fix this??

[Dennis Handly]

>Jeffrey: whenever I type in the body of the letter, only blanks appear.

What happens when you send it to yourself? Is the background color the same as the foreground?