Outlook freezes halfway through synchronising

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The title sums it up. The progress bar shows it’s reached halfway, and underneath it says “Synchronising…”. It can stay that way for hours.

Occasionally, a synchronisation message pops up that won’t go away. It’ll remain there indefinitely until I kill the task (the same way I deal with the halfway progress problem). Unlike with the first issue, when I restart Outlook I get a message stating it can’t find the .ost file. I have to reboot to get around that one.

This issue has survived various Office updates.

Anyone have any suggestions for a resolution?

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Have you checked the disk structure? (Right click on C:, Properties, Check)

Is your OST very large?

How long have you had the problem?

cheers, Paul

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There’s bags of room on C:. The OST is 4Mb, which shouldn’t be too large. I get the impression, though, that it never goes lower than its highwater mark.

I’ve had the problem for at least two months.

It seems to be a connection issue. I’m wondering if somehow the handshake gets lost and the server is waiting for my PC while my PC  is waiting for the Outlook server.

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Close all Office apps.
Rename the OST.
Reboot and run Outlook. It should re-sync.

BTW, do you have a slow internet connection?

cheers, Paul

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I have a fast connection over fibre.

I initially followed Microsoft’s advice (run the troubleshooter, re-install Office, etc), but the issue remained. When Outlook halts, I kill the process, restart it, and it runs fine until the problem comes back, usually after a day or so. So I don’t think it’s an OST issue. Somehow the connection is interrupted and left hanging. I don’t have that problem with other programs.

BTW, this is a new PC and has been running for three months. I think the issue has been there most of the time.

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Which troubleshooter?

Did you try Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant?

How to scan Outlook by using the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant

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WSPerrorist

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It found that BITS was set to Manual start. I’ve changed it to Automatic. I’ll wait to see if that fixes the problem. In the meantime, thanks for your help.

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b

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