Problems with Contacts (2000 9.0.0.4527 Corporate)

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I have a user who is having multiple problems with Outlook Contacts. When we upgraded to Office 2000 long ago, this user did NOT import his PAB file info into the Contacts folder in his mailbox (don’t fix what ain’t broke). Several months ago, he decided to move the PAB info into Contacts. He said he did this to be able to synch with his PalmPilot. His Personal Address Book was deleted from his “services”.

Since that time he has been experiencing odd problems that I can’t seem to fix. I’ve also searched the MS KB and Woody’s Lounge (the best!) for answers. I haven’t yet found the answer. So, here’s what is happening.

He’ll be in the Contacts folder (under the Mailbox). He clicks on the Address Book icon and switches to the Global Address list. He finds a name that he wants to add to his Contacts. So, he looks at the user’s properties and clicks on Add to Personal Address Book. Here’s the weird part, the Full Name field now shows Last Last! Example: If his chooses Doe, John from the GAL, the contact Full Name shows Doe, Doe! He can reproduce this problem everytime he tries to add a new contact from the GAL.

The other odd problem he is experiencing is that sometimes he loses a Contact and a few minutes later it reappears. For example, John Doe is there, then isn’t there, then is back again. To make it worse, when addressing email he can type in John Doe and the email goes out perfectly fine. Then, a few minutes later Outlook won’t even see John Doe and won’t send the email. The funny part is that most of the time, he loses me! (He’s my boss and maybe this is a subtle hint – just kidding!)

I have seen these problems on several occasions – so it isn’t a case of the user not knowing what to do. I have checked and rechecked all of his settings. I even deleted the .NICK file. Everything I’ve read here and in the KB is set correctly.

I’m at the proverbial . Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

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A couple of quick thoughts. First, the global address list is maintained on the Exchange server so there should be no need to add people from this to contacts. Also, when he types “John Doe”, Outlook will find this in the GAL so this is why it goes out. By default, the GAL is the first address list checked.

When he clicks to “add to personal address book”, how this gets added is going to have to do with how the names are entered on the Exchange Server. It could be that the individual first/last name fields are not used or incomplete and that is why the Doe, Doe! is coming over. When you are in the GAL you can right-click and check properties to see what fields are used.

Re disappearing/reappearing contacts. Does this happen with different views in Outlook? Different views could have filters which cause names to not be visible.

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Thanks for responding so quickly.

I, too, was surprised that he would add names from the GAL to his Contacts. He did this for two reasons. We work at the Department of Veterans Affairs and our GAL contains thousands and thousands of names. By putting the names he uses often into his Contacts, it takes less time to resolve John Doe into John.Doe@med.va.gov. He changed the default addressing settings so his Contacts folder is the first folder that Outlook looks for addresses.

The other reason he puts the names into Contacts from the GAL is for synching with the Palm. That way he can create the emails in the Palm.

I already checked Views and he is using the “Address Card” view with no other filters.

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Your email mentioned that a user had default addressing settings so his Contacts folder is the first folder that Outlook looks for addresses. Can you tell me where the setting is for this? I would like do the same thing.

Thanks

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Karen,

Go to Tools, Services, Addressing, Select Contacts for “When sending mail, check names using these address lists in the following order”.

We worked in the “Corporate/Workgroup” environment. I don’t know what the settings are if you are using the “Internet Only Mode”.

I hope this helps. I know that Woody’s is a valuable resource that I’m glad I can use!

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Haven’t seen this one before; time for some serious diagnostics! The steps below assume the PDA process is not wacking (sorry for the technical term) his contacts. I’ve seen this happen, especially when they sync between multiple PCs.

1) Do any other users see this behavior? If not, it’s probably not a server issue.

2) Set him up with a profile on another PC. If the problem continues, it’s probably a mailbox issue. If it goes away, it’s either a profile or installation issue.

3) Set him up with a different profile on his PC. If the problem continues, it’s an installation issue. Try Detect and repair. Or uninstall and reinstall. If it goes away then it was a profile problem. Have the boss use the new profile (they’ll have to adjust their PDA settings.

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Thanks for the suggestions.

We have already ruled out the Exchange server issue. He’s the only one on the Exchange server at our facility experiencing this problem. I don’t have experience with the Palm setup to know whether or not it is causing the problem but I’ll check into that one.

I had already decided that see if the IPM.Contact form had gotten corrupted when comes to parsing the information to create the Full Name field. So, I’m going to also pursue that. Sometimes I’ve found that Detect and Repair doesn’t (if you get my drift). As I mentioned, the Full Name field appears as Last Last. The odd part is when you double click on it and get the Check Full Name dialog box, though, it has the correct First Name and correct Last Name.

The other interesting (or should I say frustrating) part is that the Select Names dialog box wasn’t alphabetizing the names! The Contacts Address Card view does have them alphabetized so it isn’t a view issue. I had already reset the Views to the default settings.

Yesterday afternoon, I had him rescan his C: drive to see if he had a virus lurking in there. The virus scan came back saying it scanned clean – it didn’t find anything. Well, that must have done something because this morning the Select Names dialog box is now alphabetized. Unfortunately it didn’t solve the other problems.

One down – several to go! I’ll post back the results of the “Detect and Repair”! We’ll also try setting up a new profile on another machine. I’m sure it will be fine!

Thanks again.

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Sorry for the delay in getting back to this issue.

Our solution is as follows: My boss saves the new contact as formatted by Outlook (with the Full Name as Last, Last). He then reopens the contact, changes the Full Name to Last, First and then saves the change. Outlook doesn’t automically make this change for him (see bolded information below). My boss knows this is cumbersome but he is willing to live with it. He didn’t want to “waste” his time any longer trying to fix this problem. (In our environment, sometimes it’s easier to use a “kludge” rather than going through the proper channels to reload software, etc. – It’s hard to believe but true!)

The interesting part is that I finally found this problem in the MS Knowledge Base (319767) while I was researching a different problem. Although the article is dated 11/22/02, I certainly didn’t find it in early December 02! Here’s their description of the problem and their fix for the problem:

If you click the Address Book button, right-click a name, and then click Add to Personal Address Book in a new contact, the contact’s name appears as “Last, Last” (without quotation marks) instead of “Last, First” (without quotation marks) in the Full Name box. But, if you click Save and Close, the contact’s name appears correctly as “Last, First” in your Contact folder.
” This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP-3).”

I know that we’re not going to SP-3 any time soon!

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