OL2003, send/receive fail only at first start of day

Upon reading Jeff's suggestion about mail scanning, I've been testing
different combinations of the following configuration settings:
-Firewall
-Anti-Spam
-Manual scanning
-Real-time scanning
-Mail scanning
-Web mail scanning
All combinations have failed the initial poll/download of messages when
Outlook is first fired up. At this point that still leaves the singular
resolution of disabling (or uninstalling) PC-cillin.
A note of promise though, is that Microsoft is still trying to help; and now
Trend Micro has contacted me, and seems very eager to sort this out.
Thanks for your continued feedback, Peter. And thanks for continuing to
follow this thread, Jeff, and giving your input.
ZILLA



"pb2000" wrote:

OL got stuck again on one of the receives this morning. When I then clicked
for a manual send/receive, it all worked fine.

So, completely unintegrating Winfax Pro 10.03 and disabling just the
autoupdate capability in PC-cillin Internet Security 2005 has no effect on
this problem.

And to note - I have all email scanning turned off in PC-cillin.

ZILLA's troubleshooting still points to an interaction between OL2003 and
PC-cillin.

Anyone have further thoughts on how we might proceed? It seems that someone
needs to analyze how the two programs interact to find the root cause. Can
Microsoft and Trend Micro take this on as a bug problem to fix?

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:19:03 -0800, pb2000 wrote:

ZILLA's troubleshooting still points to an interaction between OL2003 and
PC-cillin.
Anyone have further thoughts on how we might proceed?

Can you duplicate ZILLA's results? His trials involved uninstalling
PC-cillin completely, rather than just disabling the mail scanning portion.
If a complete uninstall doesn't fix it for you, it says that you and he are
having different issues, and that we need to look at other options.

It seems that someone needs to analyze how the two programs interact to
find the root cause. Can Microsoft and Trend Micro take this on as a bug
problem to fix?

Frankly, I don't think this is something that we at Microsoft can do
anything about. As far as I know, Outlook works with all SMTP and POP3
servers just fine (even many that aren't strictly standards-compliant).
It's only when some other program tries to wedge itself between Outlook and
the server that the problems start.

To me, that says that it is the wedging program that is at fault. That's
not surprising. The folks who do anti-virus products are experts in
detecting viruses, not in writing email programs, yet in order to scan mail
as it arrives they need to be, effectively, an email program. Believe me -
there's a lot more to writing an email program than just reading the
appropriate RFCs (Internet standards). There's a lot of experience (I've
been doing email for a decade) and out-of-band knowledge that is needed,
yet time and again I encounter people that think that they can read the
standards, and then write a production-quality email program in a week. To
them I say "Dream on!".

Have you tried contacting Trend Micro? If so, what's their take on this?

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

I have been able to duplicate at least part of ZILLA's testing:

Today after turning on the PC I disabled PC-cillin completely. First turned
off the real-time scanner and then closed the entire program. (Did not
uninstall.)

Opened Outlook and the first auto send/receive completed normally.

Closed Outlook, Re-enabled PC-cillin, restarted PC, Re-opened Outlook. The
first auto send/receive also completed normally.

I'll keep trying this for a few days to see if the very first send/receive
of the day continues to complete normally.

Three days now where after booting to desktop I (1) disabled PC-cillin
real-time scanning and then turning off PC-cillin , (2) turned on OL2003 for
the fist time of the day, and (3) saw the first automatic send/receive
complete normally. This seems to duplicate part of ZILLA's testing
consistently.

The other part of ZILLA's testing was during the day to turn PC-cillin back
on, reboot, and have the first send/receive after the reboot fail. I have NOT
been able to duplicate behavior at all. On my PC after the first send/receive
works it seems that all others will as well.

I've posted this to Trend Micro. No response yet.

I found two registry entries that seem suspicious:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\TRENDMICRO\TmProxy\Sca n\Pop3\MailManager

and the same key with Pop3 changed to Smtp.

Both had a variable Enable=1. Compared to other TrendMicro settings there,
it seemed these should be set to 0 or off. I changed both to 0.

Now I am running with PC-cillin enabled, NO email scanning, and these
changed registry settings. Only one day of testing so far. This morning
configured this way the initial OL automatic send/receive completed normally.
Will have to follow it for a few more days to see how it goes.

ZILLA - it would be interesting to see if you find similar registry settings.

I've still not heard back from Trend Micro. I've followed up with a second
email.

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 09:21:02 -0800, pb2000 wrote:

I found two registry entries that seem suspicious:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\TRENDMICRO\TmProxy\Sca n\Pop3\MailManager

and the same key with Pop3 changed to Smtp.

Both had a variable Enable=1. Compared to other TrendMicro settings there,
it seemed these should be set to 0 or off. I changed both to 0.

Now I am running with PC-cillin enabled, NO email scanning, and these
changed registry settings. Only one day of testing so far. This morning
configured this way the initial OL automatic send/receive completed normally.
Will have to follow it for a few more days to see how it goes.

ZILLA - it would be interesting to see if you find similar registry settings.

I've still not heard back from Trend Micro. I've followed up with a second
email.

Cool. Sounds to me like you nailed it - those registry entries do sound
suspicious. Good detective work!

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Good job Peter!
I have been chomping at the bit to dive into the Trend Micro registry
settings, but have been hard pressed to find the time.
I am little disappointed at Trend Micro tech support. At first they seemed
eager to help, but now they are kind of going in circles.
Since you mentioned TmProxy, I did a google search and found a support
article from Europe that mentioned changing the "TmProxy.exe" to
"TmProxy.old" which, of course would render it useless. This may be the same
net effect as your changes to the registry. My only concern is it's overall
impact on security, as I believe this disables the mail scanning, and leaves
only real time scanning. This program has caught no less than six viruses or
worms while scanning incoming mail on my system, so it's just a little nerve
racking not to have it. I have implemented this change, though, and after a
single test I too had a successful result. I will keep you informed.
ZILLA

"Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]" wrote:

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 09:21:02 -0800, pb2000 wrote:

I found two registry entries that seem suspicious:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\TRENDMICRO\TmProxy\Sca n\Pop3\MailManager

and the same key with Pop3 changed to Smtp.

Both had a variable Enable=1. Compared to other TrendMicro settings there,
it seemed these should be set to 0 or off. I changed both to 0.

Now I am running with PC-cillin enabled, NO email scanning, and these
changed registry settings. Only one day of testing so far. This morning
configured this way the initial OL automatic send/receive completed normally.
Will have to follow it for a few more days to see how it goes.

ZILLA - it would be interesting to see if you find similar registry settings.

I've still not heard back from Trend Micro. I've followed up with a second
email.

Cool. Sounds to me like you nailed it - those registry entries do sound
suspicious. Good detective work!

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 11:09:04 -0800, ZILLA wrote:

My only concern is it's overall impact on security, as I believe this
disables the mail scanning, and leaves only real time scanning. This
program has caught no less than six viruses or worms while scanning
incoming mail on my system, so it's just a little nerve racking not to
have it.

Presumably the real-time scanner will catch any viruses that you receive in
email and prevent them from running. After all, it undoubtedly uses the
same virus signatures... Yeah, "defense in depth" is a good approach to
take (keep viruses from arriving, also keep them from running, but if I had
to pick one or the other I'd definitely pick the "keep them from runing".

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

I have tried to duplicate Peter's results with the suspicious registry
settings. I noticed that you combined the registry changes with the option
to NOT scan email messages. My results are as follows:

The initial download of messages in Outlook is successful ONLY if the option
in PC-cillin to scan messages is disabled. The registry changes, alone, had
no effect in my PC.

No further assistance from Microsoft or Tend Micro. I'm growing weary of
correcting this issue, and am now prepared to accept the nature of things as
they stand -- To either cancel the initial download of messages, or simply
accept the Send/Receive Progress error reports when they pop up.

I hate when something beats me.
ZILLA



"pb2000" wrote:

I found two registry entries that seem suspicious:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\TRENDMICRO\TmProxy\Sca n\Pop3\MailManager

and the same key with Pop3 changed to Smtp.

Both had a variable Enable=1. Compared to other TrendMicro settings there,
it seemed these should be set to 0 or off. I changed both to 0.

Now I am running with PC-cillin enabled, NO email scanning, and these
changed registry settings. Only one day of testing so far. This morning
configured this way the initial OL automatic send/receive completed normally.
Will have to follow it for a few more days to see how it goes.

ZILLA - it would be interesting to see if you find similar registry settings.

I've still not heard back from Trend Micro. I've followed up with a second
email.

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 09:39:10 -0800, ZILLA wrote:

I have tried to duplicate Peter's results with the suspicious registry
settings. I noticed that you combined the registry changes with the option
to NOT scan email messages. My results are as follows:

The initial download of messages in Outlook is successful ONLY if the option
in PC-cillin to scan messages is disabled. The registry changes, alone, had
no effect in my PC.

No further assistance from Microsoft or Tend Micro. I'm growing weary of
correcting this issue, and am now prepared to accept the nature of things as
they stand -- To either cancel the initial download of messages, or simply
accept the Send/Receive Progress error reports when they pop up.

Why not just leave the mail scanning turned off? The real-time virus
component should protect you should a virus arrive in email.

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights