Outlook out of memory/resources

mpalandr · Post by **mpalandr** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 12:21 pm

I have several Windows 7 Pro SP1 x86 PCs with Office 2007 Pro SP2 x86. I think the Zimbra version is 7.1.1_GA_3196, based on text I found in ZmSettings.js.
All the PCs are the same Dell Optiplex 380 hardware, and all are cloned from the same image. They use the Outlook connector with Zimbra. This works fine for most, but 90% of the time Outlook can't start on one machine. Outlook seems to start, whacks the hard disk for several seconds, and displays:
"Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window. Out of memory or system resources. Close some windows or programs and try again."

I have tried both of these Outlook connector installers with the same results:

ZimbraConnectorOLK_7.1.1.6324_x86.msi

ZimbraOlkConnector-6.0.7_GA_2470_6.0.5981.7.msi
Based on the limited info I could find on this error, I have tried the following:
Removed Office 2007 SP2.

Uninstalled Office 2007 altogether and installed Office 2007 RTM.

Used Scanpst.exe on both the .pst and .zdb files. It did find and repair issues in both files, but I think they were the result of Outlook partially opening them before encountering the error.

Started Outlook in safe mode.

Used MSsconfig.exe to start Windows in diagnostic startup mode.

Added the following registry keys:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows Messaging Subsystem]

"SharedMemMaxSize"=dword:800000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows Messaging SubsystemApplicationsOutlookSharedMemMaxSize]

"SharedMemMaxSize"=dword:800000

Other info:
On rare occasions, it will start without error after errors have already occurred.
This is more likely to happen when the error occurs, I start Outlook in safe mode on the next go, the error is displayed again, and I restart Outlook again.
Sometimes when restarting after the error, I get this error:"Outlook experienced a serious problem with the Zimbra sharing add-in, do you want to disable the add-in." (Occasionally the it's the Zimbra shut-down add-in instead.)
Sometimes after the error has occurred and I restart the PC, Outlook detects the .zbd file was not closed properly and repairs it, then throws the out of memory error.
When the out of memory error is displayed, occasionally the Zimbra Send/Receive dialog is displayed, the GAL is downloaded and signatures synchronize (2 of 2 tasks) with no errors.
When I dismiss the memory error, the dialog disappears, but occasionally an Outlook process remains in task manager.
This user has a very large .zdb file, just over 3 Gb. The initial sync took over three hours.
The same user has a Windows XP SP3 PC with Office 2007 Pro SP2, and it works properly.
I'm out of things to try. Any one else see this before and know what to do? This is a department head, and from her perspective, doing without Outlook is not an option.

fsiegel · Post by **fsiegel** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:31 am

Sometimes when Outlook displays that message, you're really not out of memory, etc. There must be something on this machine that is flaky. I've known this to happen if you have an old version of PGP email cncryption installed, but that isn't likely here. Also, if you have a large Note (which we don't even sync), this can happen -- you might check to see if there is something like that on the system. It also could happen if there is some very large MAPI property that Outlook is trying to open. Here are a couple of things to do:
1) We have had some issues with GAL sync with ZCO 7.0 and 7.1. We have just fixed this in 7.1.2, and that version is on the support portal. You could try with this version, and see if the problem goes away. Or you could disable GAL sync temporarily, and see if that helps. In Outlook 2007, you can change the GAL sync mode by doing Tools->Send Receive->Global Address List, and changing to manual or disabled. Of course, if you can't get in there because of a crash, you can change it via regedit:
HKCUSoftwareIMBRAGalSyncMode (1 for manual, 2 for disabled)
If this value isn't there, then:
HKLMSOFTWAREimbraGalSyncMode (1 for manual, 2 for disabled)
I have a feeling that GAL sync isn't the problem, but it's worth a try.
2) Enable ZCO logging (just logging and http logging, not verbose) and post the log. Perhaps that will tell us something. Not sure it will produce anything before crashing or not.
Most likely, there is some large object on this machine that Outlook can't handle. The fact that this happens with both 6.0.7 and 7.1.1 probably indicates that there is something outside of our code that is causing the problem. Could there be some bad .dlls on there? Maybe an old version of MAPI?

mpalandr · Post by **mpalandr** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:12 am

Thanks for the reply.
This key was present:
HKLMSOFTWAREimbraGalSyncMode (1 for manual, 2 for disabled)
I set it to 2, restarted, there was no change.

[quote user="fsiegel"]Most likely, there is some large object on this machine that Outlook can't handle. The fact that this happens with both 6.0.7 and 7.1.1 probably indicates that there is something outside of our code that is causing the problem. Could there be some bad .dlls on there? Maybe an old version of MAPI?[/QUOTE]

There are eight identical Win 7 Pro machines, both hardware and Windows image, and this one is the only one with the problem. The image is a clean install of Win 7 built just for these Optiplex machines, so there should be no baggage from previous installs.
This leads toward something that was download to Outlook in the sync process that it can't handle. This user's .zdb file is at least 4 times larger than any other user's .zdb.
But it there is no error for this same user on a Windows XP machine with the same version and SP version of Office, which makes me think that it's a combination of what's in her Outlook, and the fact that the OS is Win 7.
I've attached the log. It's from starting logging, restarting the PC, starting Outlook and letting it run until the error occurs, and turning off loggin.
zco-20110805T075547.180-OUTLOOK.EXE-3920.log

fsiegel · Post by **fsiegel** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:26 am

I figured this wasn't the problem, but just to check: was the HKCU value also there? Because if it was, we'll use that instead of HKLM. So if it's there, change that one as well.

mpalandr · Post by **mpalandr** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:56 am

No, HKCU only has two keys:
GalDeltaSync and GalResync.

snissen · Post by **snissen** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:31 pm

[quote user="mpalandr"]

There are eight identical Win 7 Pro machines, both hardware and Windows image, and this one is the only one with the problem.

[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but hardware is never identical is it? I'd run deep hardware diagnostics on that one machine, especially memory and hard disk, overnight if possible. Most system manufacturers offer hardware diagnostic utilities, or you can use Microsoft's free Windows Memory Diagnostic. (For hard disks, I always use a licensed copy of SpinRite from grc.com.)
This sounds like a bad memory DIMM to me.
But what do I know? I'm a software gal, myself. Sande

mpalandr · Post by **mpalandr** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 8:20 am

I cloned the disk and now have it running on another PC; completely different hardware, but as identical as Dell can build them from the same quote.
Unfortunately, I'm still getting the error.

fsiegel · Post by **fsiegel** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:26 am

If I had to guess, I would say that this isn't a problem with the machinel, but a problem with the particular user profile. I'll bet if you used the same machine for another user, it would work fine. I believe that this user just has too many Outlook folders. MAPI only allows a maximum of 255 open RPC channels per process. If you have tons of folders with tons of messages in each folder, you can run into this limit, especially with all the recursion that goes on when traversing folder trees, etc.
Is it possible for this user to do some reorganization? Perhaps consolidate some folders, or archive some? At least that would be a good test. It looks like this user has over 4000 folders. Perhaps cut that in half and see what happens. Another thing they could do is tag messages (Outlook categories) rather than use folders. Of course we currently only allow 64 tags (that increases in 8.0, I believe), but this would be another way to limit the number of folders.
Perhaps archiving old stuff is the way to go here.

mpalandr · Post by **mpalandr** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:01 pm

Thanks for your help. I've discussed this with our email admin and we'll be encouraging this user to reduce her folder use. That conversion brought up a couple questions:
Why would this be a problem in Win 7 but not Win XP?

If she uses the Outlook archive process to archive a portion of her .zdb to an archive .pst, won't Outlook try open the archive .pst and run into the same problem? It seems like it would be trying to process the same number of msgs and folders, the only difference being they are in two files rather than one.

fsiegel · Post by **fsiegel** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 2:24 pm

So this same user works in XP? Are the Outlook versions the same on Win7 and XP? Interesting. I still think it has to do with the number of folders. Perhaps MAPI memory usage is different with Windows 7.
The issue is how many rpc channels are open at one time. So if she specifically opens the .pst, that would be after ZCO is done processing the non-archived folders, and MAPI would be freeing that first memory.
I think it's worth a try, at any rate.
I would be interested in seeing a ZCO log file for the same user on a working XP system, so I can compare it to the one I already have.