Posted by Alex in Question Defense?
A client of mine that still uses Outlook Express called me because they were unable to receive mail on one of their PC’s. After a little troubleshooting I determined that there was nothing wrong with the account itself but it appeared the issue was on the computer. The specific error they were receiving is below.
Unable To Receive Email With Outlook Express, Error Number: 0×800C0133
Error:An unkown error has occurred. Account: ‘mail.example.com’, Server: ‘mail.example’, Protocol: POP3, Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0×800C0133
Knowing that the storage files from Outlook Express become corrupted often and also the fact that there is a 2GB file size limit for .dbx files I decided to look into the storage folder first. You can find the storage folder by following the simple directions below.
Launch Outlook Express: First launch the application.
Open OE Options: Now select Tools from the top navigation menu and select Options from the drop down.
Maintenance: Click on the maintenance tab in the Options window.
Store Folder:Now click the Store Folder button which will pop open a new window with the location of the store folder. This folder will hold all of Outlook Express .dbx files.
Typical Storage Location: C:/Documents and Settings/
Anyhow the issue ended up being that the Inbox.dbx file had grown to 2GB’s and thus was not allowing any more mail to be downloaded. I shutdown Outlook Express, copied all of the inbox mail to a new folder, renamed Inbox.dbx to Inbox.dbx.OLD, and restarted Outlook Express. When Outlook Express restarts it will automatically create another Inbox.dbx and start downloading the email on the server.
If you are still running Outlook Express I suggest upgrading to Microsoft Outlook 2007.