Outlook hangs when I try to load a profile for exchange account

Question

Something corrupted my user profile.

I was running a profile where I connected to a gmail via pop3 and our local exchange server. One day I killed a process via the debugger during the startup process for Outlook (I am developing an Outlook addin). Ever since that point, I cannot load Outlook with the exchange server.

I have deleted the original profile and created 2 new profiles where I separated the accounts. The pop3 one will load every time the pop3 profile is selected. The exchange one will hang on loading profile, every time the exchange profile is selected. I get the following message.

Cannot open your default e-mail folders.  You must connect to Microsoft Exchange with the current profile before you can synchronize your folders with your Outlook data file (.ost).

I've tried running outlook in safe mode, addins disabled, /resetnavpane, outlook reinstalled. The exchange server is up and running just fine (I can successfully perform the Test Email Autoconfiguration).

Any ideas on what else to try?

Answer 1

In the end, I followed the steps from http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2011/06/outlook-error-cannot-open-your-default.html with the addition of a exchange server reboot.

Answer 2

Did you just copy your OST file to a new profile? You cannot do that: OST files are bound to a particular profile.

Answer 3

I had the same problem and I tried:

outlook.exe /resetnavpane

... but it did not help.

I was about to delete the profiles but just then realized that one of the PST file was too big - almost 2 GB. Renaming them fixed the startup problem.