Please help my poor poor sanity.

I work in a small agency and our email is screwing up. EVERYTHING set up wise seems to check out. Servers are right, Logins are right. They have called in the agencies hired outside computer service, they have called in our Email host. Nothing fixes it.

We can send email no problem. Recieving is spotty at best and often is just a copy of a email from months ago. I have the exact email 4x in many many of my emails for this very reason.

Current Example: I have no email from this week on Outlook but downloaded 50+ some as far back as June and all duplicates.

Everything is on my Squirel Mail web account (no duplicates I might add) 35 Emails from the Weekend and Yesterday but not in my Outlook, or the office administrators (Who makes her displeasure clear at this.)

The Email host says nothing is different, the Comptuer Service guy took out a windows hotfix but after he left it still does it.

Stats:
Outlook 2003
Window XP Pro
Small network setup 6 computers
Symantex Anti Virus (Not my call)
One Crazed Office Manager
Many confused IT People.

This is not an uncommon problem. Any computer outfit that specializes in Office Netoworks should be able to fix it if you have the original software.
Outlook 97, Outlook 2000, Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, or Outlook 2007? With Service Contact Manager or without ?
First, send the Crazed Office Manager out of town.
Get somebody who can test your network.
Next get somebody who can remove and reinstall your Outlook.
It is likley that your office manager, or some other helpful person has diddled with something... but it will take an expert or a professional to fix it quickly.
Be sure to save your existing Outlook files, and makes some backup copies before anybody performs any work.
A skilled software and hardware technian will be able to fix it fast enough to justify the high cost... a less skilled one can lose or screw up your accounts and create something that takes days to fix.

Just out of curiosity have you tried any other email client such as outlook express or thunderbird. Also in outlook make sure you do not have the check box turned on that says "leave messages on server". Also it could be the incoming and/or outgoing ports. Some email hosts are very picky on that respect. Some firewalls and/or ISP's block certain commonly used ports used by email servers. Also if your squirrel mail is working fine try setting up your email account as an IMAP instead of POP. Have you set up a new mail profile via the control panel? This is doubtful especially if more than one person is having problems but you might try scanning your PST file with SCANPST. All this may be just a shot in the dark but at this point you have to try anything.

Those of us who maintain Outlook on a network know that neither Outlook Express nor Thunderbird nor similar programs are acceptable alternatives because the do not perform the documentation, file saving tasks, and record continuity that are needed in such an office. You need that file management aspect of Outlook to maintain office and information integrity.

This is precisely why you cannot use anyone who is not skilled in the use of Office and Outlook on a network.

It is possible to find techs certified in this software... You might get started on the search soon.

Raybay

I think you missed the point of my post. I was not suggesting they switch to something besides outlook I am well aware of it's capabilities as we use it in a corporate environment., I am merely trying to help them isolate a problem, hence all the suggestions I offered. Try a different client JUST to see if the same problems exist is how I should re-phrase it.

I do not see how that would help isolate anything. This is likely a network issue, or a Server software issue, or a related Office issue... and requires some skill, not diddling, to rescue the system quickly. A skilled tech brought on site will find the problem and fix it poste haste. Costs go up as you wait.

Well the advice assumes that a mental health and addictions non-profit I work for has excess money to spend when the services we have hired to do the job should have it fixed.

As for your question gguerra No I have not tried other email services, not for the reasons raybay states. my role here is by contract very limited but owing my IT background I am the one getting dumped on as outsourced IT is not here.