Monday, March 9, 2009

Outlook messages don't show in Reading Pane

This one was a stumper for quite a while. Then when I found the solution it was so easy. Why hadn't anyone else found the solution? I don't know but I am posting the details here in hopes it helps someone else from not wasting a lot of time.

User is trying to Search on her bosses shared email Inbox on an Exchange Server. It will pull the listing of the emails but the reading pane Displays "This item cannot be displayed in the reading pane. Open the item to read its contents"

Can read in the inbox, no problem.

Searching the forums for a solution, nothing seems to stick out.
I have recreated a new Profile. Done a search it works!
Exit get back in to test
It doesn't.
Tried with cache and without cache all the same result.

What worked:
While holding the Ctrl-Key down open Outlook.
This opens in Safe Mode and disables all add-ins.

I could see the messages in Safe Mode so I knew it had to be an add-in or another program running along side Outlook.

Go to Tools/Options/Other
Click the Advanced Options button
The COM Add-Ins button showed a Google Search Toolbar. I disabled it and voila it worked.

So Google Search Toolbar attaches itself to Outlook as well and must be disabled.

Hope that helps!