Weird Outlook 2003 Problem

[Alex Wright]

A user has just called in to say that all e-mails that she's now receiving are coming through with tomorrow's date and time.

I've checked all of the time settings in Outlook, on our e-mail server and the regional/language settings in the control panel and all seems fine.

Does anyone have any idea why this could be happening?

Thanks in advance.

- Alex

[hbroomhall]

Tomorrow's date and time in which header line? This makes a big difference to what is causing it!

Harry.

[Alex Wright]

Hi Harry,

It's in the date/time header field in the reading pane.

[Fergal1982]

The reading pane normally works off the computers date/time I believe. You say you checked the regional settings, but did you check the system date?

[hbroomhall]

On my copy the 'reading pane' shows the 'sent' time. If this is so on your machines then either the emails are coming from somewhere with a bad set of MUAs, or some people have the wrong date/time set.

From my experience with this sort of complaint - just how many is 'all'? And is it really all? If you send the user an email does it show the wrong date/time?

Harry.

[Alex Wright]

Originally Posted by Fergal1982

The reading pane normally works off the computers date/time I believe. You say you checked the regional settings, but did you check the system date?

Indeed, and it's correct.

[Fergal1982]

Originally Posted by Alex Wright

Indeed, and it's correct.

Theres some posts on the net for similar problems that suggest checking the system time from within the BIOS. Not sure how much that would affect it, but its probably worth checking. Failing that, check if its all of them, as HB suggests.

You might also want to take a look at the email header information, it might help point out where the time is coming from.

[Alex Wright]

Originally Posted by hbroomhall

On my copy the 'reading pane' shows the 'sent' time. If this is so on your machines then either the emails are coming from somewhere with a bad set of MUAs, or some people have the wrong date/time set.

From my experience with this sort of complaint - just how many is 'all'? And is it really all? If you send the user an email does it show the wrong date/time?

Harry.

You're right to suspect that it's not all e-mails... just the last 4 or 5.

Pardon my ignorance Harry, but what are MUAs?

[hbroomhall]

Originally Posted by Alex Wright

You're right to suspect that it's not all e-mails... just the last 4 or 5.

Pardon my ignorance Harry, but what are MUAs?

A mistake on my part - trying to do two things at once. I meant MTAs - Mail Transport Agents - things like Sendmail/Exim/Exchange.

(MUA = Mail User Agent = Outlook/Eudora/Thunderbird)

Harry.

[Alex Wright]

OK - thanks for clearing that up.

So... any other ideas as to what might be causing this?

[hbroomhall]

I'd do as fergal suggests - check the headers.

Also - does this happen if *you* send the email.

Any commonality about the senders?

Harry.

[Alex Wright]

Originally Posted by hbroomhall

I'd do as fergal suggests - check the headers.

Also - does this happen if *you* send the email.

Any commonality about the senders?

Harry.

I'll check this tomorrow.

Thanks for you help so far mate!

[r.h.lee]

Originally Posted by Alex Wright

A user has just called in to say that all e-mails that she's now receiving are coming through with tomorrow's date and time.

I've checked all of the time settings in Outlook, on our e-mail server and the regional/language settings in the control panel and all seems fine.

Does anyone have any idea why this could be happening?

Thanks in advance.

- Alex

Alex Wright,

Between Greenwich Mean Time and the Eastern-most boundary of the International Date Line, there are 12 timezones ahead of you. So 12:00pm noon in London, Great Britain is 12:00 am midnight in Wellington, New Zealand therefore the next day. So, I have to ask, but have you checked the source timezone for said e-mails that are being received?

Source:

1. Time - Current time around the World and standard time zones map of the world - http://www.worldtimezone.com/

[Alex Wright]

Originally Posted by r.h.lee

Alex Wright,

Between Greenwich Mean Time and the Eastern-most boundary of the International Date Line, there are 12 timezones ahead of you. So 12:00pm noon in London, Great Britain is 12:00 am midnight in Wellington, New Zealand therefore the next day. So, I have to ask, but have you checked the source timezone for said e-mails that are being received?

Source:

1. Time - Current time around the World and standard time zones map of the world - http://www.worldtimezone.com/

I'm going to check the headers of the "said" e-mails tomorrow. Once I do that, I'll report back with my findings.

Off to bed now. Night!

[Jakamoko]

Generally, headers will contain some reference to time relative to GMT, along the lines of + or - xxxx GMT:

eg

Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:21:58 +1300

or

Received: from cyrus2.xxxxxxxxxx.com ([unix socket])
by cyrus2.xxxxxxxxx.com (Cyrus v2.2.12) with LMTPA;
Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:22:37 +0000


Just a couple of examples of what to look for in the headers when troubleshooting this prob.