Solved Outlook 2016 hangs at "processing" after Windows 7 update, Feb 9, 2016

[Earlh]

Outlook 2016 hangs at "processing" after Windows 7 update, Feb 9, 2016

"Patch Tuesday" broke our install of Outlook 365. It was working fine on Monday and on Tuesday it was hanging on "Processing." So I restored back to the last restore point before the update and it worked great after that. Yesterday it re-installed the updates, and again Outlook didn't load. Restoring again today "fixed" it. Now it wants to update again, so I will disable updates until the problem is fixed. I don't know which particular "patch" is causing the problem; there were about 22 of them that installed.

 

[Ranger4]

Hi, welcome to the Forum.

Office 365 2016 is pretty new, so you might still be covered by free Microsoft support. If so I would contact them & see what they can suggest.

 

[Earlh]

I disabled automatic updates and selected the check/choose method. After installing all the "important" updates one-by-one, I finally got it (Outlook) to work. Even after installing the "recommended" updates it worked. The problem must've been the order of installation or something like that.

 

[Ranger4]

Glad to hear you got it fixed & thanks for getting back.

 

[Earlh]

The Outlook problem is back. It's apparently triggered by MS Security Essentials definition updates, specifically Definition Update for Microsoft Security Essentials - KB2310138 (Definition 1.213.6460.0)

BUT after restoring to the earliest available restore point and even after uninstalling MSSE, Outlook fails to load, hanging on "processing."

 

[Ranger4]

Is your Office 365 fully updated. In Office 2013, you can force it to check for Updates by opening any Office program, click on File & when that opens select Account, then click on Office Updates, that will provide a drop down list so select Update Now. It will check & download any Office Updates & you can continue to work on your computer while that is occurring.

You could try Repairing Office. To do that open Control Panel, select Programs & Features, scroll down to Microsoft Office, Right click on it & select Change & that will open a couple of Repair options to try.

 

[Earlh]

Yes, everything including Office is up-to-date. I finally had the "experts" at the Office website look into the problem by remote access. They forced a re-build of the Outlook profile (renamed the existing profile), and Outlook began to work. However, we lost our contact list in the process. The tech didn't seem to think it was Windows Updates causing the problem, regardless of the documented correlation and successful restores. Not exactly happy with Outlook '16. Thinking of going back to 2010.

Incidentally, I tried the "repair Office" function. Good concept, negative results. I even did an uninstall/reinstall with no luck... AND the .pst file repair wizard.

 

[Ranger4]

Hopefully this time you stay up & running. Thanks for getting back.