Member Avatar for whiskeyjar2005

One of the employees at my company recently acquired a new laptop. Since he received his new laptop, he is receiving the error " !Task 'mailaccountname' reported error (0x8004010F): The operation failed. An object could not be found" when he sends or receives e-mail in Outlook 2003 on XP. He is able to successfully send and receive, so the error is more of an irritation than anything. Our Exchange server is running Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003. There is nothing logged in the event logs on the server to indicate any problems. From what I have read about this error, it appears to be referencing the offline address book on the server. I'm confused as to why a new laptop would cause this error, and what steps I can take to fix it. Any ideas? Thanks in advance to anyone who responds.

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Short answer: this is usually an Offline Address Book (OAB) / profile mismatch—not a broken mailbox—and the fastest reliable fix is to recreate the Outlook profile (or remove cached OAB files) before doing a full Office reinstall. (learn.microsoft.com)

Practical client-side sequence to try (in order):

  • Create a brand-new Outlook profile (Control Panel → Mail → Show Profiles → Add) and test the account.
  • If you use Cached Exchange Mode, try turning it off temporarily (Account Settings → Change → uncheck Use Cached Exchange Mode) to see whether OAB activity stops the error.
  • Close Outlook and rename/delete local OAB files (Windows XP path: C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\ — on newer Windows use %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\). Then restart Outlook and force a manual OAB download via Tools → Send/Receive → Download Address Book. Back up any PST/OST before deleting files. (learn.microsoft.com)

Server-side checks (for the Exchange admin):

  • Verify OAB generation and distribution and that each mailbox database is assigned the correct OAB; if the OAB is corrupt, rebuild or create a new OAB and set it as default, then allow the server to regenerate and the clients time to redownload (OAB generation + client download windows can take many hours). Also confirm OAB virtual directories/public-folder requirements for older Exchange versions. If you can, follow Exchange OAB procedures to update/rebuild and then monitor client sync. (learn.microsoft.com)

Notes tied to the thread: — a new laptop commonly exposes a bad profile/OAB cache rather than a server failure. — if the machine was removed from SBS/domain, rebuild the profile to stop Outlook trying to retrieve a non-existent OAB. — full Office reinstall is rarely required; rebuilding the profile is lighter and usually fixes it. — endpoint/antivirus can interfere with OAB downloads, so check vendor advisories and disable/patch briefly while testing. If the problem persists, collect Outlook OAB logs or use MFCMAPI for deep MAPI-level diagnosis. (learn.microsoft.com)

Member Avatar for dexterjones

One of the employees at my company recently acquired a new laptop. Since he received his new laptop, he is receiving the error " !Task 'mailaccountname' reported error (0x8004010F): The operation failed. An object could not be found" when he sends or receives e-mail in Outlook 2003 on XP. He is able to successfully send and receive, so the error is more of an irritation than anything. Our Exchange server is running Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003. There is nothing logged in the event logs on the server to indicate any problems. From what I have read about this error, it appears to be referencing the offline address book on the server. I'm confused as to why a new laptop would cause this error, and what steps I can take to fix it. Any ideas? Thanks in advance to anyone who responds.

are you using Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Service Pack 1 with business contact manager???

I sugest you to uninstall ms office completely and reinstall with plain outlook lemme know if it worked

Member Avatar for keivn jones

If you found out the cause of this would you please share the solution.

Thanks in Advance.

Member Avatar for vijay_yande

if you have Symentec End point protection installed please install patch

link is here


thanks
Vijay Yande

Member Avatar for modnod

Hi,

I have a stand alone machine with outlook 2003 coming up with this error message. I previously had this connected to exchange on Small Business Server 2003 but this has now been removed from the domain.

I've been using Thunderbird (mozzilla) for a while as I got fed up not being able to send and receive email from my POP account as this message keeps coming up and all threads appear to lead to an error with exchange, which I do not have!

I've deinstalled and re installed office but this has made no difference.

Has anybody come across this or can help?

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