OL 2007 problem - sudden large increase in message size

[ajmich]

Using Outlook 2007, up to date, for personal use, not business or Exchange. Suddenly there is a huge increase in message size; these are ordinary, brief, HTML messages with NO attachments or inline images. Previously they have been under 10k. Now they are hundreds of kilobytes, as is shown in Properties for each affected message, and on the message list in this image. Inbox Repair Tool found and fixed errors, no change. Compressed the PST, no change. The PST is the older type, Personal Folders File (97-2002), and I've had no compelling reason to update to the newer PST version. But that's next on the list if I can't solve this message size issue.

[ajmich]

Additional info: Attached is the source (zipped text file) for one of the largest of these odd oversized messages. Very strange, contains a LOT of what seems to be repetitive data. Curiouser and curiouser...email.zip

[Diane Poremsky]

sorry it took so long to reply, i was out of town on business.

What antivirus do you use? I've seen weird things like this when antivirus scans the mail, although nothing anywhere close to being this severe.

[ajmich]

No problem, just glad to see someone willing to look at this oddity. Using Avast free AV for some time without issues. Ran full scans with Malwarebytes, and with the MS boot disk, Windows Defender Offline -- nothing found.


Bloated message size seems to have passed: After rising steadily over about a 2 day period, dropped back to normal. Now I'm more curious than concerned, have never seen anything like this in 25+ years doing PC support. Can you make anything of that megabyte of xml code? Most seems to refer to fonts, over & over. The actual message is only about 40 words! I have no Outlook add-ons beyond whatever is installed by default.

- - - Updated - - -

No problem, just glad to see someone willing to look at this oddity. Using Avast free AV for some time without issues. Ran full scans with Malwarebytes, and with the MS boot disk, Windows Defender Offline -- nothing found.


Bloated message size seems to have passed: After rising steadily over about a 2 day period, dropped back to normal. Now I'm more curious than concerned, have never seen anything like this in 25+ years doing PC support. Can you make anything of that megabyte of xml code? Most seems to refer to fonts, over & over. The actual message is only about 40 words! I have no Outlook add-ons beyond whatever is installed by default.

[Diane Poremsky]

I'm not sure what caused it. It's not normal to have all the styles incremented like this - it's also not how Outlook names styles. I have no clue as to what the junk at the top is for. It not in any of the messages I've checked recently, but it could be something in Word 2007 or your config. (I have Outlook set to strip everything not needed in email.)

Something added yiv1801848892 to the style then the style incremented upwards.

p.yiv1801848892msonormal111223, li.yiv1801848892msonormal111223, div.yiv1801848892msonormal111223

I have no idea what theme or style msoacetate is.

p.yiv1801848892msoacetate14111, li.yiv1801848892msoacetate14111, div.yiv1801848892msoacetate14111


If it stopped as quick as it started, I'm guessing an update to something changed it. Most likely cause is the AV scanner - it would install frequent updates that could break and then just as quickly undo what it broke. It's also one of the few things that touches email. It's also possible that reading mail on a smartphone (or another client) was somehow responsible for it.

[ajmich]

Diane, thank you much for bothering to analyze that data. I was not aware that any AV scanner would ever be coded to WRITE within an email file (always assumed AV would only READ and then act upon a problem, such as quarantine the item). And the more I think about it, why WOULD an AV app ever write to such a file, except due to coding error? Is that what may have happened here? If so I may find something on the Avast site (but doubt it!) Interesting that Word 2007 config enters into the picture, although my Word is at factory defaults. <head scratching>

BTW Google brings 264,000 results for "msoacetate" ...many appear to be web page errors or about writing code... nothing familiar to me.

RE "I have Outlook set to strip everything not needed in email." Is that by way of a modification you wrote for yourself, or can anyone tell Outlook to do this?

[Diane Poremsky]

Bing brought up fewer but it seemed more like it came from web pages created in Word.

[Diane Poremsky]

Dang, hit the wrong key. In Tools, Options there is a setting to clean up the HTML. Look on the mail format tab - check 'reduce the size of the message', no check for use smart tags. I keep CSS checked.

[ajmich]

Looked at those mail format settings -- they are already set just as you mention. Looks like this one may remain a mystery, eh? Any comment re whether or not AV programs write to email messages (I thought they only read them)..? Thanks, Diane, I really appreciate your expertise. And from the look of things, you're gangbusters nearly single-handed in solving problems here! A fine job, please keep it up.

[Diane Poremsky]

I hesitate to say "write" but they can corrupt messages, especially ones containing winmail.dat files.

Did you delete the person's name from the autocomplete list?