OE6 Sending Multiple Copies

Starting a few months ago, my brother started complaining that multiple copies of emails were being sent out. Win98 OE6 dialup.

Not every email. Some small, some large. Some with attachments, some without. Sometimes a long list of addresses, sometimes just one.

He asked me for help, but I had never heard of this problem. Upon doing a Google search, I see that starting a few months ago, a considerable number of people started complaining about the same thing. Some have done a clean install upgrade to Win XP but the problem didn't go away.

He has Norton AV; others have had McAfee. Maybe, some have had none.

He tends to let his Inbox and Sentbox get huge. I clean it out and move stuff to new folders twice a year, and then compress the folders.

 

multiple copies of emails were being sent out.

Were his friends telling him they were getting multiple copies? If so, the problem is on their end, not his.

I have seen this receiving multiple copies. If he is sending multiples, how does he know? Are there dual copies in his "sent" folder?

 

Multiple Copies

I have been one of the recipients of multiple copies. One day, I received six copies, not necessarily right after another though.

He says that the multiple copies appear in his Outbox, and then they are sent one after another. I'm not sure about if they are in his Sent box, but I will ask.

With regards to my first statement above, the situation was that he had sent out two emails, one after the other. One was about 60K, but the other had a mpg file attached and was around 700K. Since he is on a rural dialup, it would take some time for the 700K file to be sent. It is possible that it was sending one, then the other, then the first again, and so on, for six times.

The time stamps on the received emails all showed a progression over time of the 2 emails each received 6 times, and sent 6 times. I know that it was sent 6 times because other recipients were complaining too.

BTW, this problem is not related to the "break up attachments over 40K" option in OE.

He also tends to "attract" a lot of spyware. He'll click on any offer that sounds good. I try to keep him up to date on Norton AV. I also force him to run AdAware and Spybot S&D.

 

See if deleting outbox.dbx helps.

 

See if deleting outbox.dbx helps

Close OE before he does this. Then do a find for the outbox and delete it. It will regenerate.