Unable to Send (i.e. put msg INTO Outbox) in Outlook 2003 - Outlook appears to hang

Hi

My sister is using Outlook 2003 (11.5608.5606), and since yesterday whenever she's tried to send a message of any kind (even a simple noddy one-line test message), the Send button doesn't seem to do anything, i.e. the message doesn't get moved to the Outbox, and the message composition box doesn't get closed. I've logged on with Remote Assistance and verified this.

If you click on the Send button again (in the same message), you get a message that says:
"You cannot send an item that is already in the process of being sent "

The connection to the SMTP and POP3 servers is working OK, and incoming messages aren't a problem, but since the Send button (or File|Send) isn't completing its task, there's nothing going into the Outbox to be sent.

She's tried rebooting several times. The PST file is not huge (121,000 Kb), and she has 21GB of free space on the C: drive (where her Outlook PST file is stored). There is nothing in the Outbox.

She can't think of any changes to the PC since Friday (which is the last time she's sure she sent something ... to me!), and the only thing she's aware of happening is her weekly full Norton Virus scan.

I've tried Detect and Repair from the Outlook Help menu, but that's made no difference.

Has anyone got any ideas? She uses Outlook for both private and business email (both to the same email address), so it's important to her to get it sorted out. All the searches I've done for combinations of Outlook, hang, send, and outbox bring up problems with getting OUT from the Outbox to the SMTP server, not INTO it

She has Outlook set NOT to send immediately if connected, and I've even tried switching Outlook into Offline mode. The problem is still the same - the Send button just appears to hang.

Thanks in advance
Julie

 

... and another weird thing

This may or may not be relevant, but apparently the delete key has stopped working too - ONLY in Outlook.

Weird!

 

Thanks, but I've already done that:

 

Aaarggh!

Well, sorry to anyone hoping to find a solution: the problem (both being unable to put things in the Outbox and the Delete key not working) has "spontaneously" gone away.

The PC was off overnight, so has been rebooted ... but then it had been rebooted several times previously, without fixing anything, so that doesn't appear to be anything different from what happened before.

Very bizarre.
Julie