fox: technical difficulties: please stand by. (technical difficulties)
fox ([personal profile] fox) wrote2006-01-31 04:03 pm
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the great flist tech support department

hi gang!  anyone have any idea why Outlook Express has started messing up the time stamps on one of my (five, three of which i've had e-mails in this afternoon) e-mail accounts?  the time stamps on the messages in the webmail for the relevant address are fine; but somewhere between the server and my inbox, an hour and three to five minutes is added.  the clock on my computer is correct, and as i say, this problem isn't happening with e-mail coming from other servers.  any suggestions?

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm a bit confused - are you saying that if you browse the messages from a web client, the timestamp is fine, but when you download it into Outlook, the timestamp changes? Or are you looking at a timestamp inside the mail that doesn't correspond with what you are seeing in the body of the e-mail?

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
the first thing. at the webmail client, the timestamp on a message is 7:53 am (because the server is in california, i presume), and when i received it at 3:53 pm here where i am, it had a time stamp of 4:59 pm in the inbox. when i open the message, the header says 3:53 as it should -- but things are arriving and landing in the middle of the screen, instead of at the end, because stuff i received an hour and a half ago is still down at the bottom of the list with its wrong time stamp. help!

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 05:27 pm (UTC)(link)
That is odd. I'll take a look in knowledgebase to see if it says anything. One would think that Outlook would parse the message and display what is in the header. It almost sounds as if it is incorrectly applying daylight savings logic to the date (seeing how it is an hour, give or take).

Is this your ISP's mail server? If so, does the same thing happen if you have Outlook download e-mails from Yahoo or Hotmail (or some other mail server)?

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)
it's not my ISP's mail server, no. and the same thing does not happen when i have Outlook (Express v 6.0, by the way, in case that matters) download e-mails from any of the three other servers where i have addresses (total of five addresses, but two are gmail). in those cases, the time stamp matches the time on the freakin computer.

this has continued to be the case after i rebooted, by the way. to answer your next comment as well: the first mismatched message was this morning at 11:37 (time stamp 12:43). feh.

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmmm... since Outlook is fine when downloading from the other three servers, then I would think the problem lies with the fourth mail server. Might be worth an e-mail to their support department (if they have one!). If it were a problem with Outlook, I would expect to see it happen for all of the servers.

I'll keep digging and let you know if I find anything. One thing you could do is compare the field mentioned in my other post in two separate e-mails: one from the problem server and one from the other server. See if the formatting of the timestamp is different in any way.

Also, have you applied all of the latest hotfixes and patches for Outlook?

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 05:51 pm (UTC)(link)
yeah -- no, but the messages themselves are the same. i mean, i sent a test message to all five addresses, and four of them arrived with one timestamp and one with a different one; but when i open the loner and one of the four alike ones, the headers are identical. so it's totally only a problem with the inbox/preview screen.

i haven't applied any patches or anything -- i don't let microsoft nag me, so i don't always know when things are there. (i count on my antivirus and my firewall to take care of me. them, i allow to tell me when it's time to update.)

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Again, this makes me think that it is an issue with the receiving mail server, since the e-mail for the four other servers are correct. Could be related to the KB article I mentioned in a separate post. They may have done some administration on that box that could be confusing Outlook. If it were an Outlook issue, I would expect all five to be incorrect. I know, I'm not helping :-(

As for letting Microsoft nag you - go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com, and see if there are any updates for Outlook Express. You should go there fairly regularly anyway, because generally Microsoft will release patches long before your anti-virus software will release a virus definition update.

The way exploits usually work:

1. Someone (Microsoft or some other security firm) identifies a defect in some Microsoft product.
2. Microsoft issues a hotfix.
3. Weeks or months down the road, virus writers release a virus that exploits that defect in the hopes that people didn't apply the fix in step 2.
4. Norton, McAfee, et al release virus definition updates reactively to try to stop the floodgates.
5. Weeks or months down the road, virus writers release a virus that is a variant to the one in step 3, again hoping people didn't apply the fix in step 2.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 forever ;)

Don't want to sound like a nag, so I apologize if I came off that way. The company for whom I work was burned by this, and I ended up having to come in to work at 1 am to fix a problem that should have never happened. I'm a bit bitter :)

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 07:03 pm (UTC)(link)
well -- i deleted and recreated the account, and waited for Outlook to download everything from the server (into a special folder so i could just throw it away, as it was all duplicates), and all the messages from before today at 11:37 were right, and the ones since then were still wrong. so i'm more willing to think it's something to do with the server, but why on earth would it display the wrong time in the preview screen but not on the header? grargh.

also, i went to update-land and downloaded something that it told me was a cumulative security update for Outlook Express 6, but when i went to run it it blinked and said "this update requires Outlook Express 6 to be installed", which was surprising to me as i'm running Outlook Express 6.0.2800.1123. the whole thing is broken, if you ask me. feh.

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 07:16 pm (UTC)(link)
all the messages from before today at 11:37 were right, and the ones since then were still wrong. so i'm more willing to think it's something to do with the server, but why on earth would it display the wrong time in the preview screen but not on the header

Is the date format in the pre-11:37 header the same as the post-11:37 header?

I'd send an e-mail to the support people at the "bad" server to see if they have any insight.

went to update-land and downloaded something that it told me was a cumulative security update for Outlook Express 6, but when i went to run it it blinked and said "this update requires Outlook Express 6 to be installed

Are you an Administrator on your machine?

Also, if possible, I'd ditch Express and go for the regular Outlook version if possible.

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 07:27 pm (UTC)(link)
everything is the same pre-11:37 and post-11:37 except the correctness of the time stamp in the preview window.

my friend who runs the server hosting the errant account is going to look into it when he gets home this evening. [waves to [livejournal.com profile] jgesteve]

i am an administrator on my machine. i'm everything! i'm the only user. :-)

i've heard equal numbers of people tell me the same thing about Outlook and Outlook Express; proponents of each insist that the other is inferior due to some security issue or another. i'm convinced that it's a coke vs. pepsi issue.

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 07:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Outlook vs Outlook Express: from what I've seen on MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) there are more exploits for Outlook Express than Outlook. I think the former is free, so if it works for you, then I wouldn't be too worried about it.

Mind if I add you to my flist? I think I remember your postings either from SFMEDTWO on CompuServe or over at the real Echo boards run by Web Leader Dave. You're fun to read.

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)
i never mind being added to people's flists. my feeling is, it's none of my business one way or the other if people want to read me. :-) and i'm glad to be thought of as fun to read.

are there fake echo boards? long ago (etc) i was indeed on echo boards run by Web Leader Dave, but the last time i went over there to see what was going on -- gosh, a year and a half ago or so -- it seemed kind of deserted. new boards? new dave? i never understood what had happened. kind of sad, really.

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 08:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Were you ever on the CompuServe SF Media forum? Those were fun times.

I probably should have explained what I meant a little better - the problem with posting while I work is I am generally multi-tasking and some things are lost while I try to keep it short.

The Echo Boards on echostation.com are still there and, I believe, still run by Dave. I was visiting there off and on since the CIS forum died, and went through the various incarnations of the board. I stopped going because it turned out being just me and Dex posting back and forth. Kenny and Shez would occasionally pop in, but that was a rather rare occurrence. It got a bit boring just chatting with Dex (no offense to Dex, of course), so I gravitated more to LJ.

The "fake" Echo board is the echostation LJ community that Shez had established. I created my LJ account because of that community, and am a bit discouraged that it seems as dead as Echo.

As for what happened with the real Echo - I'm guessing people's interests moved elsewhere, away from Star Wars. The Echo magazine wasn't really being updated, so I'm guessing very little new traffic went its way. During the prequels, people probably gravitated more towards the spoiler sites.

It is sad that Echo died a slow death - I met a lot of great people through CIS and Echo, and really enjoyed chatting with them. Jodo was always a hoot!

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
yeah, okay, makes more sense now. i was never at CIS; i turned up at echostation.com around october of 1999, not too long (if i'm not mistaken) after [livejournal.com profile] zoethe's infamous "vermin" comment -- least, that's what people were talking about when i arrived. stayed for ... well, at least a couple of years, because i was definitely still in touch with that crowd in september of 2001, but somehow not long enough to be there for Episode 2, i don't think. of course, i landed on LJ in december of 2001, so that might have had something to do with it. :-P but like i said, some time after that when i popped back over the place was deserted. i tried at one point to change my e-mail address for notification purposes, and everything i tried to send to dave bounced back. i really thought the whole thing had been abandoned. :-(

i never joined shez's [livejournal.com profile] echostation LJ because i understood it to be spoiler-ridden (or at least spoiler-friendly) and i wanted no part of that. [g]

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 08:19 pm (UTC)(link)
I must have missed Gini's "vermin" comment. I found the echo interface to be a bit clunky, so I wasn't much of a regular (I used the web, not a newsreader). Who was she calling vermin?

Shez's echo LJ community didn't have spoilers, really. It was primarily slash fic, which is why Dex initially refused to go there. That's died down a bit, which has left the community rather...dead. I post there every now and then, but since I'm not into the EU, there's not much Star Wars news to talk about.

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 08:37 pm (UTC)(link)
i believe the 'vermin' were new people. but i could be wrong; like i say, i got there afterward, when people were talking about it, rather than responding to it. :-)

and: ah, dex. [sigh][headshake]

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 08:37 pm (UTC)(link)
and: ah, dex. [sigh][headshake]

Honestly, though, would you expect a different reaction from Dex? ;-)

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 08:43 pm (UTC)(link)
hard to say. there's a difference between "primarily" and "exclusively", and assuming everything was properly labeled and cut-tagged, i guess i'd have thought that even dex could handle being part of a community where some of the traffic he didn't so much care for. i mean if he didn't have to read it; like, he wouldn't even be where it was? that does strike me as a bit much, if he wanted to be in the comm but wouldn't for that reason.

but of course all dex and i ever had in common was that we were both stubborn as all hell. :-)

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)
You got that right (that Dex is stubborn as hell). You should have been over at Echo when he and I were in a heated exchange about the Skywalker kids. Dex insisted that we would find that there was a third Skywalker, born before Luke and Leia, and that would be revealed in Episode III.

No matter what I - or anyone else - said, he wouldn't budge. There was only one explanation for "there is another Skywalker" and "the Emperor knew, as did I, that were Anakin to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him":

Anakin and Padme had a child before Luke and Leia who was trained in the Force, but bailed on Ben and Yoda.

He was quite insistent about it.

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 09:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[thinks about this]

well -- bailed on Yoda, anyway. because if Ben knew about Phil Skywalker (or whatever his name was going to have been), it wouldn't solve anything. i mean, presumably one would insist on the existence of Phil in order to make sense of Ben's mistaken impression that Luke was their last hope. right? except, duh, he knew about Leia. ... i was trying to think of a way he could legitimately not know that Leia wasn't dead, but no, i got nothin.

so why was it that "there is another" and "the Emperor knew etc." didn't make sense?

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Because Dex absolutely, positively refused to believe that Leia was "the other", and refused to believe that Anakin's offspring would be strong enough in the Force to pose a threat. He had to have witnessed that they would pose a threat before he could make that assumption.

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 09:33 pm (UTC)(link)
and he apparently really, genuinely believed that George Lucas thought that far ahead or would ever give a rat's ass about tying anything up that neatly.

i say again: [sigh][headshake]

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
No, I think Dex thought that this was a plot hole.

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
good old dex. he can insist that it really was a plot hole and george was both in a position to notice and willing to fix it, and at the same time, refuse to be in a virtual room where people are having fun with a little observable homoerotic subtext -- and remain completely unaware that this could be even the tiniest bit ironic. :-)

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)
And talk about high-jacking a thread! :)

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[snort] yeah. off to the promenade with you, buddy.

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 09:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Are you saying I need to add T*PPL to my posts now? ;)

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 10:00 pm (UTC)(link)
not even if i remembered what that stood for. :-) the beauty of LJ.

[identity profile] kmg-365.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)
That Damn Promenade Protection Line. An in-joke where we would add a Star Wars related line to a Promenade-type posting to prevent the sysadms from moving it to the Promenade.

[identity profile] darthfox.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
but in that case this whole thing, since before you even mentioned dex and jodo is, like, a Promenade Protection Thread.