You receive an "Out of memory or system resources" error message when you download POP3 e-mail messages (284425)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Outlook 2002
This article was previously published under Q284425

SYMPTOMS

When you download messages from your Post Office Protocol (POP3) server to your personal folder file (PST), the messages may stop downloading before all of them are retrieved. The following error message may appear in the Progress dialog box:
Sending and Receiving reported error (0x8007000E): Out of memory or system resources. Close some windows or programs and try again.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur if you attempt to download more messages than your computer can process.

WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, do one of the following:
  • After you receive the error message, click Send/Receive again to download more messages. OR

  • Download headers of messages first, and then selectively mark the e-mail messages that you want to download, thus reducing the number of messages to be queued for download.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

When the Send/Receive process begins, Outlook connects to the POP3 server and creates a task to download each message. If there are a lot of messages to download, Outlook may run out of system resources before it has created tasks for all of the messages to download. Outlook then behaves as if the maximum number that it reached includes all of the messages that are waiting on the server and downloads the messages, providing accurate progress indicators. The only indications of a downloading problem are that not all of the messages are downloaded and that the error message appears.

Actual numbers vary, but internal testing indicates that a computer with 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM runs out of resources when Outlook downloads approximately 1,200 messages.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:7/27/2006
Keywords:kbDownload kbWebServer kberrmsg kbprb KB284425
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