Windows Live Mail stuck in offline mode / won't go online

From time to time my Windows Live Mail will get itself confused and prompts me with:

 "You are currently working offline. Would you like to go online now?"

No matter how many times I manically and repeatedly click "Yes" the prompt just keeps reloading. Disconnecting from the internet and restarting the PC has no effect.

Thankfully there is a solution, and it's found within Internet Explorer (no really!). It seems that Windows Live Mail takes its on/offline status from IE. So, to resolve this issue you need to:

1. Open Internet Explorer and press ALT-F to open the File menu.
2. Towards the bottom of the menu, there is Work Offline which you need to untick.

Do this and the go back to Windows Live Mail. This time, when you get the "shall I go online prompt" - click Yes and it works. Hopefully this is useful for you (if so, leave a comment!). I found this solution courtesy of the Windows Live forums


Lurking in the internet industry background since the late nineties and occasionally venturing out for an event or two. Get in touch via the email address on the "my complete profile" link below or via Twitter @geoffblog

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I had to tick it then untick it but it worked. Today happens to be end of summer time but for some reason Microsoft Answers isn't available and the only other comments I read suggested going back to a restore point which is like using a sledgehammer. Thanks again.
27 October, 2013 07:21
Unknown said…
mint,it worked i was pulling my hair out x
17 November, 2013 15:44
Post a comment

Popular

YUM - Repository base is listed more than once

While checking what packages were available using the yum tool I kept getting the message: Repository base is listed more than once in the configuration Repository addons is listed more than once in the configuration Repository extras is listed more than once in the configuration Repository updates is listed more than once in the configuration I couldn't find a great deal of help on the internet (hence this post!) but eventually it turned out that I had a .repo file which was listing the same repositories as my yum.conf file. The .repo file was in /etc/yum_repo.d/ directory, but yours might be called something else. So, check for a /etc/yum* directory and see if you find any .repo files. In my case they were identical so I used renamed the .repo file to .repo.hide and used yum.conf instead. I hope this helps someone as I know I could have done with finding it 2 hours ago! PS. Merry late Christmas.
Read more

PayPal UK telephone number

I've just cancelled a PayPal account and during the process it said that I could call them on 08707 307 191 if I wanted to discuss things. As I was only cancelling because I had another account I didn't bother to call them, but I thought I would post the number here in case it's useful for anyone else - PayPal don't exactly make it easy to find normally!
Read more

"PC Not Listed" XBox 360 - Solution

This was driving me mad, my PC (XP SP3) could see the XBox from Windows Media Player 11, but for some reason the XBox kept reporting "PC Not Found". I searched the internet for hours and tried every solution under the sun, including the renaming/deleting of the DRM folder, disabling firewalls (both Kaspersky and Windows) as well as fiddling around with settings in the Netgear router. Nothing worked. Then I thought I'd try running the Windows "Set up a home or small office network" wizard found inside Network Connections, just to ensure that the settings within Windows were correct for networking. Hey presto, the XBox could now, finally, see the PC. I hope this helps anyone else who is pulling their hair out on this!
Read more

Including random number (timestamp) in vBulletin

This is useful for 'cache busting' (most commonly used with advertising code that requires a random number). So, if you want to easily include a random number (actually a timestamp) in your vBulletin templates, simply use this code: <if condition="$randomvar = TIMENOW">$randomvar</if> Every time I forget the syntax for this, I end up searching vBulletin.org before eventually realising the solution is actually on this thread at vBulletin.com! To avoid me wasting time again in the future, I decided to post this to my blog for reference.
Read more

Hiding Thunderbird "Sending Messages" dialogue

I occasionally use Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail software alongside Outlook. One thing that annoyed me however was the pop-up "Sending Messages" dialogue every time I sent a reply. Having searched Google I found a solution which involved creating a user.js file. This, despite sticking it in several suggested folders, didn't work. However, there is actually an easier way to do it (at least in my version, 1.5.x). Open the program and go to Tools > Options > Advanced and click the Config Editor button. Then in the filter line search for "progress" and you should find a variable called "mailnews.show_send_progress". Right click on this and select toggle to make it false. Then close that box and click Ok on the Options window. Restart Thunderbird and it should work!
Read more