Outlook Send is slow
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Starting a few weeks ago sending an email from Outlook would take up to 30 seconds to complete, in which time the entire application is locked. Very disruptive to work flow and concentration. I finally tracked down the problem and solution this morning.
Other people report similar behaviour with the cure being to change Anti-Virus scanning on the Exchange server or remove images in signatures.
In my case the cure was disable an Add-In for fixing inline quoting, that had previously worked for 6 months+ without a hitch.
I tracked down the problem by:
Starting Outlook in safe mode (Start >> Run >> "outlook.exe /safe") and sending a few test messages: all were instant.
Restarting Outlook normally and the problem came back
Going to File >> Manage Add-ins and disabling the only listed Add-in (gsync-it) had no effect.
Going to File >> Options >> Add-ins >> Manage COM Addins and stepping through every non-Microsoft item listed (Adobe, Gsync-It, Mindjet, Smart Label Printer, Outlook Quote Fix) and an Exit >> Outlook >> Send test cycle.
Other observations:
Messages send to recipients in Global Address book (inside the Active Directory domain) but not in Contacts list were always instant
Messages outside AD were always slow
Setting Send/Receive option to every 10 minutes instead of instant had no effect (Options >> Advanced >> Send and Receive >> "Send immediately when connected") --> means communications with Exchange server is not involved
Which leads to the idea the problem has to do with RTF to HTML conversion. Some of my reading indicates internal domain recipients always get RTF even when option to "always compose in HTML" in set. The Outlook Quote Fix add-in works by "[intercepting] the e-mail before it is sent, grabs the Word document (if the e-mail format is to be HTML), and fixes the Word document's XML, before saving it as HTML and setting the e-mail's HTML body to the 'fixed' HTML."
My conclusion is that something changed in a security patch last month to Sophos or MS Office or both that results in increased scrutiny of 3rd party addins. I can't completely rule out Anti Virus scanner as the cause as our AV, Sophos, is corporate controlled by group policy and can't be disabled entirely. (I did test turning off on-access scanning and various other similar options to no avail).
From <http://mysites.yukonnect.gov.yk.ca/users/mhwilkie/musings/_layouts/15/start.aspx>
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Untested idea: move install location for the Add-In to a Trusted Location.