Before anyone asks- yes, I know we should be on Exchange 2013 and am about to install it, but this is a "now" problem!

Recently, Outlook 2013 has been a bit sluggish connecting to our Exchange 2007 server but the server is old so we've assumed that it's the server at fault. Completely independently, I decided to add a new rule this morning so I clicked "File > Manage Rules & Alerts" and received "The attempted operation failed. An Object could not be found".

My colleague found that you could manage the rules by right-clicking any email and managing the rules that way, so it's specifically using the "File" menu route.

This sounds suspiciously like a similar fault with Out-of-Office a while back which MS had to patch.

Any ideas? I'm wondering whether this fault can be responsible for the client being sluggish against our servers, too, as this slow-down is relatively recent.

Hi Rjayt,

The fix has been included in the December update for Outlook 2013, found under http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2825652

After applying the fix, either wait 24 hours for the SMTP registry key to be updated or recreate the users profile.

Hi Koustov,

Many thanks for this but that December update sorted out the Out-of-Office/ Automatic Replies problem- this is a new issue with "Manage Rules and Alerts" but it seems similar in behaviour.

Rhidian

Hi Rhidian,

Are you applied the hotfix yet ? Share the result after Appling the hotfix.

Hi,

Have you tried testing this issue in Outlook safe mode (outlook /safe)?

Some people were able to fix this issue by starting Outlook with /cleanrules switch. Please try to create a backup of your rules and then try the switch to check the result.

To back up your rules:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/outlook-help/create-a-backup-copy-of-your-rules-HA102748927.aspx?CTT=1

To start Outlook with the command, press Windows key + R to open the Run command, type outlook /cleanrules and press Enter.

A similar issue discussed here:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-outlook/rules-object-not-found/7cedd169-43b2-41fa-bb77-bf8d909d5be0

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Tried all things noted here and nothing works.

using Outlook 2013 to exchange server 2007

I can right click an email and manage rules, just can't do it from the File selection. even tried the patch one other person suggested but it failed to run stating that I had the wrong version of Outlook.

The version problem is probably due to Microsoft's penchant for creating multiple versions of it's licensing in an obvious attempt to just confuse things and restrict people from actually using their products. This is an Enterprise Office 2013 pro plus install and we have couple things that don't work right due to licensing issues.