When exiting Outlook it complains attachments are open when they're not

This has quickly become a widespread issue at our company over the last few months. End users will use Outlook throughout the day, opening and closing email attachments from within Outlook as per normal. At the end of the day, they'll try to exit Outlook, which will then popup an error one by one for every attachment that has been opened by that user since they started Outlook:

"A program has attachment filename open. Changes to this file will be lost unless you save your changes to another file by clicking the File Tab in the other program, and then clicking Save As."


I can assure you that NONE of the attachments that it's complaining about are actually open in another program. I've tested by shutting down ALL programs on the workstation before closing Outlook, and the same error will popup over and over for every attachment that user has opened throughout the day.


Environment is Outlook 2010 and 2013 32-bit, running on Windows 7 SP1 x64 workstations and laptops, most are in online mode with Exchange 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 7 on the backend.


This issue has popped up on various combinations of software, some running Outlook 2010, some Outlook 2013, some in online mode and some in cached mode, for MANY users in our company (not all though).


Googling for similar issues doesn't turn up much.


Any thoughts?

March 31st, 2015 2:43pm

Hi,

Do you have a folder redirection environment?

When we open attachments within Outlook, Outlook puts these attachments in a subdirectory of the Temporary Internet Files directory as an additional precaution. We may try to empty the Temporary Internet Files folder before exiting Outlook to check if this issue will disappear. We can find the Temporary Internet Files directory in the OutlookSecureTempFolder registry key from the following registry path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\xx.0\Outlook\Security  (xx.0 is the version of your Outlook)

In addition, does this issue exist if we open Outlook in safe mode? Press Windows key + R to open the Run command, type outlook /safe and press Enter. If this issue doesn't exist in safe mode, it means this issue may be caused by a problematic add-in you installed. We can go to File > Options > Add-ins and then disable suspicious add-in to resolve the issue.

If you have any virus scanner installed, please also try to temporarily disable it and then test it again. This is because virus scanner always integrate itself with Outlook, which may cause an Outlook shutdown issue.

Please let me know the result.

Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

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April 1st, 2015 10:37pm

This is a known issue and you might want to read below threads.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-outlook/outlook-2013-open-attachment-dialog-if-you/dbd3d3ac-f989-45bf-a0dd-c32865a9744d?page=2

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/outlook-2010/edit-and-save-outlook-2010-attachments/

April 1st, 2015 11:39pm

Hi,

Just checking in to see if the information was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.

Best Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
April 7th, 2015 11:57am

Hi Steve

No we're not using a folder redirection environment.

I checked the Temporary Internet Files directory like you suggested. When I open an attachment from Outlook it shows up there as expected, except there are two copies of it created instantly. I see attachment.pdf and attachment (2).pdf. Not sure why it's creating two copies. Regardless, when I exit my Outlook, those files disappear from the temp folder as expected without an error message. 

Then I tried deleting the contents of that folder prior to exiting Outlook, which resulted in a different error:
"The attachments of the message 'Email subject here' have been changed. Want to save your changes to this message?" This pops up twice for every e-mail that has an attachment which I opened before exiting Outlook.

I'm still not able to reproduce the initial error described in my OP on demand. It seems to popup randomly. I've also now been told that it's not only popping up when exiting Outlook, but also when a user attaches a file to an e-mail, sends it, then opens a different email. Sometimes it also references attachments that were opened days or even a week earlier.

As you suggested, I'm thinking it could be add-in related. We use an add-in from Commvault Systems which auto-archives the content of end users emails. But this is only supposed to affect emails that are older than 90 days, while this popup issue is occurring on current/new email. We'll try disabling the add-in and see if that improves things. 

April 7th, 2015 3:09pm
ZA85, thanks but that's a different issue altogether. That's only for when someone edits attachments that were opened from within Outlook and leaves them open. That is not the scenario in our case.
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April 7th, 2015 3:10pm

Thank you for the update. In addition to add-ins, please also make sure there is no other program integrating with Outlook. Such as Fax software, Virus scanners, Anti-spam filters, Synchronization software, etc. You'll have to check the documentation of that program on how to disable it.

Please keep me updated.

Thanks,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

April 7th, 2015 10:19pm

Any update on this issue? Please don't hesitate to post back.

Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
April 12th, 2015 10:20pm

Hi,

I'm marking the reply as answer as there has been no update for a couple of days.

If you come back to find it doesn't work for you, please reply to us and unmark the answer.

Best Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

May 8th, 2015 5:04am

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