How To Fix MS Outlook Jam With Outlook Express

I recently faced a strange situation where my mail server was showing over 700 emails but Microsoft Outlook was failing to download them with timeout error. The problem was that it wasn’t downloading even a single email. Here’s how I solved it.

First I checked that I am really able to connect by connecting using telnet from command line (cmd prompt). I found that I could list as well as retrieve emails while directly using the POP3 protocol. I restarted Outlook but it didn’t help. Somehow Outlook was getting stuck, probably in an infinite loop. So I brought up good old Outlook Express, configured it to download the emails and let it go. It downloaded them in a flash. After that I tried Microsoft Ooutlook again with some new emails and it downloaded fine.