OL2002: Operation Failed Error When You Restore or Maximize a Custom Form (318448)

SYMPTOMS

When you use a custom form with a Microsoft Outlook Rich Text message body and you are using Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor, you may receive the following error message when you restore or maximize items based on the custom form:

The operation failed due to network or other communication problems. Check your connections and try again.

If you click OK to close the error message, the custom form may appear as expected. In some cases, you may receive other error messages about low memory or system resource problems.

CAUSE

When you use Word as your e-mail editor with a custom form that uses Outlook Rich Text for the message format, Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology is the communication between the custom form and Word. In this specific example, the OLE communication between Word and the custom form has a timing problem in the resizing of the form controls that result in the error message described in the "Symptoms" section.

The timing problem is triggered when a certain combination of the screen resolution, system resources, and form controls are used together. When you work with several items at a time and use a window command (for example, the Minimize, the Maximize, or the Restore window commands) you are more likely to receive the error message mentioned in the "Symptoms" section because the resizing code is called many times.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, use Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) as the message format for the custom form. Because the HTML format does not use Word as your e-mail editor, you never encounter the timing error. In this case, you can still use Word as your e-mail editor for all other items. You are only turning off Word as your e-mail editor for the one specific form.

How to Change the Message Body of the Custom Form to HTML

Use the following steps to change the body format of the message to HTML:

Create a new instance of the custom form.
With the cursor in the body of the custom form, click Plain text on the Format menu.
With the cursor in the body of the custom form, click HTML on the Format menu.
Publish the custom form.

MORE INFORMATION

Although the error message in the "Symptoms" section indicates that there may be a network problem, the problem is not network related. It is a problem in the communication between Microsoft Outlook and Word while they negotiate control of the body text. With Outlook 2002 and Microsoft Word 2002, most of the functionality of the older OLE technology has been replaced with a newer communication method that is based on the Envelope.dll file. This new technology does not have the timing or resource limitations associated with the older OLE method. For regular Outlook Rich Text messages, and for HTML based composing, the newer technology is used. However for the specific case of a custom form with an Outlook Rich Text message body, the older OLE method is still used and the error message can appear.