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Office 2016, 365 exchange emails stuck in outbox until system restart

Ok this is a weird one and its been ongoing for many months, wondering if anyone has any ideas. We have 10-15 office 365 exchange email accounts and they all work perfectly fine apart from one account on one device. This particular account has intermittent issues with sending and emails just sit in the outbox. Some emails send up until a point and then it randomly stops. The machine has to be restarted and then they send immediatly upon opening outlook.

The same email account is also being used on other laptops a mac and an iphone which are NOT experiancing this issue. The issue is limited to this particular laptop and account only.

We have tried all the usual things...

  • deleting and recreating mail profiles,
  • scanning ost files for corruptions,
  • deleting ost files,
  • reformatting the laptop with windows 10,
  • disabling outgoing AV mail scanning,
  • checked quarantine and outgoing spam settings in the o365 exchange control panel.

...etc etc, but they are only temporary fixes and the problem returns anywhere within a few minuites to several days.

Initially the problem was occuring on Win 8.1 Office 2016. We replaced the hard drive in that machine and installed a fresh copy of Win 10, and a new licensed copy of office 2016 pro plus thinking that Win 8 may be the culprit. Exact same problem. So at this point I dont think it is the machine its-self as it has been completely reformatted with a new OS?...

Now upon speaking with MS they seem to refuse to support us because we have a business account, and that we need to contact our technical support or partner? We have no technical support or partner and set up the outlook 365 account ourselves so it seems we are now stuck and may have to migrate to another service.

Is it possible that something within the mailbox is causing this to happen? Should we empty the mailbox and archive all the mail?

Or could this be something to do with autodiscover failing to work on that particular account and device?

Outlook reports no errors.

Any suggestions would be hugely appricated. I have found other threads online with simlar issues but none of them seem to offer a solution other than everything we have already tried.

Thanks

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Why Making Driverless Cars Is Hard

The promise of the driverless car is huge: It could free up a lot of time, spare us the need to get a driver’s license, improve road safety, empty our parking lots, or even replace car ownership.

But making self-driving cars is easier said than done. There still are quite a few technological and regulatory puzzles that need to be solved before AVs (autonomous vehicles) can be adopted on a mass scale. Let’s see what they are.

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Simulation Testing’s Uncanny Valley Problem

No one wants to be hurt because they're inadvertently driving next to an unproven self-driving vehicle. However, the costs of validating self-driving vehicles on the roads are extraordinary. To mitigate this, most autonomous developers test their systems in simulation, that is, in virtual environments. Starsky uses limited low-fidelity simulation to gauge the effects of certain system inputs on truck behavior. Simulation helps us to learn the proper force an actuator should exert on a steering mechanism, to achieve a turn of the desired radius. The technique also helps us to model the correct amount of throttle pressure to achieve a certain acceleration. But over-reliance on simulation can actually make the system less safe. To state the issue another way, heavy dependence on testing in virtual simulations has an uncanny valley problem.

First, some context. Simulation has arisen as a method to validate self-driving software as the autonomy stack has increasingly relied on deep-learning algorithms. These algorithms are massively complex. So complex that, given the volume of data the AV sensors provide, it’s essentially impossible to discern why the systems made any particular decision. They’re black boxes whose developers don’t really understand them. (I’ve written elsewhere about the problem with deep learning.) Consequently, it’s difficult to eliminate the possibility that they’ll make a decision you don’t like.

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Odd CraigsList Issue

Greetings,

Okay, so having an odd issue with a network at work. This is a fairly small LAN with about 30-50 workstations / devices / printers / etc. So the issue in essence is that only one of the workstation on the network can access craigslist. All others time out.

This is not a DNS issue as a ping to craigslist.org resolves correctly to 208.82.237.226 on all workstations. Also a tracert completes on all workstations with nothing remarkable.

I have only seen this once before and the issue was never resolved.

This is not an ISP issue as one of the workstations can connect and browse Craigslist without issue. Also one of the workstations that is unable to connect from the LAN was able to connect when direclty linked to the ISP modem.

Okay, so that points to an issue with one of the routers or perhaps a switch.

And to add to the confusion.... All of the workstations that "time out" DO receive a cookie from Craigslist. The cookie, 'cl_b' is one of the same cookies that the workstation that CAN connect also receives.

Let me also add that this issue of timing out is ONLY happening with Craigslist. No other sites have this issue.

The basic topology of the network is: Cable Modem (in bridge mode) -> Bridged PFSENSE Router v2.4.3-RELEASE-p1 -> Zyxel Switch (GS1900) -> TPLink Router (TL-R470T+) -> HP Switch (Procurve 2824) -> Worstations / Printers / AP's / Etc.
The reason for the two routers are servers that are wired to first switch with external IP addresses. The first router acts as a firewall / IDS / IPS. Router two does limited NAT.

I have scoured logs of the switches and routers. I have also done a packet capture from one of the afflicted workstations, please see attachment. It's not browser specific as the problem exists with all browsers with the exception of TOR browser, but we all know whay that is. This isn't a firewall / AV issue as all have been disabled during testing.

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. I am stumped. If this were a home issue I could probably just replace the router with a different device, but honestly I would like not only a solution, but an understanding of why this is occuring. What makes Craigslist different than all other sites? What makes the one workstation that can connect different than the others?

Thanks