# [SOLVED] Outlook 2007 rule problem causes blank message body



## DaveRose (Nov 4, 2008)

Hi All
I have a problem with Outlook 2007 and I’m sure it is caused by a Rule. 

I have a rule that looks for a specific word in the subject line with the word “question” and from a sender with “ebay”. The idea being that if anyone sends me a question for something that I’m selling on ebay it will play a tune, mark it as important and set it for follow-up today.

A second rule moves all e-mails from “ebay” to a separate folder.

Both rules seem to work, but when I look in the ebay folder for these messages, I see an e-mail header only (marked as important and follow-up today) BUT the message body is blank.

If I then look at the original inbox I see TWO messages for the one that arrived. I see the original message and it looks intact, but the second one has only the header and no body. It’s the one that has no message body that is moved to the ebay folder.

The order in which the rules run is first to set the header and play the tune, etc and the second one moves it to the folder.

It's a shame that I can't set only one rule that changes the header for a particular condition, but still move all of them from ebay into the ebay folder. 

This is the first time I have seen this problem and I don’t know how to fix it. 

In the meantime I have turned off the rule that highlights the e-mails, but I’d rather have this feature turned on.

Any help you can offer will be appreciated…
Regards
Dave


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## DaveRose (Nov 4, 2008)

*Re: Outlook 2007 rule problem causes blank message body*

I have continued testing, but I still can't get two rules working on the same message without it duplicating the original and then losing the message body.

Has anyone else had this problem?


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## nuzzy (Jun 19, 2009)

*Re: Outlook 2007 rule problem causes blank message body*

Hi Dave,

I am having the same issue. Did you get this resolved?


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## DaveRose (Nov 4, 2008)

*Re: Outlook 2007 rule problem causes blank message body*

Hi Nuzzy
Thanks for your message. Sadly I haven't found a solution yet and yours is the first response to my original query. For some time I have been considering a workaround which logically works (well at least to logic works in my head!).

Original scenario:
When my e-mails arrive in the inbox I have a rule that moves messages into their designated folders. The exception is that I want specific e-mails also to be placed in that folder, but they should be treated differently like set it to follow-up today, have the importance set to high and play a tune to announce its arrival.

Possible workaround (but not proven yet):
For the rule that moves messages into a specific folder, I'm thinking of using the "except if the subject contains" option to exclude the e-mails that need special treatment. If that works then the original email will remain as unread in the inbox.

Assuming that step works, then I'll set up a new rule that caters only for the emails that were left behind and then I will flag them up the way I wanted.

Now that you have got me thinking about this again I'll consider doing some testing over the weekend.

Regards
Dave


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## DaveRose (Nov 4, 2008)

*SOLVED!! Re: Outlook 2007 rule problem causes blank message body*

I have solved my problem after a lot of testing. It seems that the "Mark it as importance" is the cause of my problems. The other thing I noticed is that if I flag a message for follow-up today it doesn't do it.

Anyway, just to summarise...

I now have two rules in place:
1. Moves e-mails to a specified folder with an exception "Except if the subject contains" <the string I entered>
2. The second rule looks for <the string i entered> and highlights it with a red category and plays a tune

Wow... this took a long time to resolve but I finally arrived. Now I must backup my rules because I have a complex set of scenarios and now I'm pleased to say they all work:grin:


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