Windows Live mail is stuck in 'working offline'

Anonymous
2013-04-02T10:57:39+00:00

Windows Live mail is stuck in 'working offline' and will not allow me to send or receive emails. 

No matter how many times I try to change it to working online, although I AM online and everything else works fine, I cannot receive or send emails.  The Globe at the bottom of the screen changes to online whne I click on it, but the option 'work offline' under 'File' in top left will not switch to online.  I am going mad as I cannot retrieve my emails or send any.

Windows for home | Other | Email and communications

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2013-04-04T00:09:08+00:00

Have a look at IE Tools | Work offline --- is it ticked? untick it, and WLM will be able to go online again.

For some idiot reason MS link IE and WLM Work on/offline settings.

This happened to me after upgrading to IE10 ... hours of frustration later (and I did not select to work offline in IE BTW!).

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Anonymous
2013-07-16T02:51:45+00:00

Hi everyone,

I know that you guys are having issues on:

Unable to send or receive emails, Windows Live Mail is stuck in ‘working offline’

We recommend that you follow the steps below as one of these steps may resolve your issue.

  1. Make sure that the default browser is IE. (Please see the link below)

Make Internet Explorer your default browser:

Internet Explorer 10

Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7

Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 8

  1. You may try to reconfigure the account in Windows Live Mail:

How do I add an account to Windows Live Mail?

  1. Check your computer’s Internet Connection. Verify if Internet Explorer is offline.

a)    Open Internet Explorer browser.

b)    From the menu bar, click File. (If menu is not shown, press “Alt” + F button on your keyboard)

c)     Uncheck “Work offline” by clicking on it.

d)    From Windows Live Mail, click Send/Receive button. If you are being asked to go online, click Yes.

If you encounter the same issue even after following the steps in this thread, we recommend to create a new post under Windows Live Mail forum.

NOTE: I have locked this thread now since it's too long to manage. You may also find some workaround provided by the community on this thread.

Thank you.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-07-10T10:03:27+00:00

    I have been struggling to fix this as I use Google chrome and still no luck- any ideas?

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-07-10T16:19:55+00:00

    Hello RosWalker

    I think the problem is Internet explorer 10 (if you have this version)  and by the way it is installed as a necessity of Windows even though you are using Chrome as your browser)

    However the only way to get back on line, assuming you are using IE10 & Windows Live mail , is to go to Internet Explorer and open the page and presume you have the toolbar showing ie. File-Edit-View-Favorites-Tools-Help,  select File/uncheck offline.  Now in Windows Live Mail you will be back "on line".

    Unfortunately if for some reason you shut your router off and go back "offline" you will need to repeat the process of going back to Internet Explorer and repeating the action.

    As I believe the culprit to be IE10  I have uninstalled the April 2013 update which installed IE10 . The uninstall process automatically reinstalls IE9 which does not cause a problem and if you go "offline" in Windows Live Mail you can uncheck the box in WLM/File.

    To prevent IE10 reinstalling you must set updates to manual and let you decide what to install.

    Hope you understand all of this !!

    Good luck

    Robin

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-07-10T18:46:20+00:00

    I have been wrestling with this problem for six weeks. I have backed out the last half-dozen Windows updates, uninstalled and reinstalled AVG and upgraded to Windows Live Mail 2012.

    The machine is a Dell with an i7 processor and Win 7.

    The only thing I haven't done yet is completely uninstall Windows Live Mail and reinstall it.

    I don't like Windows Live Mail. It was offered by a Microsoft site as a necessary intermediary step for porting Outlook Express files into Outlook. Once the files were in Windows Live Mail, however, the export utility intended to move them to Outlook failed repeatedly.

    I worked on that for several hours and when I could find no recourse to work around the bug eventually I gave up and tried to adapt to life with Windows Live Mail. Now this.

    Several times it seemed I had beaten the problem into compliance, only to have it re-emerge within 24 hours.

    help

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