When starting Outlook "loading profile" hangs indefinitely

Anonymous
2010-07-04T16:07:13+00:00

Outlook will not start in safe mode either.  Tried repairing office.  Can't even delete a profile as that hangs as well.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Install, redeem, activate | For home | Windows

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.

0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2010-07-14T18:28:05+00:00

Press WinKey+R.  In the Open field, type regedit and hit Enter

Delete the following key to delete profile, once deleted re-create the profile.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\Windows

Messaging Subsystem\ Profiles

Was this answer helpful?

300+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2010-07-04T16:11:28+00:00

Try

Press WinKey+R.  In the Open field, type

outlook.exe /resetnavpane

Be sure to include the space.  Press Enter.


If this answer solves your problem, please check, Mark as Answered. If this answer helps, please click the Vote as Helpful button. Cheers Shane Devenshire

Was this answer helpful?

200+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2012-02-14T19:10:59+00:00

Outlook will not start in safe mode either.  Tried repairing office.  Can't even delete a profile as that hangs as well.

I've seen this problem several times and it's not tough to fix.

Rather than deleting a profile or taking any other destructive approach, I've found that you can simply create a new one with no risk.

Step One: Make sure Outlook is not running:

  • CTRL-ALT-DEL to open the Task Manager.
  • Choose the "Processes" tab to show all running processes.
  • Right Click on Outlook.exe (if it is running) and select "End Process Tree".

Step Two: Back up your profile:

  • Go to Control Panel/Mail and choose "Show Profiles..." to open the profiles dialog.
  • Rename your broken profile to "old profile"
  • Select "Prompt for a profile to be used".

Step Three: Start Outlook - problem solved:

  • Now start Outlook normally.
  • When it asks which profile to use, click on the "New..." button.

Outlook will now simply create a completely new profile which will, hopefully, solve all of your problems.

Once you have finished this troubleshooting/repair, tell Outlook to always use your new profile (See Step Two for instructions).

Was this answer helpful?

100+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

87 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. Anonymous
    2012-06-08T19:44:27+00:00

    Hard disk bad sectors were culprit in my case. Outlook got struck whenever my ost file was being read. Had to replace faulty hard disk.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2012-06-05T16:34:33+00:00

    I had a similar problem, but mine relied on the client end (Outlook). The workstation worked for months and them all of the suddenly Outlook started getting stuck in the loading profile screen. This happened for a user recently migrated to Ex 2010 using Outlook 2010 not on his primary computer with Windows Roaming Profile enabled.

    I fixed the issue by doing the following. Hope it helps.

    ** Killed MS Outlook

    ** Create a new MAPI profile and selected it as the default profile.

    ** Ran Office Repair Tool

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments