Outlook is sending blank emails or emails with Chinese characters

Ryan Pulice 6 Reputation points
2020-12-14T15:32:37.31+00:00

Hello,

Last week my email address which is hosted on a Microsoft 365 server and uses Microsoft Outlook (with Microsoft Office Professional 2019) began experiencing issues. A few times a day I'll send an email and it goes out blank. Or it will remove my own text and insert some Chinese symbols. It's not every email but it's causing duplicate work and is an annoyance to my clients (and me). How can I fix this?

thank you
Ryan

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5 answers

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  1. Lydia Zhou - MSFT 2,376 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2020-12-15T01:51:08.703+00:00

    @Ryan Pulice

    Did this issue occur before? Were there any modification in your organization before this issue?
    Does this issue occur with other users in your organization?

    After sending the message, is the message in your "Sent Items" folder also replaced with some Chinese symbols?
    If it's convenient, you can post the screenshot of the message here, and don't forget to cover your personal inofrmation.

    Here are some suggestions for you:

    1. Try to send messages with OWA, to see if this only occurs with Outlook.
    2. Please try to create a new Outlook profile, then check if the issue persists.
    3. Check and make sure you are using the latest Office service pack and the latest public update.
    4. Try to reinstall Microsoft Office 2019.

    If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

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  2. Ryan Pulice 6 Reputation points
    2020-12-15T13:25:51.923+00:00

    Hello,

    No, this just started happening within the last week or so. I have since updated Microsoft Office to ensure I am on the latest version, but that did not fix the issue. There is only one other user in my organization and she hasn’t had this happen – but she uses email only sparingly. (I’m basically a one man accounting shop with a part time admin assistant).

    Yes, the message in my sent folder also shows as blank or with Chinese symbols. I have uploaded a screen shot of a blank email and one with the Chinese symbols with PI blacked out. I'll try the steps recommended and let you know if any work. Thanks
    48383-chinese-symbols.png48393-blank-email.png


  3. Ryan Pulice 6 Reputation points
    2020-12-18T12:55:19.12+00:00

    I believe the problem is fixed - that is the case for the last few days. I didn't create a new profile (I have only one email address tied to my domain) and I never uninstalled Outlook. What I did was change the International Options in Outlook Options (under the advanced tab). I set the preferred encoding for outgoing messages to "Unicode (UTF-8). I have not had issues since making that change.

    0 comments No comments

  4. Ryan Pulice 6 Reputation points
    2020-12-18T15:06:14.94+00:00

    I spoke too soon - wouldn't you know as soon as I posted the last response I had an email go out with Chinese symbols again.

    Am I able to create a new profile using the same email address? If I delete the current profile and add it back, will I lose my history?


  5. Ryan Pulice 6 Reputation points
    2020-12-30T11:04:25.913+00:00

    It seems to be working now - I ran an update a few days ago and haven't had the issue occur since.


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