Outlook 2010 64-bit copy/paste bug

There is a bug with NOD32 antivirus and Outlook 2010 64-bit - copy-pasting with formating from any web page will cause Outlook to hang.

Problem description:
Copying any text from any web-browser from any web page, and trying to paste it into Outlook 2010 64-bit will cause Outlook to hang.
On the first paste command, Outlook simply does nothing. Trying to paste a second time will cause Outlook to hang. Using the paste option "paste as text", Outlook will not hang.

Detailed troubleshooting steps:
1) Uninstalled everything related to Office. Rebooted and installed Office 2010 Professional Plus 64-bit. Bug was intermittent - sometimes it pasted fine, but at some point during the day it would hang again.
2) The moment Outlook hanged, I opened Word 2010 and could paste with format no problems what so ever.
3) Contacted Microsoft Support, they suggested I try hotfix KB2459114. After applying the hotfix, Outlook would not hang anymore, it would simply refuse to paste (with format) anything at all from any webpage.
4) After removing the hotfix, Outlook would hang all the time, when I tried to paste with format anything from any webpage.
5) Contacted Microsoft Support again, this time I unchecked the ESET Outlook add-in from Outlook and now the bug is gone. I can paste just fine.

More information:
Before contacting Microsoft Support, I uninstalled NOD32 (didn't install any other AV) and Outlook still hanged. It seems NOD32 leaves behind the Outlook add-in during the uninstallation, that is why the bug remained.

I'm using Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, Office 2010 64-bit and currently running NOD32 4.2.71.0 (64-bit of course).
The bug has been present ever since NOD32 4.2.58.0 as far as I remember.

This bug has also happened on a completely clean machine - clean installed Windows 7 64.bit, Outlook 2010, NOD32 and immediately got Outlook to hang.

As far as I know, this bug is specific to 64-bit Outlook 2010.
Using Windows 7 64-bit, Outlook 2010 32-bit, I haven't encountered this bug so far.

 

Hi hrsmarko,

I'm unable to recreate this problem. I use Win 7 Pro x64, Office 2010 Pro x64, ESET NOD32 BE 4.2.71.2. I've never encountered this problem, and routinely (dozens of times per day) copy-paste from web pages (Firefox or IE into "new mail" windows in Outlook. I've never experienced anything along these lines.

Anything I'm doing differently to you?




Jim

 

We'll reproducing this bug can be tricky.
For instance, when I reinstalled Office 2010, on that day I couldn't reproduce the bug. Tried it on two machines and nothing...

The following morning immediately Outllook hung again during pasting. After it hung and I launched Outlook again, I could immediately paste the same text I was trying to paste when Outlook hanged. I tried to copy-paste 20 times in a row different things and still couldn't reproduce the bug.

Some hours later I tried again and immediately got Outlook to hang.

So maybe it somehow depends on how long Outlook has been running. I usually never close it nor the computer, so it runs 24/7 for me.

Only after I installed the hotfix and removed it, did Outlook start haning all the time during pasting, even after a computer restart.

So perhaps you can try installing hotfix KB2459114.
First of, maybe pasting will stop working all together like it did for me?
Secondly, if you uninstall the hotfix, maybe it will start hanging all the time then?

If you'd like to see what I'm on about go to http://mommi.planet.ee/muu
The file outlook_bug.avi shows how Outlook hangs after I removed the hotfix.
The file outlook.avi shows how Outlook does not paste anything at all with the hotfix applied.

PS! I'm using Exchange and the PC is in a domain. This is unlikely to have a significant effect on the bug, but you never know. Supposedly Outlook works totally differently (even in terms of copy-paste) when connected to Exchange...

 

Hi hrsmarko,

I too am using Exchange (connected to Exchange 2007 via RPC over HTTPS over the internet, it's not on the local network), and I also have three POP3S accounts defined in Exchange.

My laptop rarely gets rebooted - normally just on Patch Tuesday - and is usually just put to sleep each night. My System Ideal Process currently shows 276 hours, so approx. 11 days idle since the last reboot.

My wife's laptop is also Office x64 on Win 7 Pro x64, although she's not connected to Exchange. She tends to use IE8 whereas I use Firefox. But neither of us has ever experienced this problem I'm afraid.

What I'm not about to do is install a hotfix which apparently made it worse for you. This is my work laptop, and I work as an I.T. Technical Consultant, so I'm not about to jeopardise my laptop with a hotfix Sorry....

There's others on this forum also using Office x64 and I don't recall anyone else raising this issue, and I can't recreate it either. What else do you have installed and running on your computer (drivers and apps) ?


Jim

 

Can't duplicate here either. Running Windows 7 x64, Office 2010 x64, and the latest version of ESS.

 

Interesting...

We'll the hotfix for me actually made things a bit better:
1) Outlook didn't hang anymore, so if I'm writing a new e-mail and accidentaly type ctrl+v, then I won't suddenly loose everything I've typed so far.
2) After removing the hotfix I could reliabily reproduce the bug and thus found the root cause - the ESET Outlook add-in.

So far I have stumbeled on this problem on three machines (all running 64-bit versions of everything):
1) On my own work computer
2) On a customers laptop, this is the machine that was cleanly reinstalled as I stated in my first post. I had to "downgrade" to Office 2007 for the time being.
3) On my co-workers home laptop. Although the last couple of times he hasn't managed to reproduce the bug either, but he hasn't tried very thoroughly either...

As far as my work computer goes, it has had dozens of stuff installed and uninstaled. Most work related, some not so much...
On the drivers part, it is an Intel DP35DP machine with the latest drivers installed, hard disks in RAID1, ATI Radeon 3870 with the 10.11 drivers.
On the software part there's nothing I can think of that would interfere with Outlook. I haven't installed any Contact Managers or Connectors or any other third part plugins (other than ESET of course).
Do you want the full list of currently installed software?

I can't recall installing 64-bit Outlook 2010 on any other machines other than the three I stated. Everywhere else I've so far installed the 32-bit version.

So there are two strange facts at play here:
1) I've managed to be affected by this problem on 3 out of 3 machines.
2) You could perhaps think that maybe the ESET Outlook add-in file has been damaged. But reinstalling NOD32 has no effect (although, if NOD32 doesn't remove the add-in file during uninstallation, maybe it doesn't overwrite it during installation either). But despite this, this problem has occured on a cleanly installed machine as well, so it is universally unprobable, that the same file could be damaged the same way on two different machines...


If you can't replicate the bug, then the best next course of aciton I can think of, is to try to install the hotfix on my co-workers machine and see what happens then.
I'll post the results probably sometime next week.
If this gives the same results, then someone at ESET can try installing (and uninstalling) the hotfix in a virtual machine enviroment inorder to get the bug to reproduce all the time.


Is there anything else I can try out in the meantime? Perhaps run some sort of debugging mode in NOD32?

I'm afraid there isn't much information in the event viewer either. The only thing logged under Application is:
The program OUTLOOK.EXE version 14.0.4760.1000 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Action Center control panel.
Process ID: 92c
Start Time: 01cbd920df0df29c
Termination Time: 16
Application Path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\OUTLOOK.EXE
Report Id: b66a9ee7-4599-11e0-beaf-0050f27e0b25

 

On all the problematic machines, do you have anything which could monitor or interfere with the clipboard? TeamViewer, VNC, LogMeIn, RemotePC, legitimate keylogging software, screen capture software etc ?

Jim

 

The hotfix you mention KB2459114 appears to be for Hebrew text. Are you using a non English version of anything?

I also am running an ATi 3870 (duals actually) in the machine I tested on, you can probably rule that part out.

 

Hello,

Perhaps Outlook has been marked as a web browser in ESS.

1. Please open the Eset GUI,
2. press F5 for advanced setup,
3. On the left expand Web access protection > HTTP, HTTPS > then click to highlight web browsers.
4. In the main window, is the Outlook executable listed and checked? If so, uncheck it.
5. On the left, expand Protocol filtering then highlight Excluded applications.
6. In the main window, look to see if C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe or Outlook's .exe are listed. If so, uncheck them and click OK.

Let us know the result.

Thanks,

Matt

 

@jimwillsher - My machine only has TeamViewer installed (version 6 something). The other two machines don't have any such programs installed.

@xxJackxx - I was suprised by that my self, that Microsoft Support sent me such a hotfix. From the description it has nothing to do with Outlook at all, only Word and Hebrew at that. And Outlook 2010 doesn't use Word anymore for new e-mails... At least it doesn't launch winword.exe process in the background. Although it might use some shared components.
All my software is in english - Windows, Outlook, NOD32, etc...

@MattJN - NOD32 is currently uninstalled from my machine and Outlook still crashes (if I have the ESET Outlook add-in checked in Outlook). So the problem is specific to the (dll) add-in file not NOD32 itself...

**Edit**
Ok, this just keeps getting stranger and stranger.
Yesterday night, I uninstalled NOD32 and disabled the Outlook add-in, pasting worked.
Today, just right now, tried to paste and Outlook hung again, repetedly. I checked and the ESET Outlook add-in is still disabled.
I disabled one of Microsofts own add-ins, restarted Outlook and could paste just fine.
Tried renabling all add-ins, restarted Outlook and could still paste just fine.
Although the ESET Outlook add-in goes back to disabled after Outlook restarts, maybe because NOD32 isn't installed and the file is missing...

So basically I'm back to square one, I'm experiencing the same behaviour as per pre-hotfix installation/uninstallation. Pasting works for some time, then suddenly hangs Outlook.
Guess I'll have to contact Microsoft Support again, maybe it has nothing to do with NOD32 at all...
I'll keep you all posted.

 

Ok, this thread can be closed. The copy/paste bug has nothing to do with NOD32 at all.
After some more testing and a clean install of Windows (no AV instaled), it seems to me that this issue has something to do with TeamViewer. I'll need to do some more testing to confirm...
There is a newer version out, I'm still using 6.0.9947. Although the change log does not state a copy/paste fix, maybe one of the "other minor fixes" fixes the issue I'm having.

The only thing that ESET can improve here, is to fully uninstall itself and not leave behind registry entries for the ESET.Outlook.Addin.
This would help avoid confusion and false blame in other similar cases.

Thanks for everyones input on this matter.