Thursday, February 4, 2010

Outlook Express Fails to start with 0x800C012E,5 and MSOE.DLL Errors

Outlook Express message store is composed of different *.dbx files, one for each folder that you see in the 'Local Folders' list of main window. The master index of the entire store is Folders.dbx. If this store suffers any sort of corruption, the result is directly reflected when you try to send/receive the e-mails or open Outlook Express. One such symptoms can be errors in MSOE.DLL file. This is a library file that is associated with critical e-mail operations in Outlook Express. Irrespective of the reason, Outlook Express doesn't allow you to restore the lost e-mails due to corruption unless you apply a suitable backup or run a third-party Outlook Express Recovery utility.

The following scenario can help you comprehend such file corruption issues in more detail. Consider you try to open Outlook Express and it cannot start because of the below error message:

Outlook Express could not be started. The application was unable to open the Outlook Express message store. Your computer may be out of memory or your disk is full. Contact Microsoft support for further assistance. (0x800C012E,5)

Further, when you click 'OK' to this error message, you get another error that reads as:

Outlook Express could not be started because MSOE.DLL could not be initialized. Outlook Express may not be installed correctly.

Cause


Errors in MSOE.DLL file generally indicate corruption in OE message store. The same errors can also occur if one or more standard *.dbx files (like Inbox.dbx) are read-only.

Solution


You can troubleshoot the depicted problem as follows:

1) Make sure that the *.dbx file(s) are not read-only. For this, enable the view of hidden files. Next, locate the .dbx file(s) as- click Start | Find or Search | Files or Folders, type '*.dbx' in the named box and click 'Find Now'. Once you find the files, right-click the files one at a time and click its Properties to see that read-only file attribute is unchecked.

2) If the issue persists, you can rename or delete the corrupted *.dbx file(s). Make sure you delete the file only when you have a suitable backup.

3) Repair the corrupted *.dbx file(s) and hence Recover Outlook Express using a third-party utility. The Outlook Express recovery tools can scan and repair corrupted *.dbx files using high-end, safe algorithms.