YouTube E-mails freezing Outlook

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UPDATE:  This is now fixed as YouTube have added the http:// to the SRC addresses now to stop Outlook thinking it’s a network path.

 

 

If you attempt to open and e-mail from YouTube recently in Outlook you’ll probably get what seems to be a lock-up and sometimes a complete Outlook crash.  Most of the time it’s just timing out.  Why is this happening?  With the help of Process Monitor and some pointers from Mark Russinovich from Microsoft and creator of the great series of talks The Case Of The Unexplained it appears to be the way Outlook handles “//” tags.

While opening the e-mail Outlook, after a while frozen, would pop up the below message.  Why was it trying to look at a network address \\ when ytimg.com is clearly a http address.

Running Process Monitor and putting some filters on it’s capture I found this:

 

As you can see Outlook is trying to look for a file at \\i3.ytimg.com\i\ and not finding it so timing out.   Sending the findings to Mark Russinovich for his Case Of The Unexplained talks he replied, after I sent a copy of the e-mail so he was able to recreate it, that it’s the table in the e-mail that is trying to load the avatar’s people use:

<tr>
<td bgcolor=”#FFF” align=”left” width=”50″>
<img src=”//i3.ytimg.com/i/ZfOE9SPvPjlslcDGePkIiQ/1.jpg?

v=4fc532bd” height=”50″ width=”50″>
</td>
<td width=”16″></td>

 

Turns out Outlook is interpreting the “//” as a file server and attempting to find it, but obviously failing.

Only way around it at the moment is turning off HTML on all e-mails or just moving the file to a junk folder, which also turns off all html but just in that e-mail.

Can’t RDP to VM while removing snapshot

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Appears this is a known issue due to CBT  (Changed Block Tracking)

http://xtravirt.co.uk/vsphere-vm-%E2%80%9Cfreezes%E2%80%9D-during-removal-snapshot

vSphere: VM “freezes” during the removal of a snapshot

Author(s): (ICT-Freak.nl) Arne Fokkema
First Published: 26 April 2011
UID: XD10406

By Arne Fokkema – ICT-Freak.nl

If your VM is running on a NFS datastore and Changed Block Tracking (CBT) is enabled, you might experience the following symptoms:

When removing the snapshot of the virtual machine residing on the NFS storage in an ESX/ESXi 4.1 host, you may experience these symptoms:

  • The virtual machine appears to be in a hung state within the console view
  • The virtual machine stops responding to ping requests
  • The virtual machine is inaccessible via remote desktop

But why is this VM freezing? The explanation is the locking mechanism which NFS uses:

This issue may occur if you are using a backup application that utilizes Changed Block Tracking (CBT) and the ctkEnabled option for the virtual machine is set to true. The virtual machine becomes unresponsive for up to 30 seconds as NFS locks on the .ctk file are changed.

The workaround is to disable CBT:

  1. Wait for the virtual machine to become responsive and for the snapshot operation to complete.
  2. Schedule an outage window for the affected virtual machine.
  3. Shut down the virtual machine.
  4. In the Inventory pane, right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
  5. Click the Options tab and click General.
  6. Click Configuration Parameters.
  7. If the ctkEnabled  parameter is not listed, click Add Row, add ctkEnabled, and set it to false.
  8. Power on the virtual machine.

This workaround can impact the backup performance because you can’t use CBT. To Disable CBT in a Veeam job, you have to edit the job and disable CBT in the Advanced Settings under the vSphere tab

Or if you’re using PHD Virtual Backup you can change the CBT settings in the Options tab on the properties page of a Backup Job

spooler at 50%

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Spooler running at 50% even after reboot

Use Sysinternals, Process Explorer

Check it’s threads.  Is localspl.dll running at 50%?

If so check the print queues on the machine, especially Microsoft Office Document Image Writer which could have a document stuck in it.

Net Use Map Drive

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If already tried to map drive and got permission denied go to CMD

type

net use

You’ll probably see it in the list with no drive letter

Type:

net use /d \\COMPUTERNAME\share

To map as another user type:

net use x: \\COMPUTERNAME\share /user:DOMAINNAME\USERNAM *

Then it will ask for the user name password.  Press enter.

Done.