A problem occurred while sending the email. Error [MailLib]: General MAPI Failure

[david_pratten]

Hi team,

Unfortunately, I have "A problem occurred while sending the email. Error [MailLib]: General MAPI Failure" persisting even after following the available advice here: https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/search.php?keywords=General+MAPI+Failure

I have tried 32bit MAPI on and off.

I am running PDF-XChange Editor Plus 8.343

I have a mail client (Mailbird) installed and set as default and when I click on a mailto: link in a browser it correctly opens a Mailbird client window.

In the past, I have used earlier versions of PDF-XChange Editor with Mailbird without any issues.

What is broken?

Thanks

David

[david_pratten]

I do have one additional factor which may assist debugging.

In the "Send Mail" Preferences, PDF-XChange Editor Plus is showing Outlook's logo on the "Mail Client" line instead of Mailbirds.

image.png

Perhaps PDF-XChange Editor Plus thinks that Outlook is the default mail client even though Windows 10 reports that Mailbird is the default.

image1.png

On my machine, Outlook is installed along with Office, is unconfigured, and can't be removed without removing all of Office.

Thanks

David

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hi, david_pratten

Windows itself is well known to not properly change the Default mail client so it can be used by all applications. In cases like this the most reliable method we have found to make this change is to change one of the defaults your client can use to something else, then launch that mail client, and have it check to see if it is the default. Because of that one change you made, it should say it is not the defualt and prompt you to let it make the change.

Once the mail client has set itself as the default, windows often recognizes the change properly, and we are then able to use the new client.

I hope this helps! If not, I might suggest reinstalling mailbird, and using the "make this my default client" option that its installer should hopefully offer.

Kind regards,

[david_pratten]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice.

I have followed the following three steps with no change.

1 Set a different default mail client and then started Mailbird, which detected that it wasn't the default. Mailbird sent me to the right Windows screen to set it correctly. I reset the default back to Mailbird. Restarted Mailbird and it didn't complain this time.
- No change to behaviour of PDF Xchange Editor.

2 Uninstalled Mailbird and reinstalled with setting it to default as part of the install.
- No change to behaviour of PDF Xchange Editor.

3 Uninstalled and reinstalled PDF Xchange Editor.
- No change to behaviour of PDF Xchange Editor.

Further information to guide debugging.

1. Each time PDF Xchange Editor tries to send an email I get the following dialog box (apparently from Outlook).

image.png

2. When the default mail client is set, this is setting the URL:MailTo Protocol. So on my system we have Mailbird with this association:

image1.png

and it also has set the following registry keys to Mailbird

image.png

image.png

image.png

And Outlook is still assigned these protocols these

image2.png

Question
How is it that Mailbird and browsers are able to know which is the default mail client, but PDF Xchange editor doesn't seem to?

Thanks for your assistance.

David

[david_pratten]

Further information.

This seems to be Windows related. If I right click on a PDF file and Send To > Mail Recipient it get exactly the same message as from PDF-Xchange.

image.png

David

[david_pratten]

OK so this is turning into a saga and here is what I have found.

Uninstalling and reinstalling MS Outlook
- no effect
Uninstalling and reinstalling Mailbird
- no effect

Installing Thunderbird
- PDF Xchange work like a charm

image.png

- and Explorer Send To Email Recipient also works.

Recommendation
In future if you are asked about the failure of the send by email feature of PDF Xchange, one way of focusing the user on the real problems is to ask the client to check if Explorer> Right Click > Send To > Mail Recipient is working. This Explorer feature appears to use the same infrastructure that PDF Xchange relies on.

David

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hi, david_pratten

Thank you very much for the in depth investigation, and your results. I will try to remember that incase this comes up again in the future.

I suppose at this point, you will be reaching out to either Microsoft, or MailBird to ask them why things are not working correctly on their end?

If so, best of luck with that!

[triplegee]

I have ran into this problem a few times as well. I am running Outlook 365. Each time I have successfully corrected the problem by changing the default mail program to Windows Mail and then changing it back to Outlook. Hope this helps with Mailbird as well.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]