Outlook is sending blank emails or emails with Chinese characters

Ryan Pulice 6

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

Lucas Liu-MSFT 6,166 Reputation points

2020-12-30T05:22:41.157+00:00

Hi @Ryan Pulice ,
I am writing here to confirm with you how thing going now? If the above suggestion helps, please click “Accept as answer” to mark helpful reply as an answer.Your action would be helpful to other users who encounter the same issue and read this thread.
Thanks for your understanding.

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5 answers

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:

Try to send messages with OWA, to see if this only occurs with Outlook.

Please try to create a new Outlook profile, then check if the issue persists.

Check and make sure you are using the latest Office service pack and the latest public update.

Try to reinstall Microsoft Office 2019.

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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
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Lydia Zhou - MSFT 2,376 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2020-12-18T06:25:03.457+00:00

Well, if you have any updates to share, please feel free to post here.
Hope everything works well on your side.

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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.
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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?
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Lucas Liu-MSFT 6,166 Reputation points

2020-12-23T06:04:25.247+00:00

Hi @Ryan Pulice ,
You need to configure the outlook profile with the account of the mailbox in question.
What do you mean by "history"? If it is a previous email, rebuilding the outlook profile will not delete your email.
About outlook porifle: Overview of Outlook e-mail profiles

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Lucas Liu-MSFT 6,166 Reputation points

2020-12-28T08:27:55.393+00:00

Hi @Ryan Pulice ,
I am writing here to confirm with you how thing going now? If the above suggestion helps, please click “Accept as answer” to mark helpful reply as an answer.Your action would be helpful to other users who encounter the same issue and read this thread.
Thanks for your understanding.

----------

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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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Judith Kitchin 1 Reputation point

2020-12-30T11:28:57.31+00:00

Hi Ryan, the same thing is happening to my forwarding emails (reply is fine and shows the email history) there are about 3 chinese symbols that appear!

Did you update your PC or office 365?

I have checked for updates on my PC but it says everything is up to date.

It happened when I got a new PC last month

Ryan Pulice 6 Reputation points

2020-12-30T13:14:15.52+00:00

I updated Outlook. Another thing I did was change the Internation text settings. File, Options, Advanced - under Internation Options I changed the drop-down boxes to "Unicode (UTF-8)". I am not sure which action resulted in the change.

Lucas Liu-MSFT 6,166 Reputation points

2021-01-01T05:49:00.34+00:00

Hi @Ryan Pulice ,
It's glad to konw that your issue has been solved.
If the above suggestion helps, please click “Accept as answer” to mark helpful reply as an answer.Your action would be helpful to other users who encounter the same issue and read this thread.
Thanks for your understanding.

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Outlook is sending blank emails or emails with Chinese characters

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