Troubleshooting the SpamBayes Outlook addin

This is a list of common problems, and hopefully their solutions.  Please feel free to suggest additional topics.  Currently, we have the following problems listed:
There is also an online FAQ for SpamBayes which may have additional information of use.  You may also wish to see the latest online version of this document for problems added since release.

Addin doesn't load

When you start Outlook, there is no SpamBayes item in the toolbar, and no filtering occurs.  To resolve this:

    1. Start Outlook, and select Tools->Options to display the main Options dialog.
    2. Select the tab labelled Other, then click on the Advanced button.
    3. Click on the COM Add-Ins button.
    4. If the SpamBayes addin is not listed, then SpamBayes should be reinstalled (Note that running regsvr32.exe spambayes_addin.dll from the SpamBayes directory may also solve this problem)
    5. If the SpamBayes addin is listed but not checked, then simply check it and close the dialog.
    1. Go to Help->About Microsoft Outlook
    2. Click the Disabled Items button.
    3. Select SpamBayes. 
    4. Click Enable.
    5. Restart Outlook 2002.
If none of that works, I am stumped!

Addin loads, but no toolbar items can be seen

If it appears the addin has loaded and is working correctly (ie, checking the log file indicates normal operation) but you can not see any toolbar items for the addin, try the following:.  If all else fails, you can completely reset the Outlook toolbars by removing the file \Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outcmd.dat.  Keep a copy of the file in case this does something nasty to your system (it didn't to ours, and is documented a few places on the web, but we make no guarantees).

Messages fail to filter

This is when messages arrive, but have no Spam field.  Note that this is different from a message having an incorrect or unexpected Spam value - that case is covered next.  This is for messages that have a completely blank spam score.  To resolve this:

Messages have incorrect or unexpected Spam values

This is when filtering appears to work OK, except that the spam values are wrong.  To resolve this

All other problems

If you are simply usnure about what SpamBayes is doing, please send a mail to the SpamBayes mailing list with as much information as possible.  If you are fairly sure you have struck a bug, then please report it.  Please do not mail any of the contributors directly.

Process Descriptions

This explains some of the processes above in more detail.

Determine your installation type.

If you are running from Python source code, and installed Python, plus SpamBayes as seperate components, then you are running the source code version.  If you downloaded an installer .EXE file, then you are running the binary version.

Check the log file

Determine your installation type.  If you are running the source code version, then please see README.txt in the Outlook2000 directory.
If you are running the binary version, then the SpamBayes addin writes a log in your Windows temp directory.  This directory is generally \WINDOWS\TEMP for Windows 9x, or \Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\Temp for Windows 2000/XP.

Note that by default, in Windows 2000 and XP, Windows Explorer will not show the Local Settings directory, as it is hidden.  You can convince Windows Explorer to show this directory (and therefore allow you to see the Temp directory under it by doing either:
or The log file for the most recent execution of Outlook is named spambayes1.log, the second most recent is named spambayes2.log, and so on for the four previous runs.  You can view this file with notepad.  Usually, you will simply see messages which indicate that SpamBayes is doing its job; however in some cases there will be errors in this file.  If there are errors, please report a bug.

Report a bug

All SpamBayes bugs are maintained in this page at sourceforge.  Please have a check of the bugs already reported to see if your bug has already been reported.  If not, open a new bug, making sure to set the Category to Outlook.  Please ensure you attach the log file to the bug.
If you are unsure about the bug, or need any assistance, please send a mail to the SpamBayes mailing list.