How to Solve Unknown Error 0x800C013B when Sending Email after Compacting OE Folder?

Outlook Express folders can get corrupt for several reasons. Ironically, folders compaction that otherwise can remove mild corruption, can damage them too. Before Windows XP SP2, background compaction was the major reason of corrupting the folders, especially on slow computers. Though the feature has been removed, but still can bring corruption if is interrupted. You can recover such folders from backup or by using specific Outlook Express Recovery solutions.

To exemplify, consider an instance when you start Outlook Express. It prompts you to compact the folders. You click OK and the compaction process starts. After this, when you restart the application and try to send an email message, it fails and you receive the following error message:

“An unknown error has occurred. Protocol: SMTP, Port: 0, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0x800C013B.”

You cannot send the email message after this error, be it of any size or form.

Cause

The folder compaction process might have been interrupted when it was compacting the Sent Items.dbx folder. An interrupted compaction due to unexpected shutdown, power failure or closing Outlook Express can make the folders to corrupt. In this case, the error is resulting because Sent Items.dbx file is corrupted.

Solution

If you are running Windows XP SP2 or later, you can restore the Sent Items folder from its backup stored in Recycle Bin as .bak file. If not, you can recreate the corrupted Sent Items folder to workaround this issue. For this, you can rename the folder or simply delete if it contains no important emails. The next time when you will start Outlook Express, it will automatically create a new empty Sent Items folder. Follow this fix to do so:

1) Make sure that you enable the view for hidden files and folders.
2) Locate the Sent Items folder by using Windows Search option for files and folders and typing Sent Items.dbx in the Named box.
3) Right-click the folder so located and click to delete or rename to Sent Items.old.
4) Restart Outlook Express.

To repair the corrupted Sent Items folder, there is no OE provided tool. So, you need to rely on third-party Email Recovery solutions for this. These are absolute Outlook Express Recovery software that can repair and safely restore damaged OE folders, corrupted due to unexpected shutdown, improper compaction, virus infection and similar other reasons.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook Express Recovery is an infallible solution that repairs and extracts all emails from corrupted Outlook Express mail folders. The software supports Outlook Express 5.x and 6.x. It is a safe Email Recovery utility with rich set of advanced graphic features to enable easy recovery. The software can work in each instance of *.dbx file corruption.