Outlook 0x80040119 and 0x80040600: Damaged PST or OST Data File Needs Repair

Fix it now

The data file’s internal structures no longer agree with each other, so Outlook works normally until it touches the damaged part. That is why the error appears at apparently random moments rather than every time you start. The mailbox on the server is usually fine; the local file is not.

1. Close Outlook completely and confirm no Outlook process remains in Task Manager.
2. Find the file: File, Account Settings, Account Settings, then the Data Files tab, which shows the full path. Offline files default to C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook.
3. Copy the file somewhere else before you touch it. The Inbox Repair tool does select a backup option automatically and writes a .bak file, but take your own copy as well.
4. If it is an offline file, do not repair it – rename the file extension to .old and start Outlook. You get a “Preparing for first use” message and the cache rebuilds from the server.
5. If it is a personal folder file, run the Inbox Repair tool against it, from the Office program folder – for a current click-to-run installation, C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16. Microsoft notes it may need to be run several times to fully repair a file.

After a repair, check the Lost and Found folder. It holds folders and items the tool recovered, and Microsoft states that items missing from it may be beyond repair.

If Outlook starts, every folder expands and search returns results, you are done. If the damage comes back, the next section covers what keeps causing it.

Why it happens

A personal folder file or an offline data file is a small database. The folder hierarchy, the table of items and the item content are separate structures held together by internal references, and an ordinary change updates more than one of them. If the file is written while another process holds part of it, or the machine loses power mid-write, or the file lives on a network path that drops for a moment, those structures stop agreeing with each other.

Microsoft does not publish a meaning for 0x80040119 or 0x80040600, so the confident definitions you will find for them are inference. Three of the codes in this family are documented, though, and they are the useful ones. An invalid EntryID means an incorrectly formatted identifier was passed to a method call. A disk error means there was a problem writing to or reading from disk. Corrupt data means there is an internal inconsistency in a database or in a complex property value – which is this article’s subject stated precisely.

The disk error is worth separating out, because it points somewhere else. It does not say the structure is wrong; it says the read or the write did not work. Check the Windows System log for disk and controller errors, and check whether the file sits on a network path or inside a synchronised folder. Repair will not help if the storage under it is the problem.

The Inbox Repair tool does not recover mail from nothing. It reads the structures, discards records it cannot reconcile, and rebuilds the index around what is left. That is why a repaired file sometimes comes back with items missing, or with a Lost and Found folder holding messages whose parent folder could not be determined. It repairs the container; it cannot invent the contents. Microsoft’s own note is that the tool may need to be run several times before a file is fully repaired.

Full reference

Working out how bad it is

Where the tool lives

The file is SCANPST.EXE and it is not on the Start menu; you run it from that folder directly. Point it at the data file, start it, and let it finish. Microsoft’s guidance is explicit that it may need running several times to fully repair a file, so a second pass reporting fewer errors than the first is normal rather than a sign that it is not working.

PST or OST, and why it changes the answer

A personal folder file may be the only copy of the mail in it, so repair is the route and your own backup copy is essential. An offline file is a cache of a mailbox that lives on the server, so rebuilding it is quicker, safer and produces a clean file – and Microsoft’s documented remedy for a corrupted offline file is exactly that: rename it and let Outlook download the mailbox again.

One correction worth making, because it is repeated everywhere: the Inbox Repair tool can be used on offline files as well as personal folder files. Microsoft says so directly. It is simply not usually the thing to do, because rebuilding from the server is faster and gives you a file with no history of damage. Reach for repair on an offline file only when the mailbox on the server is not reachable and you need something out of the cache.

Copy the data file elsewhere before repairing it and keep that copy until you have confirmed the repaired file is complete. The tool does select its own backup option automatically and writes a .bak file, but a repair that goes badly on failing storage can leave you with neither. Never run it against a file on a network share, or one another process still has open.

When it keeps coming back

• Check where the file actually is. A UNC path, a mapped drive or a synchronised folder will reproduce this indefinitely.
• Check the Windows System log for disk and controller errors, because failing storage damages a file as fast as you can repair it.
• Check the add-ins, one at a time, using Outlook normally between each rather than clicking through them in a minute.
• Check whether the machine is being powered off without shutting down, which is common on laptops with a failing battery.
• Check whether anything else has the file open – backup agents and indexing tools both do this, and both are excludable.

After a repair

1. Open Outlook and confirm every folder expands without an error.
2. Search for an old message and confirm results come back, which proves the store is readable end to end.
3. Open the Lost and Found folder and move anything in it back where it belongs.
4. Run a full send and receive and confirm both directions complete.
5. Keep the pre-repair copy until you are satisfied nothing is missing, and only then delete it.

Every code this article covers

Confirm the fix worked

1. Outlook starts without an error and every folder expands.
2. A search for an old message returns results, which proves the store is readable end to end.
3. A full send and receive completes in both directions.
4. The Lost and Found folder has been checked and emptied back into the right places.
5. The pre-repair copy of the file is still kept, and the error has not returned after a week of normal use.

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