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Microsoft Outlook Troubleshooting

Cannot open the item for this reminder

Symptom:

One or more old reminders are generated each time Outlook is started.

If you try to "Dismiss" the reminder then error message appears saying:

Cannot turn off the reminder. You may be reminded again.

If you try to "Open" the reminder then you get the error:

Cannot open the item for this reminder.

Possible Cause:

This error is probably indicative of some corruption within Outlook. It has been observed after an Exchange server has crashed and needed to be rebuilt.

Remedy:

  • Shutdown Outlook. Restart Outlook with the '/cleanreminders' switch, the easiest way to do this is Start > Run and in the Run box enter: 
    outlook /cleanreminders

    If any reminders still occur then try dismissing or opening them in the conventional way.

These notes have been tested with Microsoft Outlook 2000 and 2003 running under Windows Vista, Windows 2000 and Windows NT4.

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