Why does Outlook 2013 ‘hang’/ stop working when you try to send an email with a digital signature?
You install a digital certificate to sign your emails, but when you try sending a signed message … Outlook 2013 totally ‘hangs’, it stops working. What’s going on?
There’s a bug in Outlook 2013 – if you install the certificate via Outlook then Outlook hangs when you try to send a signed message.
Sending an unsigned message works fine but using the digital certificate you’ve installed sends Outlook 2013 off to la la land.
The solution is simple. You have to remove the certificate and reinstall it from Windows rather than from the Import certificate option inside Outlook.
It should not matter how you install the certificate – but it does in Outlook 2013. It’s certainly a bug with Outlook 2013 and Windows 8, perhaps also Windows 7. I t’s a large bug that Microsoft won’t admit to.
To fix the bug first make sure you have a backup of your digital certificate saved as a file.
Go to Windows | Control Panel | Internet | Content | Certificates | Personal …
Click on the right certificate and choose Remove to delete the Windows stored copy of the certificate.
Then choose Import and re-install the certificate.
Finally return to Outlook 2013 and try to send a signed message. If the experience of others is a guide, you should be able to send a signed message. From the message window choose Options | Sign.
None of this rates a mention in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, supposedly the place to find out about problems with Microsoft products. The company has known about this bug for at least six months but won’t properly admit it.
It may be one of those bugs Microsoft won’t admit to until they have a fix. Many, many times Microsoft releases an Office Service Pack plus a whole pile of KB articles for previously unacknowledged bugs. In the meantime customers waste time trying to find fixes for bugs that Microsoft keeps a secret.
