I had an attempt at this yesterday evening after hours.
Our file is online only. It used to be possible to just go offline, then back online from within the file but this function was removed with an update some time ago.
I did manage to create a separate offline version of the file & that allowed me to access the print/email invoices lists.
To clear the unsent email invoices list requires much more time than I had last night though as I will have to manually change the 'send to' address on each one individually. (Many of our customers will not be happy if I load up their inboxes with two months worth of past invoices, so the only way to clear them seems to be to send them to my own email address). Each time I change the 'send to' address it also pops up with a 'Do you want to update email contact details for this customer' etc...so it's will be a very tedious & time-consuming process when there are many invoices to clear.
I tried doing just a few to see if it would work but the offline version of our company file would not allow me to email. I would either need to spend more time setting up the email functionality in the offline file, or it's just not possible to email from an offline file? - not sure which & perhaps you can enlighten me on if that's possible or not?
IF this is the only way to fix the issue (ie by creating a separate offline file from a backup, going in to the offline file to clear the Print/Email lists, then restoring the offline file over the top of our online file) then I need to do it after hours over the weekend as it's going to take quite some time.
Is there any other way to bulk-clear unsent email invoices other than emailing them? (Note: it is the 'Email Invoices' which now has a large backlog to clear. There were only a small handful of unprinted invoices sitting in the 'Print Invoices' list.) Can they be purged from the 'unsent' some other way?
What is the root cause of the issue? I'm assuming the diagnostic gave indication of the cause? Is it an internet speed issue? Something else?
Hello Coral3
Sorry for the delay in my response.
You are unable to use AccountRights inbuilt email system, but you should be able to set up that Outlook is the default and email through Outlook while your file is offline.
I have linked a Help Article on how you can set up Microsoft Outlook as the default email method.
Hello, again Chris
I have done as suggested, ie restored the file OFFLINE, cleared all invoices sitting in both the 'unprinted' and 'unsent email' lists. Checked that advanced filter is ticked for 'unsent only'. Restored that file back ONLINE.
After doing that after hours last night, I WAS able to open the print / email invoices section (noting that there were no invoices appearing in the lists on opening as they'd been cleared). HOWEVER, this morning we are back to getting the same 'Unable to connect' error message as before.
So... not fixed.
I note that when I managed to access the lists offline that there was NOT a huge number of invoices in there appearing as unsent...maybe 100 or so... (this would be because we have been - tediously! - opening each invoice and emailing them one by one at the end of each day, plus all invoices are printed on creation)... and that the advanced setting was already checked for 'unprinted/unsent invoices only'. So I'm not convinced it's a volume issue as suggested, as previous to this problem arising in June we were routinely able to access the lists with more invoices that that sitting in there, without issue.
I eagerly look forward to your solution to this problem, as it continues to waste a lot of staff time & it is not feasible for us to contine like this.
Thank you.
Hello Coral3
It could be a timeout issue while the file is online, I would suggest the following this post guiding how to extend the timeout extender.
I would also suggest flushing the DNS cache as this could also be impacting it since it isn't working online but working locally.
To Flush the DNS
