PST Splitter to resolve the error ‘The messaging interface has returned an unknown error’

PST or Personal Storage Table files are very essential for an Outlook user as they store user’s Outlook mailbox items such as emails, calendar items, contacts, notes, etc locally on user’s hard drive. These files basically work as backup to restore Outlook data. But, despite of various advantages, a PST file is not meant to store unlimited amount of data as there are size limitation irrespective to the Outlook version we use. I learned about this fact after my personal experience when I started getting trouble even performing simple mail operations. However, with the help of efficient PST Splitter software, I overcome the issue.

Let me narrate the whole incident in brief. We use MS Outlook 2002 in our office and over a year I have stored unlimited amount of emails in my Outlook mailbox. Since, I was unaware of the fact that MS Outlook 2002 has size limit of 2GB, so I never minded the number of emails present in my mailbox. However, another day I started getting trouble in performing simple mail operations like reading an already existing email started taking more than usual time, sending or receiving an email also was taking too much time. The problem became troublesome when my Outlook stopped responding with below mentioned error code:

“The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the problem persists, start Outlook again.”

Worried! I immediately started searching over the Internet for this unexpected issue and found that the issue generally occurs when PST file reaches to its maximum limit or crosses the limit. Thus, to check the PST file size, I browse to the location C:\Documents and Settings\my profile\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst and from there checked the size of PST file and found it as 1.52GB which was almost near to the maximum limit.

Further, in my search, I found that the best way to overcome this situation is splitting a large PST file into several smaller files with the help of third-party PST splitting software. These third-party tools split large PST file into manageable and smaller parts on the basis of different splitting criteria. One of the most reliable software to split PST file is Stellar Splitter for Outlook.

The software has simple user interface and provides different PST file splitting criteria such as email ID, size, date, etc. The software also has the option to split single as well as multiple PST files. Additionally the software supports MS Outlook 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002, and 2000 and is compatible with Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.