SOLUTION: Microsoft Outlook 2013 hangs at “Loading Profile…” after Office Update

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Now here’s an interesting conundrum.  A recent update to Microsoft Office 2013 that’s being pushed out automatically to clients results in some of them being unable to open Outlook 2013.  Instead of running normally, the program will hang at the “Loading Profile” stage of launch, as though the profile is corrupt (if you haven’t already checked this, it could actually be the case instead of course).  A workaround is to open Outlook using the well-known /safe command line switch; but this is merely a workaround (which in turn disables all add-ons), not a permanent solution.

For a much more reasonable resolution, try this instead:

  1. Run regedit (Start > Run > type regedit and press ENTER)
    1. On Windows 8, Win + R; type regedit and press ENTER
  2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common
  3. Right-click, select New > Key and name it Graphics
  4. Select the Graphics key you just created, right-click in the right panel and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it DisableHardwareAcceleration.
  5. Double-click the new value and assign it a value of 1.
  6. Close regedit and try opening Outlook again.

This should fix the problem.  I first stumbled upon the solution when I realized that opening my TeamViewer Remote Support program while Outlook was loading kicked it into launching, which suggested either a network- or graphics-related cause (as TV affects both of those when launching).  The original solution listed here came from the Microsoft Office 2013 Issues Blog, though the symptoms listed are different from these.

Hope this helps! 🙂

Donate to say "Thanks" if this post has helped save you time and money! 🙂

93 thoughts on “SOLUTION: Microsoft Outlook 2013 hangs at “Loading Profile…” after Office Update”

  1. Your solution to the Office 2013 profile load stalling issue was fantastic!!! Outlook opened within 5 seconds as opposed to 15 minutes or never. Thanks.

  2. Great Fix..

    Worked for me with a weird issue I had with outlook.

    Thanks a million

  4. This fixed my problem! A big, heartfelt thank you!

    Do you know of any workaround to the missing emails when using outlook 2013 in imap?

  5. indeed worked like a charm, took me several weeks and a number of different solutions to try that in the did not solve the problem
    thanks
    S

  6. Thank a lot!
    One month I was living with cntrl+alt+del for any movement in outlook. Looks like now it is alive again :))) Thank you

  8. Salute to you sir.. i was just going to format the whole system because i couldn’t find any solutions. thanks again

  9. It didn’t work for me! Outlook is still stuck on loading profile… Any suggestions?

  10. @Nassar:

    That’s bizarre, you’re the first one it hasn’t worked with! I know it sounds extreme but the next thing I would suspect is a possible issue with the actual data. If you are paranoid like me, you might next start with a hard drive diagnostic. After that, check your Event Log for further clues.

    Finally, you can create a new profile or switch profiles to see if that corrects the problem (if it actually IS a problem with the profile data). See my post here for more info on how to do that outside of Outlook:

    http://triplescomputers.com/blog/casestudies/solution-outlook-error-outlook-data-file-could-not-be-accessed/

    -Steve

  11. The fix did not work for me. I also repaired all PST files, as well as uninstalled and re-installed Office 365 completely. All programs work except for Outlook which continues to hang on the “loading profile” screen

  16. @Cathy and others:

    Obviously if you actually have a profile corruption issue then this fix will not correct it. That is most certainly the *first* thing to check, but this solution is for those who have already ruled that out and yet the problem still persists!

    Either way, glad you got your problem resolved!

    -Steve

  20. This is awesome. I tried a bunch of solutions posted online but none of them worked until this one.
    Thanks.

  22. Genius!!!!!!!

    Thank you so much. 3hrs worth of troubleshooting took me to your site – 2 mins to test a successful fix.

    Many thanks

    Ash

  24. Thanks! this solution works like a charm. I was just searching for solutions all over the internet for about a week now to overcome this problem , tried many but none of them worked and finally found this helpful post which is the actual solution to the problem. Thanks again.

  25. Great fix! Could you explain a bit more about the interaction with Teamviewer, as we have been using TV for several years and this is the first time we have seen this problem with Outlook, which could not be solved by the usual means (scanpst, create new profile etc). Thanks.

  26. Well, TV wasn’t the cause of the problem, it was merely the catalyst for my finding a solution. Since Outlook would magically launch the instant I logged onto the client’s PC using TV, I immediately knew that the solution had to be either network or graphics related, since TV’s launch relies on modifications to settings for both of those subsystems. It turned out to be graphics, which makes sense; TV loads its own virtual Monitor driver of sorts and kicks Windows into the Basic hardware compositing themes when loaded to help save bandwidth. That’s what led me to the registry key to disable hardware acceleration in Outlook, and it worked!

  27. Wonderful, problem solved. I also noticed the likely solution when loading LogMeIn on a client system, but little on the various forums had a valid solution. Thank you for posting the solution.

  28. Ok. first off let me say thanks to Kentucky for assisting the MIZZOU Tigers win the SEC game last weekend. Much appreciated. The solution worked great for me. I wish I had run across it prior to uninstalling and reinstalling Office 2013 Pro (which also didn’t work from add / remove programs forcing me to use Mr. Fixit from Microsoft) Outlook opens lightning fast now and the end user is once again happy. Thanks for the post.

  29. Awesome! I tried everything including removing all Addins etc but nothing fixed. This worked perfectly! Thanks a lot.

  31. Damn, I did not expect that to work, but it did, perfectly. Oddly enough, Outlook was only hanging like this when I was not on the office network!?!? Problem solved!

  37. Did not help. But during repairing the pst file I discovered that the Lync process would lock it and even upon quitting Lync it would keep on running in the background. The solution for me is to kill lync.exe whenever outlook hangs on loading profile.

  40. I was going crazy for days until I googled the problem and your solution came up. Worked like a charm!
    THANK YOU!

  44. I thought I will have to go back to older versions of office prior your solution.

    Thank you for this

  50. Your solution worked like a charm right out of the magic box. !!

    You are a life saver. Thanks a lot !

  54. No luck here. Tried the two solutions in the thread: Creating a Graphics key and the scanpst.exe. I also tried repairing the email account by going to File Account Settings, Account Settings and choosing repair.

    The problem started after i “reset” and reinstalled my Office 2013 on my surface pro 3

    Any other ideas on what I could possibly do? Currently i log in using safe mode. (even tried disabling all ADD-Ins)

  55. UPDATE: Solved it
    Went to Control Panel > Mail. And underprofiles I realized there was another profile there called Outlook. Deleted that and made sure only my name@work.com profile remained. Restarted and no more problem. Thanks for the other two solutions anyway.

  58. Thanks, it worked like a charm. I wonder how YOU came up with this solution.. 😐

  60. Thank you ever much. Great solution, quick and functional. All good FINALLY!

    Well done mate.

  62. Hi, I thought to share my strange/pretty specific experience with Outlook today. I installed Team Viewer 10 a few hours ago, and noticed that my Outlook stopped working… at first I didnt think Team Viewer would cause Outlook to lock up (it too was stuck on the loading/processing screen and did not load into the actual UI)… I put two and two together and it seems like both Outlook at Team Viewer 10 do not get along. I deinstalled Team Viewer and voila Outlook works again! I hope this info helps somone.

  64. I owe you my life. I was going to shoot myself when outlook was crashing at the profile stage.

  66. I had a different problems where all office 2013 apps are not working normally. It took me hours re-installing, repairing.

    The regedit to disable hardware acceleration solves it beautifully.

    Thank you.

  71. Worked great! just be sure to have Outlook Closed during this process or else itll still be stuck at loading profile, oh and make sure you close out Outlook again once after trying to get in, initially it didnt work but after a second restart the code did its job!

  72. I was not able to open work outlook at home from many days. This workaround worked like a charm. Thanks for the simple and useful workaround.

  73. Awesome. Many thanks. Have had this problem for months and tried numerouse repair and update processes and diablsling add ins, none of which worked. This changed fixed it straight away.

  79. I have tried it however I can only see a folder marked 14.0 and not 15.0. does that make a difference.

  82. The only thing that finally worked for me was Kiron’s solution.
    UPDATE: Solved it
    Went to Control Panel > Mail. And underprofiles I realized there was another profile there called Outlook. Deleted that and made sure only my name@work.com profile remained. Restarted and no more problem. Thanks for the other two solutions anyway.

    Ditto, Ken

  87. In my case, I was trying to add a new account in Outlook when It became unresponsive (i.e. I wasn’t able to finish the setup). I killed it via task manager and then the next time I opened it, it was stuck in the “loading profile” status.

    What I did was I went to Control Panel >> Mail (Microsoft Outlook 2016 ) (32-bit) >> Email Accounts. I found that the new account I didn’t finish setting up was actually saved (but must have been corrupted, due to the system hang-up). I simply selected it and clicked “Remove”. Re-opened Outlook and it opened within 3 seconds 🙂

    I am on Windows 8.1 and have installed Outlook via Office 365.

    Hope this helps anyone.

  88. Yes, finally the correct solution after useless reinstalls and profile creations etc 🙂

    Big thumbs up!

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