Data Repair Tools Article | Fix encounter a large number of conflict items in OST file

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Fix encounter a large number of conflict items in OST file

Email | 4 min read| Brayden Mitchell | Updated On - May 31, 2023

MS Outlook provides an extremely simple user interface which makes it easy for users to use it as their professional or personal email client. However, at times situations occur which puts users in troublesome conditions. It has been found that while accessing Outlook, you faced error like

“Encounter a large number of conflict items with OST file.”

This creates confusion in user’s mind as they are not well aware of the OST file which is generating such issues. Actually OST is kind of backbone of Outlook which helps you in working offline. It stores all the work done by you when you were not connected with Exchange Server. All the work is reflected automatically once you are connected back to Server. Since, OST file is of so much use any kind of corruption could lead to various problems.

Causes of OST file corruption

The OST file corruption could happen due to several reasons. Some of the well-known reasons are:

Broken OST files
Sudden system shutdown
Network connectivity issues
Presence of Malware and virus
Incompatible and faulty Add-ins
Hardware crash down
Inaccurate software updates
Compatibility problems with Operating Systems
Oversized OST files

Resolving ‘Encounter a large number of conflict items with OST file’ Error

Error ‘Encounter a large number of conflict items in OST file’ can affect the file accessibility; therefore, resolving the error at the first sight must be the focus of the user. The issue can be successfully resolved by simple methods:

Method #1: By running OST Integrity Checker (Only in Outlook 2007 and prior versions)

Open Scanost.exe from this path location C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12\scanost.exe, select the profile that contains the corrupt OST file(s)
Select the folders you wish to scan. The user can also select the all folders by leveraging ‘Scan all Folders’. Check the box ‘Repair Errors’ to initiate the repair process
Click ‘Begin Scan’ to scan the selected OST files
Once the files are successfully repaired, a dialog box will appear on the screen

Method #2: Run Scanpst.exe that scans the OST files and checks their structure

Launch the Scanpst.exe application from
For 32-bit Windows: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16
For 64-bit Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16
For 64-bit Outlook: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16
Locate the PST files using browse button
Click ‘Start’ to begin the file analysis process
Once the analysis is done, a report will be generated. Click ‘Repair’ button to initiate the repair process
Once the repair is complete a dialog box will prompt on the screen

Method #3: Creating new Outlook Profile and re-syncing with Server

Close Outlook and all the other applications which are using OST file.
Search for the corrupted OST file and locate it.
Run the tool on this corrupted OST file. The tool performs an in-depth scanning of your OST file and recovers all the data of the OST file and save it in a newly created PST file.
Take backup of your both OST and PST file.
Now delete the corrupted OST file. You can also rename it.
Send/Receive message through Exchange Server which will automatically create a new OST file.
In case the fresh OST file does not work properly and creates the same problem again then there might be the chances that there is some problem in your Outlook profile.
Proceed in this way Tools > Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles.
This will show your profiles in Outlook select the incorrect one and click on ‘Remove’ button.
Now click on ‘Add’ button and add new profile.
This will also create a new OST file once auto-synchronization process takes place.
If everything works properly then import the items from PST file to fresh OST file.

The above mentioned methods are successful to the great extent but when the severe corrupt files are encountered, these methods fail to resolve the issue. In such cases, it is recommended to take the assistance of the third-party OST to PST tool that to fix this error ‘Encounter a large number of conflict items in OST file’.

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One thought on “Fix encounter a large number of conflict items in OST file”

Wylder says:

February 28, 2023 at 3:04 pm

This error may appear while using Outlook. This article discusses the causes of this error as well as the best manual solution for fixing it. I want to thank the entire team for sharing this fantastic article.

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