A client's Entourage 2004 is freezing while attempting to load new received messages. I had her access messages through a web interface and delete an "apparent" offending message, with no luck. We've tried all the usual "fixes", such as Database Utilities, font checks and permissions repair - nada.

Any suggestions?

Any luck with trashing preferences? She might like to trash Entourage.plist and the whole Microsoft folder in the user>library>preferences. How about another account?
An easier way to see if the prefs are corrupted could be to add a new account in Entourage with a new name, configure it the same way as the old one and see if it works. If no, check the prefs, if yes, delete the old one.
Tell us how it goes.

Thanks for the speedy reply. We trashed all the requisite prefs. A new user account does NOT have this problem. This strikes me as an indication the Database in the offending account is damaged and irreparable. The problem now is how to access very important messages in the "broken" Database.

Entouraid is good for this. We've had to use it 1/2 dozen times because Entourage's database self destructs without warning when it hits a gig, and ppl around here like to keep hundreds of 20-50mb PDFs in subfolders "just in case they need them later".

Thank you, but I'm not sure that tool will help. Entourage's Database Utility reports no problems with the database and it has been repaired nonetheless. And I thought the size limitation issues had been addressed in prior updates. I have quite a few clients whose databases exceed 5 GB or 6 GB, with no signs of problems for a long time.

Well there must be something corrupt in there, nonetheless. Wouldn't hurt to give a util a try (except for the $). How about dragging the folders out as mbox files and dragging them back into a new profile?

The $ is the problem. With no guarantee of any results, the reluctance is understandable. Where would one find the mbox files? The Database is a "safe".

If you drag a mail folder to the Finder, it will create an mbox file. You can do that for each [sub]folder and then drag those back into a new profile. Since the db repair util isn't seeing anything wrong, but still seems to be carrying over something corrupt to the freshly-rebuilt db, dragging out to mbox files would certainly strip any Entourage overhead, so it's worth trying.

Also, what happens if you copy that same profile to another Mac? I wonder if there's a font corruption or something else specific to that machine outside of Entourage, that isn't showing up in your checks (maybe very obscure). I assume you've also tried killing all Entourage/Office prefs, etc, and recreating the account (POP3/SMTP) settings.

Thanks, doni... and thanks to all, so far.

Where would I find a mail folder within the MS Database?

BTW, we went through the fonts and ensured none were the problem. I'm thinking to set up a new Entourage account and import the old data, once it's archived. Of course, archiving is a problem, since we cannot catch anything before the freeze.

By mail folder, I just mean a folder of mail within the Entourage interface. Inbox, Sent Items, My Work 2009, etc. If you drag one of those logical folders to the desktop, it will create an mbox file of it.

If you set Entourage to work offline, will it stop freezing so you can archive? I inferred from your earlier post that it froze during checking mail.

I'd also just try the profile/db on another machine in case it's something obscure on this specific Mac outside of the db or anything else you've checked. Prob the easiest thing to rule out before mucking with folder-level archiving.

The real problem is that the moment Entourage launches, it immediately starts to send the last outgoing message and then freezes. No user interaction is possible, so none of the mailbox folders are accessible. We went to the web mail and tried to delete messages, but with no positive results.

Usually right after launch, you can quickly set it to work offline mode before it attempts to send. No such luck?

Will try, once my client returns to her office.

Cheers!

Having never used the Work Offline feature, who would have thought the fix would be SO simple?!?! Once offline, the apparent offending outgoing message was deleted and all is well, once again. My client asked me to pass along her most sincere thanks! And I thank you, too.

Glad it all worked out! Stuck Outbox messages have always been a problem with Entourage 2004. Wonder if 2008 is better about it? (I have 2008 installed, but pretty much stick with Outlook nowadays.)

I have 2.3, 3.1, 4.8 GB databases in Entourage without ever a problem. GB ceiling? I've never seen one and I've had Entourage on multiple Macs and OS's since Jaguar.

Apple Mail will import the Entourage data base so as a last resort one could change email clients and preserve data.

The issue has nothing to do with db size, it was a stuck Outbox item. As I wrote, this is not uncommon in Entourage 2004, but it's an easy enough fix.

Doni, I believe sandbox was responding to Virtual1's "because Entourage's database self destructs without warning when it hits a gig" statement.

The database file size issue related to MS Office X, as far as I recall.

Great tip about importing the Entourage database into Mail. The client who was having the problem is now planning to switch all 10 Macs to Apple's solutions, as well as setting up an Apple server.

Oh I see how this works...if I click reply on the bottom of the box rather than on the top of the page it directs the post to the person associated to the reply box. Ops.

The moderator was correct Mississauga, I was addressing the database file size issue in Entourage that was mentioned. I have no problems in that regard, nor do I have one with MS Office X.

Without this Production Suite I could not use a Mac in our business. The MS Office Suite is vital to the success of Apple in a business/government climate.

I would be interested in examining that file that would not SEND. A contaminated file perhaps or uncompressed and or to large? What was it about that file?

Sorry sandbox, your reply positioning confused me. I forget that the layout isn't so obvious.

It's not uncommon for a sent message to get stuck in the Outbox for no obvious reason, simply some kind of "curruption." The large file is an interesting point: once upon a time Entourage had a bug that could bring down an entire Exchange server if someone tried to send a message that was too large, but that was patched a long time ago. Nowadays a user should just receive an error from a mail server if the message was too large to be sent.

Re Entourage db size, note that Entourage X does indeed have a 4 GB db size limit, but 2004 and later do not: http://www.entourage.mvps.org/database/size.html

I've just arrived, I met Tacit elsewhere and thought that he could built a solid barn.

There's a lot of misinformation out there about the MS Office Suite, all I can do is relay what I have experienced...thus far no limits have been reached in my multiple 2004 entourage databases.

Take care.
http://www.2iview.com

My employer recently switched to Outlook/Entourage and has been in close contact with Microsoft due to some issues with the calendar and email tools. Microsoft is paying attention to us because we include one of the large government centers and they want our experience to go well. We have been told that there is no file size limit with the database (mine is over 5 Gig so far; I've seen others much larger) as long as the OS can handle the file. We were also told that 2 million messages is the limit. This seems large but it is misleading because each email counts as two and every calendar entry counts also plus there are multiple emails that are generated for each calendar item. And our secretaries sometimes manage calendars for a dozen people or more, so multiply these things all up, and 2 million doesn't look that big. If you just use email, I think 2 million should be fine, and subsequent versions of the program will allow for even more. (We've had Microsoft engineering teams come visit us to discuss these things.)

I use Outlook (on Windows via Parallels) and also Entourage (the Mac client) and at this time, the Mac Entourage client is much more limited and has many more "issues" (bugs) than the PC client. A new version of Entourage will be out soon that will address some, but not all, of those issues.

The Microsoft Database Utility (included with MS-Office) can be used to rebuild the database for Entourage, which will solve some problems.

Also -- Entourage 2008 is more reliable than 2004. In addition, use of both 2004 and 2008 on an Exchange Server will definitely cause problems, many of which will go away if all the users update to 2008.

use of both 2004 and 2008 on an Exchange Server will definitely cause problems, many of which will go away if all the users update to 2008.

Can you expound upon that a bit, please?

This is what Microsoft emphatically and repeatedly told us, that with an Exchange Server, use of both Entourage 2004 and 2008, where calendaring as well as email is being managed in the Microsoft Exchange Server, will lead to known problems. They said the same thing about Outlook 2003 and 2007 for the PC side.

The above applies to use of a central Exchange Server. Microsoft said that in that situation, Entourage 2004 conflicts with 2008, Outlook 2003 conflicts with 2007. (And presumably Entourage 2004 doesn't work entirely well with Outlook 2007 and so on). They emphasized that all employees (all 7000+ at this site we have) must update to the latest versions of Entourage and Outlook for them all the work smoothly together.

I don't think the above caveat about using the latest versions applies to individuals running the software as a standalone email or calendaring program without the central Exchange Server (for instance, using Entourage or Outlook simply to retrieve emails from, say, Earthlink). Then any version of the software that is compatible with the internet/email provider should be fine, whether it is the 2003, 2004, 2007 or 2008 version.

Thanks. Do they specifically mean the same account using both 2004/2008, e.g. 2004 on a desktop, 2008 on a laptop? Do they mean shared calendars or appointments between users on different versions? Do they mean the server will have problems, or just the client? Do they mean all version of Exchange server or just certain ones?

Sure, feature discrepancies will make differences between the apps apparent and certain things not work across versions, and certain things will display differently, but for basic calendaring and email I don't see why cross-versioning would actually cause significant problems. It's not unusual.

Are there kb articles you can point to? Or anything else more specific? I'm not challenging you -- please don't take this the wrong way -- I'm genuinely interested in more info. I'm also wondering if MS pre-sales wasn't giving the lazy company line: for all of our new features to work well, you'll all need the latest version of everything. Which is not the same thing as saying you'll actually have problems if you don't. Thanks again!

I think the incompatibilities with Office 2004 and 2008 (and Office 2003 and 2007) arise primarily in the calendaring aspects of Office when utilized with a central Microsoft Exchange Server from which all users calendars (say, within a company) are being handled. The way it was explained to us, by Microsoft, is that if there is a calendar notice for 20 people, and 19 are using Office 2007/2008, but there is a single one using Office 2003/2004, that one user can "corrupt" the meeting notices resulting in calendar items simply disappearing, being "ghosted" (not going away when they should), or having duplicates. Other oddities include events scheduled at, say, 2pm, being displayed as being at 4pm instead, things like that. Or even more dramatically, just one or two Office 2003/2004 users among thousands (all of the others having updated to 2004/2008) can cause such corruptions as well. Some of these problems arise within the Server software, which apparently does not handle the old and new versions well together, others arise within the client softwares. We were told that using 2004 and 2008 on the same account is likely to lead to problems. We have site licenses for all these versions (and also get free CD's to take home to install on home computers used to access work emails/calendars), so cost is not an issue. Our company is mandating that all employees update to the latest versions, we've already purchased those licenses. Some users are holding back because they don't like the new appearance of Office 2007/2008 and want to stay with what they are used to.

You asked about kb articles -- in our case, we have thousands of users and our IT people have quickly become very knowledgeable about many subtleties in these issues that I think has gone far beyond those published articles. We have had teams of Microsoft engineers on our site and they have even made special versions of some software available to us for use before it was released, using us to test out some things. I long abandoned the MS knowledge base and instead simply call our IT folks. I've seen many anomalies and they have helped resolve most of them pretty well -- but they can only do so much with MS bugs. Some of the fixes have been implemented inside the Microsoft Exchange software configuration, which is something individual users do not normally see or have insight into.

If you are just using Entourage to retrieve email from a generic pop or imap email provider (not using a Microsoft Exchange [proprietary] Server), then I think any of the Office 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008 should work ok. With a Microsoft Exchange Server, however, we've been admonished to eliminate all Office 2003/2004 software being used in conjunction with it, and to only use 2007/2008.