Entourage Dead/Mac Dying?

B

bradhammer

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Entourage will not open up suddenly. Quits with one of those "would you like to send a report to Apple?" notes.

Other MS Apps seem to work fine. Tried to reinstall Entourage on a related HD, still no go. Afraid to reinstall over the original for fear of losing all messages, etc.

Ran several MacOSX utility apps. Doesn't do the trick. And the machine has been acting very funny. Clicking sound in the back of the EMac sometimes, then a basic screen freeze.

Thought the problem was Entourage, could now be the EMac. Tried to port over the contacts to Mailsmith or Eudora, but neither has an Entourage import filter.

Help.
 
this is my standard post:
setup a new user account and see if things work better there. If so, then move the entourage plist from home/Library/Preferences somewhere else and check entourage. Good luck!
 
I will try this, working backward, as I can't get Entourage to even fully engage.

So, based on the suggestion, I should move out the plist, try to start Entourage again (as a new user) and then work toward getting the list ported back in, right?

If this works/doesn't work, is there a way to get these messages into another e-mail program?

Thanks again.
 
Yes, transfering the mail into another prog should be the easiest thing. You should just find out if it's a program problem or just about your settings. Post your results
 
Clicking sound in the back of the EMac sometimes, then a basic screen freeze
Click to expand...
Just in case, open Disk Utility > First Aid then select your hard drive (not the volume on the drive). in the window margin at the bottom right you should see "S.M.A.R.T. status." If the reported value is anything other than "verified" then failure of your HD is imminent. The clicking sound may be unrelated but this at least is worth checking.
 
Two updates:

First, the SMART status says "Failing." This can't be good. Can it be fixed or am I racing against the clock.

Second, I was able to open Entourage by removing the prefs file. Turns out that one of my accounts is crashing the program, and that account was last used/first opened. I still can't access that account -- always the crash. Can I get that info moved somewhere?
 
Your Entourage data should be here, to backup;

User>Library>Documents>Microsoft User Data
 
"Failing" means your drive is toast. 10.3's Mail application will import from Entourage. Not sure about Jaguar's Mail. Look on the file menu.

But Bobw's advice is best taken first. Burn that database (see bobw's message) onto a cd-r or something.

Doug

P.S. After you've replaced your drive (or using another machine), read the Office readme file for, I think, Entourage. It will tell you how to rebuild your database, a couple different methods.
 
bradhammer said:
First, the SMART status says "Failing." This can't be good. Can it be fixed or am I racing against the clock.
Click to expand...
If S.M.A.R.T. is "failing" you are talking minutes, hours, perhaps days, but no more. Get your data off of the drive ASAP. Then replace the drive. There is no other option.
 
Okay I will replace the drive BUT...

Can I still get that Entourage database info to work again? I have used new account names and moved the database and database cache files over, but the program still won't start (or crashes) when trying to reference that information.

Thank you again. Sorry if I seem like a novice, but I just can't figure out a workaround.
 
bradhammer said:
Can I still get that Entourage database info to work again? I have used new account names and moved the database and database cache files over, but the program still won't start (or crashes) when trying to reference that information.
Click to expand...
The answer to your question is a definite "maybe." The fact Entourage crashes when accessing the database indicates the database itself is most probably corrupted and may or may not be recoverable. The next time you launch Entourage, hold down the option key, you will be prompted to rebuild the database, select YES and keep your fingers crossed. If that fails, hold down the option key and restart Entourage again and this time select NO, you will then be asked if you want to perform an advanced rebuild and you select YES.

If all this fails, about all you can say is you have learned a valuable lesson in the value of maintaining good backups of your critical data. Just chalk the loss up to experience and move on -- this time being careful to establish and follow a good backup strategy. Preferably one that maintains more than one backup version. It is possible to ruin a backup with a subsequent run that overwrites the good file with a corrupted version from the HD. :mad:
 
This happens to me about 4 times a year... This has happened to me both in the old Classic version and the Office X version I have now. Every single time it has been caused by one "bad" email sitting on the server.

If you have a non-Entourage (Mail?) way of viewing the files on the server but not downloading them, then you might be able to delete the bad email.

(If you use another email program like Mail, make sure you configure it to Leave Messages on Server....)

Otherwise you might need to have your ISP help you delete the bad email.


I'm not really sure what makes an email bad, but in most of my cases they were either big or had weird characters in one of the TO/FROM/SUBJECT fields.
 
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