After Mac Office 2008 update - cannot send meeting requests!

[mojopojo]

As of yesterday, my users on Mac platforms running Entourage over Exchange
2003 SP2 have had an issue sending meeting requests. All attempts generate
the following:

Error
Unexpected data was encountered.

Mail could not be sent.

Error: -17997

Other than that, mail flow is fine. Meeting requests on Windows PCs through
Outlook are also fine.

Nothing has changed on the network, firewall or Exchange.

It appears to have been caused by an MS Office update. How do we roll the app
back to it's pre-updated state short of a reinstall?

 

[Rick]

Getting exactly the same thing, but running Exchange Server 2007.

I'd like to revert to the pre-updated state as well. Anyone...anyone...Bueller...Bueller??

 

[Guest]

Getting exactly the same thing, but running Exchange Server 2007.

I'd like to revert to the pre-updated state as well.
Anyone...anyone...Bueller...Bueller??

Asked and answered in previous posts earlier today. To whit: Trash your
existing Microsoft Data folder (in Documents), and replace it with a
pre-update copy from your Time Machine backup. Reboot, empty the trash and
you should be good to go.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I haven't tried this myself, so I can't be certain it
will work for all cases, but other users have reported success.

Why haven't I tried it? Because I don't want to lose days worth of emails,
downloaded attachments and changes to personal data that aren't part of the
data set synched to Exchange.

I sure hope the MacBU folks come up with a non-destructive solution soon.

 

[Diane Ross]

Asked and answered in previous posts earlier today. To whit: Trash your
existing Microsoft Data folder (in Documents), and replace it with a
pre-update copy from your Time Machine backup. Reboot, empty the trash and
you should be good to go.

This trashes your mail! Trash your Microsoft Office 2008 folder in
Applications and replace it NOT your Microsoft User Data folder.

 

[bgarceau]

I encountered the inability to respond to meeting requests or to send my own. The posted fix to move outgoing requests to the Drafts folder and send from there did not work for me. The other fix where we are asked to recreate our "identities", removing all and then creating the Exchange identify first, also did not work.

Time Machine however saved me once again. I was able to overlay the two+ directory paths mentioned elsewhere on this forum (I found two /library... paths and the one /Microsoft Office 2008... paths) with a copy from TM dated two weeks ago, placing the application back at version 12.1.2. TM took an incredibly short amount of time to bring these files back from my USB external hard drive.

This method by the way required only one other task to fully recover. Everything I have seen so far tells me that the application is back to the prior version with all working as expected.

For some reason though I have had to go through each rule that I had prior to the 12.1.3 upgrade, and make one type of correction. My rules simply identify an incoming email and move it to a subdirectory that I set up in Entourage for that sender. I have had to re-point each to its corresponding subdirectory.

I have to believe that the need to do this is somehow related to my having to delete the Exchange directory to affect the second published suggested fix, because when I did that everything associated with the Exchange identity was automatically removed (except the rules), including the subdirectories I had created within Entourage.

I am happy to be able to use the product now and conduct business again, but I have to say that I can't understand how this could not have been caught in testing.

 

[John Merrill]

As of yesterday, my users on Mac platforms running Entourage over Exchange
2003 SP2 have had an issue sending meeting requests. All attempts generate
the following:

Error
Unexpected data was encountered.

Mail could not be sent.

Error: -17997

Other than that, mail flow is fine. Meeting requests on Windows PCs through
Outlook are also fine.

Nothing has changed on the network, firewall or Exchange.

It appears to have been caused by an MS Office update. How do we roll the app
back to it's pre-updated state short of a reinstall?

In my case I cannoy sync calendar at all.

 

[dave]

Wondering when MS will release patch - I don't want to go backwards and don't use Time machine.

Plenty of work arounds - but no ETA for pathch.

Help !

 

[Diane Ross]

Wondering when MS will release patch - I don't want to go backwards and don't
use Time machine.

Update on 12.1.3 problems for Exchange users (The Entourage Help Blog)
<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/10/update_on_1213_problems_for_exchange
_users.html>

 

[John L Merrill]

In my case I cannoy sync calendar at all.

BTW purging the calendar folder cache cured that problem.

 

[bgarceau]

Wanted to loop back to this topic.

The latest update to MacOffice 2008 has corrected the meeting request issues for me.

After falling back to v12.1.2 I had to perform both of the newer upgrades in order of release, but that's about all I had to do.

Thanks to MS for correcting this!