Database chaos

[Tim Kjeldsen]

Entourage 2008 OS 10.5.3

In the last few days, Entourage has started behaving very oddly. It's a bit
difficult to explain how exactly, but on more than one occasion I have
started it up to find that an old database seems to have loaded and I have
lost, on on occasion, over 4 days of stored mail.

It seemed to happen originally when using Chronosync to sync my Identity
with my laptop. I thought I had just made an error and synced the wrong weay
round (i.e. overwritten a new database with an old one), but then for a few
days, the Database on the desktop didn't seem to copy to the laptop at all.
Today, I closed and reopened Entourage a few times on ht e Desktop and on
one occasion it loaded what seemed to be like an old database and I lost all
the mails I had downloaded in the previous couple of hours.

It's hard to explain it better than that. I have number of backups in my
2008 Identities folder and for a time it looked as if Entourage had suddenly
started saving to and loading up from one of these.

I rebuilt the database today, and lost all my emails altogether - I managed
to salvage them by copying the current Database back off the laptop.

It seems to have settled down now, but I'm sacred that if I close the
program down, I'll lose emails again. I tried copying the database to a new
folder as a backup in case anything went wrong, but when it did and I copied
the backed up database back to its original location, it too was empty! I'm
really confused.

Does anyone recognise this?

Tim

 

[Diane Ross]

FYI...do not backup Entourage when it is open or the Microsoft Database
daemon is open. You cannot actually sync your database with anything. It
just rewrites the entire database as "sync."

You mention having a lot of backups in your Identity folder. Is Chronosync
making those?

 

[Tim Kjeldsen]

FYI...do not backup Entourage when it is open or the Microsoft Database
daemon is open. You cannot actually sync your database with anything. It
just rewrites the entire database as "sync."

Thanks. Yes, I understand this. When I sync with my laptop I basically just
copy the whole of my Main Identity folder to and from the laptop. This works
perfectly most of the time.

You mention having a lot of backups in your Identity folder. Is Chronosync
making those?

No. they are made when I rebuild my database, which I have done several
times over the past three months to try to solve another minor problem
(which is that all of a sudden my Inbox shows it has a number of unread
messages, which are actually not there -but that is less pressing).

I tried moving all but the most recent of these backups to the Trash
yesterday, but that was then I found myself with what looked like an old
Database under Main Identity, and had to open one of the backups in order to
get recent emails - though even then I lost some. At least, that is what I
think happened. As I said in my first post, I took the precaution of copying
my current database to another folder before rebuilding the database
yesterday, but when I double-clicked on this to open it, after I appeared to
lose all my emails from the rebuild, it too was empty.

It all feels as if Entourage was saving the database somewhere else than in
the Main Identity folder.

As I said, this seems to have settled down now. But I'm afraid it is going
to happen again and I'm going to lose precious emails. I can't be confident
that I am backing up the database either because even when I try to do that,
as I said, it seems to be the wrong one. I'm pretty confused here.

Thanks for your help

Tim

 

[Diane Ross]

No. they are made when I rebuild my database, which I have done several
times over the past three months to try to solve another minor problem
(which is that all of a sudden my Inbox shows it has a number of unread
messages, which are actually not there -but that is less pressing).

It's best to delete or rename these so you know exactly when they were
created. After a few rebuilds, it can get tricky.

I tried moving all but the most recent of these backups to the Trash
yesterday, but that was then I found myself with what looked like an old
Database under Main Identity, and had to open one of the backups in order to
get recent emails - though even then I lost some.

You must have selected the rebuilt database when you switched Identities.


At least, that is what I

think happened. As I said in my first post, I took the precaution of copying
my current database to another folder before rebuilding the database
yesterday, but when I double-clicked on this to open it, after I appeared to
lose all my emails from the rebuild, it too was empty.

Instead of rebuilding, try this. First make a duplicate!! Export all data
(select erase after exporting). Now import the Entourage archive (.rge) back
into Entourage. This will often fix some problems that rebuilding does not.

My experience is Entourage 2008 databases can be easily corrupted when you
first import and run for a few weeks. However a Entourage 2008 database that
is created new is very stable.

If the above does not help, I would create a new Identity and import the
Entourage archive (.rge) into the new Identity. You can drag over your rules
and sig files. You would need to reset folder id in rules.

It all feels as if Entourage was saving the database somewhere else than in
the Main Identity folder.

It only saves in your Identity folder. I have never heard of a case where it
was stored elsewhere.

As I said, this seems to have settled down now. But I'm afraid it is going
to happen again and I'm going to lose precious emails. I can't be confident
that I am backing up the database either because even when I try to do that,
as I said, it seems to be the wrong one. I'm pretty confused here.

Be sure to have a good backup strategy.

Entourage and Time-Machin-like backup (creates chronological backup of
Identity can be used by both Tiger and Leopard)

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/entourage_and_time_machine.html>

Alternative method to use Entourage and Time Machine (does a once a day or
whatever time period you select)

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/alternative_method_to_use_entourage_
and_time_machine.html>

 

[Tim Kjeldsen]

Thank you for your advice. I've solved the problem, at least for the time
being. I'd got the Identities mixed up between the laptop and the desktop,
but now I've sorted them out, everything seems to be working ok.

I'll keep your suggestions and use them if I get into any more trouble.

Thank you

Tim

 

[Diane Ross]

Glad things are sorted out.

--
Diane

Thank you for your advice. I've solved the problem, at least for the time
being. I'd got the Identities mixed up between the laptop and the desktop,
but now I've sorted them out, everything seems to be working ok.

I'll keep your suggestions and use them if I get into any more trouble.

Thank you

Tim