After importing an older version to Entourage 2008, users have experienced
database corruption. Rebuild does not seem to help. In these cases you need
to manually move to a new Identity. Once you do then your database shouldbe
extremely stable. It's something in the import process that just doesn't
seem to clear up.
How to manually move your data. (when import fails and/or you need to move
to a new Identity same version or revert to an older version)
<
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/install/manual_install.html>
Yes, I suppose this is true but I wouldn't count on an extremely
stable DB. My ENT08 DB was based on a new, empty Identity after I
purchased 08 on Jan 15, 08. My archive DB holds on my Entourage
information going back to March 2003 with some of that information in
there being based on archives on the 08 active identity. There is only
one problem with Entourage that vexes me (other users have various
problems) and that has to do with sync and sync services and this can
cause either data corruptions, data loss etc however, my identity has
corrupted on more than one occasion however, I have no idea if this is
to do with the sync issue. Regardless, the DB has corrupted and of
course my first course of action was to verify the DB and if it
reported that it wasn't working properly I then did a rebuild. This is
when I first encountered a problem with the rebuild database not
working properly. Since I'm a long term user of Entourage I didn't
even bother to look at the support forums to see if I was doing
anything wrong but rather called Microsoft. The tech rep was
immediately aware of the problem, had already dealt with calls on the
issue that day, identified that this is a known issue to Microsoft and
indicated they are trying to figure out what's wrong but at that point
they didn't know. Since I haven't seen a update that specifies a fix
for the issue nor has there been an update in while, the issue still
exists. A recent attempt at a rebuild that resulted in an issue in the
rebuilt DB told me there are still issues. I have repeatedly suggested
that the prudent thing for any Entourage user to do is ensure they
have backups. Also, it is probably advisable, especially until we see
resolution to the many issues in 08, especially the significant ones,
to have relatively lean databases. Not only does this reduce the
potential for corruption but it is also more efficient. Since so much
of my work involves extensive categorization, linking and ongoing
projects, I can't afford to break all this by either say having iCal
and Address book overwrite an existing identity or a new identity in
Entourage or bringing raw data back in to an identity. Therefore, I
just revert to an uncorrupted backup identity wherein I may only loose
a few items (in IT though this is considered totally unacceptable - I
could not say to a banking client well we'll just revert to a previous
version of your SQL database but you'll loose only a few entries (yeah
right!!! - end of my career)).
There is, of course, one other approach that we can take and that is
to move to something entirely different if we don't need the
functionality of Entourage and many users have done this - move to the
Apple apps or something else such as Daylite or Contactizer or even
move to Outlook running in Parallels if you don't mind split data
between Entourage and Outlook. I've tried these but return to
Entourage for its functionality and I don't want my data split and
since I work for myself, I can work with my workarounds as annoying as
this is. I'd just love Microsoft to get Entourage fixed as I think its
an excellent product but database corruption and sync issues,
considering the world is going mobile faster than we can snap a finger
(reference Nokia's sharp reduction in revenue due to their inability
to provide a robust Smartphone platform that can compete with the
BlackBerry and iPhone) just really aren't acceptable but well this is
Microsoft....!!!
