Dates change randomly when editing or creating appointments

[Wazza_NZ]

What's happening here?

I have a MacBook with OS 10.5, Upgraded Office2004 with Office 2008, migrating my data across with the installation process.

I synchronise with my exchange server back in my home office via RPC over HTTPS - just as I have done with Entourage in the past.

I can enter new appointments and edit appointments by "pushing" them about - just like the macoffice2008.com site.

HOWEVER - if I try to double click and edit, or create a new appointment by clicking the "New Appoinment" menu bar item and choose a date, the date changes to a random date. This affects both the start AND end dates.

This affects either my exchange calendar and my calendar on my local machine.

I don't believe that anything about my set up is unusual - I've tried to hunt round on where I can file a bug report, but have failed in my search (the support site puts me off my not even listing any of the mac applications plus insisting that I pay for support).

Can anyone out there either point me to a place where I can file a bug report or report that they too are having the same issues?

Thanks,
Warren.

 

[William Smith]

HOWEVER - if I try to double click and edit, or create a new appointment
by clicking the "New Appoinment" menu bar item and choose a date, the
date changes to a random date. This affects both the start AND end dates.

This affects either my exchange calendar and my calendar on my local
machine.

I don't believe that anything about my set up is unusual - I've tried to
hunt round on where I can file a bug report, but have failed in my
search (the support site puts me off my not even listing any of the mac
applications plus insisting that I pay for support).

Can anyone out there either point me to a place where I can file a bug
report or report that they too are having the same issues?

Hi Warren!

I'm personally not able to reproduce your problem but that's not to say
you haven't found something. The best you can do is use the Help -->
Send Feedback option to send Microsoft detailed information about what
you've found. You won't, however, bet any sort of return feedback or bug
tracking information unless Microsoft decides to communicate with you
for more information.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[Wazza_NZ]

Thanks William -

I have done as suggested, the thing that puts me off is that piece about not receiving communication back. As a paying customer, I really would like to follow this through with Microsoft - surely I'm not the only one to be having this problem!?

One thing which may be related - I run all my computers in 24 hour mode - I have noticed that in both versions (2004 and 2008) I cannot literally type the times of my appointments into the spin boxes unless the hour is less than 12 (I can't type in twelve, either). I can only choose the correct time by using the spin buttons next to the boxes - quite frustrating!

Thanks again!

 

[Craig Roberts]

G¹day Wazza,

I noticed this and realised that it¹s trying to be clever (or someone is)
about 24 hour clock.

If it¹s 9 (as my Default is) you can enter a number to correspond to AM
only. To get 12pm type 11 and then click up once (or arrow up).
Once in the PM then type hour and get 24 hour clock time, so 9 will be 21.

I don¹t know who¹s logic this is, but I think it is the wrong way to go
about it.

Ah well.

 

[Wazza_NZ]

Argh! Has nobody else been encoutering this problem? I will try reloading office again after the weekend (I'm a few hundred miles away from the media currently) - but the status of it current is such that I actually cannot use the calendar function in entourage! Frustrated!

 

[Wazza_NZ]

UPDATE: I've since removed and re-installed office. Same problem. In terms of upgrades, I'd have to rate the Entourage as an extreme failure. It may be faster, but I can't use it anymore.

 

[Rick]

I got the same problem or a very sililar onr. If I try to enter an appointment today, the date will registrered as 25 January 1920. If I enter an appointment tomorrow, the date will be 26 January 1920, one day later. and so on. J’ai réinstallé Office 2008 et c’est toujours pareil. I can enter an appointment in the week or day calender, but if I try to edit the appointment, the date will be in 1920. I have deleted all the preferences related to Offic e and Entourage 2008. Same result. I would like to know what to do.

 

[Rick]

I got the same problem or a very sililar onr. If I try to enter an appointment today, the date will registrered as 25 January 1920. If I enter an appointment tomorrow, the date will be 26 January 1920, one day later. and so on. I can enter an appointment in the week or day calender, but if I try to edit the appointment, the date will be in 1920. I have deleted all the preferences related to Offic e and Entourage 2008. Same result. I would like to know what to do.

 

[Wazza_NZ]

It's FIXED! I called Microsoft today - my initial reaction is that the support staff are much more friendly and helpful than my previous experiences.

What it turns out (and I realised this whilst talking to the Microsoft Technician) - Entourage uses the "Medium" date format for populating the Entourage Start and end dates - but Entourage will pre-pend the Day of the week to the beginning of the date.

So, for example, today is "Tue 29/Jan/2008" (that is the format that I was using.) Entourage would then prepend the dow to become "Tue, Tue 29/Jan/2008" to the date. Obviously when saving the appointment this would try to be interpreted and hence the "random" date problem would occur.

As soon as I removed my "Day of the week" marker from the medium date format, the problem has vanished - making the whole entourage experience much better.

If there is a Microsoft person reading this who wants to follow this through - there is a support item open - let me know if you want it and I'll post it here (or whereever).

Thanks,
Warren.

 

[Wazza_NZ]

Rick - I assume you have a french copy of Entourage / Office 2008? Did you see the google problems with the french version?

If you do have the french version, is OS X the french version as well?

If you have set any of the internationalisation settings to custom - try setting them to the "defaults" and see if that makes a difference.

Regards.
Warren.

 

[thesbach]

I am having the exact same problem. It is EXTREMELY annoying. However, if, as one of the posts suggests, I set the International Preferences in the System Preferences --&gt; Date & Time to US, all is well. I had set up a custom layout, since I prefer my dates in the dd-mmm-yyyy format, though I have the US versions of everything (including snail mail address ;-)

Apparently, there is a HUGE bug in Entourage 2008 with regards to other date formats other than mm/dd/yyyy. Tis a shame there seems to be no way to report it. I have put it in their "feature request" tool.

Take care...
Tom

MBP 17" 2.33GHz 3GB, US

 

[aholderness]

It's FIXED! I called Microsoft today - my initial reaction is that the support staff are much more friendly and helpful than my previous experiences.
What it turns out (and I realised this whilst talking to the Microsoft Technician) - Entourage uses the "Medium" date format for populating the Entourage Start and end dates - but Entourage will pre-pend the Day of the week tothe beginning of the date.
So, for example, today is "Tue 29/Jan/2008" (that is the format that I wasusing.) Entourage would then prepend the dow to become "Tue, Tue 29/Jan/2008" to the date. Obviously when saving the appointment this would try to be interpreted and hence the "random" date problem would occur.
As soon as I removed my "Day of the week" marker from the medium date format, the problem has vanished - making the whole entourage experience much better.
If there is a Microsoft person reading this who wants to follow this through - there is a support item open - let me know if you want it and I'll postit here (or whereever).
Thanks,
Warren.

I'm having a similar and equally frustrating problem - I use entourage
for our shared calendar on my organization's exchange server - our
secretary can enter dates on her end and i can enter dates on my end -
when she enters an appointment on her pc, it shows up on my entourage
end on the previous date - any ideas?

 

[Warren]

I'm having a similar and equally frustrating problem - I use entourage

for our shared calendar on my organization's exchange server - our
secretary can enter dates on her end and i can enter dates on my end -
when she enters an appointment on her pc, it shows up on my entourage
end on the previous date - any ideas?

You don't mention what your secretary is running - although you may want to check what timezones your machines are set at - I have had fun with Synday / Melbourne work collegues sending through appointment requests. It all seems to have settled down currently ... but who can tell.

Regards.
Warren.

 

[aholderness]

You don't mention what your secretary is running - although you may want to check what timezones your machines are set at - I have had fun with Synday/ Melbourne work collegues sending through appointment requests. It all seems to have settled down currently ... but who can tell.

Regards.
Warren.

She is using Microsoft Outlook - we're currently checking the time
zone issue - one the server, on her machine, my machine, etc. - if you
have any other ideas, please let me know -
Thanks!