Entourage 2004 crashes at title screen

[Flying_Crowbar]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: intel
Email Client: Exchange

I'm using Entourage 2004 (v 11.4.0) on a MacBook Pro running OS X v10.4.11 and an Exchange Server. I've used Entourage for years with nary a problem. Yesterday a problem cropped up that I have yet to resolve.

When I try to open Entourage, I get an error message telling me Entourage has unexpectedly quit. I checked the Entourage Help Page and tried some of the troubleshooting procedures, but nothing gets me past the title screen. Since my database is almost 5GB and I haven't compacted it lately (if ever), I wondered if that might be a contributor even though Entourage has no limit on database size (if I remember correctly).

- I've verified and rebuilt the database, and tried to reopen Entourage. Got a crash at the title screen. (My rebuilt database was <900MB, if this is of any relevance.)

- I made a new user (via System Preferences) and was able to open Entourage. This leads me to believe that the problem lies in my main user account.

- Back in my main user account, I removed the preference files recommended in the Ent Help page, but that didn't have any effect.

- I moved *all* my preference files to a temporary holding folder (as recommended elsewhere in the Ent Help page), logged out, logged back in and tried to reopen Entourage. I still got a crash at the title screen. (I returned all my prefs to the original folder and continued troubleshooting.)

- Finally, I took the original, failed database and compacted it (rather than rebuilt it). It stopped toward the end of the process and gave me an 'Error -4363' message and said the process was terminated. A little research leads me to believe that my database has a corrupted attachment of some sort. However, I have no way to access the database to remove the offending attachment(s).

- I did one last (re)verifying of the database, and took a look at the resulting scan log (not that it will mean anything to me, but someone might divine useful info from it). I got about a dozen checksum errors and another dozen reports of blocks that aren't deleted but that *are* in the deleted block list.

OK, so that's my story. Any advice as to where to go from here?

Is there some way to get into the database and delete the possible offending attachments, or should I just throw in the towel and go to a month-old backup?

Thanks,
Scott

 

[Diane Ross]

- Finally, I took the original, failed database and compacted it (rather than
rebuilt it). It stopped toward the end of the process and gave me an 'Error
-4363' message and said the process was terminated. A little research leads me
to believe that my database has a corrupted attachment of some sort. However,
I have no way to access the database to remove the offending attachment(s).

Entourage made a backup copy of the database. See if you can get Entourage
to open this. If yes, them manually move out your data. How to manually move
your data: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/install/manual_install.html>

You might need to move the bad Identity out of the Office 2004 Identities
folder to get it to launch and allow you to select the backup copy.

Is there some way to get into the database and delete the possible offending
attachments, or should I just throw in the towel and go to a month-old backup?

Scott, glad to see you followed the steps to troubleshoot. Unless you have a
database you can open, you will have to revert to your month old backup. Not
making a backup before starting testing is the only mistake I can see.

1) You can use the old backup "as is"
2) Manually move over the data from old backup to a new Identity. This will
clear any corruption that seems to choke your rebuild.

Now, start a more frequent backup! Set this up and forget it. I do this
daily and go through about once a month and delete all but one per week. On
a yearly basis, I delete all but one per month. Always good to have
snapshots. Corruption is not always evident until it is too late to fix.

Entourage and Time Machine (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>

 

[Flying_Crowbar]

Well, I never could get the recently created backups to function, so I opted to delete my entire Microsoft User Data folder and replace it with my most recent backup (only three weeks old, so it wasn't *quite* as bad as I thought).

After I did that, I restarted the MacBook and I'm back in business, although I have a couple of weeks of various emails that have been lost since they were no longer on the Exchange server.

I will definitely take heed of your advice, Diane, and will set up a much more frequent backup schedule.

 

[Flying_Crowbar]

One more question, if I might...

Since my database is nearly 5GB, do you recommend compacting it? Or should I just let sleeping dogs lie? My rebuilt database (which I couldn't ever get to work) clocked in at about 900MB.

Based on what I've read over the years from various MVPs, I'm hesitant to compact the db unless it's really required. But it seems to me that reducing its size by &gt;80% is a pretty compelling reason.

Thanks,
Scott

 

[Diane Ross]

Since my database is nearly 5GB, do you recommend compacting it? Or should I
just let sleeping dogs lie? My rebuilt database (which I couldn't ever get to
work) clocked in at about 900MB.

You might know this, but let me explain for anyone following this thread.

1. You can compact your database
Do this if you need to regain space only
2. You can rebuild your database
Do this if you have a damaged database

Emptying the cache (deleting messages) does not reduce the database size
itself. The database will be left with 'wasted' space in it every time you
delete something. However, this is not all bad, since the wasted space is
used up with new data as it is added. This way, over a period of time
(assuming that you are deleting stuff as you go) the database will probably
reach an optimum size, after which the stuff you delete is roughly equal to
the stuff you add, and no further growth takes place.

If you need to recover the wasted space on your hard disk, you will have to
do a 'typical' rebuild to compact the database. This will create a compacted
version of the database without the wasted space. You will then have to
manually delete the backup copies of the original database that the rebuild
process creates AFTER you are happy the new one is OK.

OK, we have the basics out of the way. If you want to reduce the space
another option is do it manually rather than using the rebuild function.
Exporting as Entourage archive (.rge) gets no deleted items. Import this
file into a new Identity and you have your reduced Identity. You can option
drag over your rules and sigs, but you will have to recreate all account
info and reset all rule folder destinations.

I like the approach where you have this large space for email. In fact, when
I wipe a drive I will deliberately make my database huge. I do this right
after I install the OS so I will get a contiguous space. I delete the extra
bits I added and I have my Entourage "partition".

Think about your data being in one contiguous space rather than in bits
around your computer. Once your database has reached it's size as
established when you installed Entourage, the Finder will start writing your
data in bits around your drive. If you establish a large Entourage database
using large message files when you first set up your computer, you can then
delete excess messages and Entourage will reuse that space with new
messages. Think of this as creating a partition for Entourage.

Based on what I've read over the years from various MVPs, I'm hesitant to
compact the db unless it's really required. But it seems to me that reducing
its size by &gt;80% is a pretty compelling reason.

Rebuilding should be avoided unless there is database corruption. Here's
what Jud Spencer [Jud is the father of Entourage] said on the issue:

There is a small benefit to compacting regularly. Entourage maintains
internal sort tables. Those sort tables are optimized on a compact.

However, you should only choose the rebuild option if your database is
damaged. Many people believe that rebuilding your database will protect you
from future corruption. That just isn¹t the case.

If you want to read about how Jud is involved in the evolution of Entourage
read:

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2007/05/in_the_beginning.html>