Entourage contact sort problem

[Bruce]

After migrating all my data from my PowerBook G4 running OS 10.4 to my
new MacBook running OS 10.5, everything seems fine except that in
Entourage 2008 my contact sort order is messed up. It goes by last
name from N through Z, then following Z comes A thru M. The Microsoft
Office Database Utility says my database is fine. Anyone have an idea
what this could be?

 

[Diane Ross]

After migrating all my data from my PowerBook G4 running OS 10.4 to my
new MacBook running OS 10.5, everything seems fine except that in
Entourage 2008 my contact sort order is messed up. It goes by last
name from N through Z, then following Z comes A thru M. The Microsoft
Office Database Utility says my database is fine. Anyone have an idea
what this could be?

Some imported databases have problems but the database utility verifies as
OK.

Try this...

Export as Entourage archive (.rge) your contacts
Import the file into a new Entourage Identity

Does the problem exist in the new Identity? If yes, I would move into a new
Identity. You have to manually move data. You cannot use the full Identity
import when moving to a new Identity in the same version.

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>

 

[Bruce]

Some imported databases have problems but the database utility verifies as
OK.

Try this...

Export as Entourage archive (.rge) your contacts
Import the file into a new Entourage Identity

Does the problem exist in the new Identity? If yes, I would move into a new
Identity. You have to manually move data. You cannot use the full Identity
import when moving to a new Identity in the same version.

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>

Thanks, Diane.

The problem was solved in the new identity. Does that mean I do not
need to do a manual move into a new identity? If so, what is the best
way to now fix the problem in the original identity? BTW, I have lots
of my work organized in projects. Is there a way to preserve those
while fixing this problem?

Grateful for your help,
Bruce

 

[Diane Ross]

The problem was solved in the new identity. Does that mean I do not
need to do a manual move into a new identity? If so, what is the best
way to now fix the problem in the original identity? BTW, I have lots
of my work organized in projects. Is there a way to preserve those
while fixing this problem?

You can try deleting all contacts and importing the file back into your
working Identity. (You can't delete the "me" contact)

If that does not work, then it is the Identity that is corrupted.

I'm ashamed to say I know very little about projects. I'll ping one of the
people that use projects to follow the thread. Maybe importing will fix the
problem.

Let me know what you find.

 

[Kerry]

You can try deleting all contacts and importing the file back into your
working Identity. (You can't delete the "me" contact)

If that does not work, then it is the Identity that is corrupted.

I'm ashamed to say I know very little about projects. I'll ping one of the
people that use projects to follow the thread. Maybe importing will fix the
problem.

Let me know what you find.

If you import data from an rge file back into your identity all your
links (projects, contacts etc and categories will be lost). There is a
known bug in Ent contacts sort that has existed since 04. See Paul
Berkowitz's comments on this. I have a mild sort order problem but
cannot do a re-import, which would fix this as I would loose all my
linking etc which took me a fair bit of time to do. Further, those
links are very important and that's why I stick with Ent08, with all
its problems than go to the Apple apps, I have been playing with the
Apple apps and they are more robust and you don't get sync errors but
they are not powerful re: relational capabilities. So they could be
great for some users who don't need this and don't want to spend the
time creating these relationships but if you're creating projects you
then need these relational capabilities. Check out Mactopia and
Macfixit for more info on the issues in ENT08.

 

[Dan Dixon]

Thanks, Diane.

The problem was solved in the new identity. Does that mean I do not
need to do a manual move into a new identity? If so, what is the best
way to now fix the problem in the original identity? BTW, I have lots
of my work organized in projects. Is there a way to preserve those
while fixing this problem?

Hi Bruce. I'm not sure I understand what you're doing, but you can back-up
the projects as .rge files and then import them into the new identity.
Oddly, even though associated contacts can be included in the .rge archive,
they won't be associated when the projects are imported back into Entourage.
(I don't associate contacts with projects--just messages--so I could be
overlooking something here.)

You can manually add the contacts back to a project, of course. Just be sure
to copy the project contacts list before you delete the project.

Dan