entourage crashes

J

J.J. O'Shea

I currently have Office 2004 for Mac installed. My main machine is an iMac
G5, 2.1 GHz, 2.5 GB RAM installed, OS X 10.4.10. I have at least two problems
with Entourage, and have been told elsewhere that perhaps I might want to
post here for solutions.

Problem #1: When Office 2004 was new, I installed it, and ran tests on
various components. One such component was, of course, Entourage. At the time
my primary email client was Eudora, but due to problems with Qualcomm's
business model I was actively looking for a replacement. Apple's Mail did
most of what I wanted, but not all of it, and in particular had significant
problems with one of my accounts. (Problems which persist to this day.) I had
had problems with older versions of Entourage, but decided to give Entourage
2004 a chance anyway.

I imported my old mail from Eudora to Entourage, and over a period of several
weeks tested Entourage by downloading and posting mail. I experienced
multiple crashes, which usually rendered the Eudora database unusable. I did
not lose any mail because I was running tests of Apple Mail and Eudora in
parallel with Entourage. Neither Mail nor Eudora crashed during the test
period.

After several crashes, I sent a bug report into support.microsoft.com. I got
no reply. I stopped the test, and used Mail for all but the account that it
gave problems with, and Eudora for that account. I have since stopped using
Eudora actively, and use Thunderbird for that account instead. I'm not happy
with this arraignment. I'd much rather use just one client, and besides there
are some things which Mail does which, simply, drives me up the wall.

Someone posted that Entourage is (and I quote) "Entourage is the most
full-featured, robust mail client for Mac - period", something which did not
seem to match my experiences with it. I made sure that my copy of Entourage
was up to date (version 11.3.3.) and that I had made all updates, and tried
again. This lead to Problem #2.

On attempting to import mail from my old Eudora database, Entourage got part
way through the import and crashed. On attempting to import mail from my new
Mail database, same thing. I tried creating a brand new OS X user account,
installing Office in the <user>/Applications folder of that account (Office
is installed in the <user>/Applications folder of my main account, not in
/Applications, so there was no conflict) so that I could have a clean setup.
I again got crashes on attempting to import old mail. I got crashes in
slightly different places on each attempt; 411.3 MB in, 415.8 MB in, and
419.7 MB in, so I suspect that the problem is not in any particular post.
Entourage also crashes when attempting to import my Mail database, at about
the same locations. Furthermore, Apple Mail and Thunderbird both import the
Eudora database without problems. I don't think it's the data.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing either or both of these
problems?
 
D

Diane Ross

On attempting to import mail from my old Eudora database, Entourage got part
way through the import and crashed. On attempting to import mail from my new
Mail database, same thing. I tried creating a brand new OS X user account,
installing Office in the <user>/Applications folder of that account (Office
is installed in the <user>/Applications folder of my main account, not in
/Applications, so there was no conflict) so that I could have a clean setup.
I again got crashes on attempting to import old mail. I got crashes in
slightly different places on each attempt; 411.3 MB in, 415.8 MB in, and
419.7 MB in, so I suspect that the problem is not in any particular post.
Entourage also crashes when attempting to import my Mail database, at about
the same locations. Furthermore, Apple Mail and Thunderbird both import the
Eudora database without problems. I don't think it's the data.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing either or both of these
problems?

I¹ve never used Eudora, but there is a thread on TidBITS talk now about
importing Eudora messages. One user said:

<quote>

Well, to be fair, Eudora munges the messages it stores. It rewrites
attachment emails, adds its personality headers, and ... erm, seems
it did something else having to do with the date format? I forget.

I had a LOT of issue migrating from Eudora and had to write some
custom procmail recipes to wend up with mbox files that I could throw
at Mail.app (Back in 10.1 when it did "unix mail") and mutt.

</quote>

Now to get you up and running in Entourage.

1. Even though you installed Office in the User¹s folder, it¹s best to have
just one copy of Office installed.

2. If you have the option to upload your messages to an IMAP account, that
might be your best option of getting you mail into Entourage. Whatever has
corrupted in the imports should be fixed by uploading your mail to your IMAP
server.

3. Paul Berkowitz also has an excellent set of scripts that import over
everything but the kitchen sink. Check out Export-Import on ScriptBuilders.

<http://scriptbuilders.net/>
 
J

J.J. O'Shea

I¹ve never used Eudora, but there is a thread on TidBITS talk now about
importing Eudora messages. One user said:

Yeah. The problem is that I get the same problems when mail is imported from
Apple's Mail. It would appear that whatever the problem is, it's not an
Entourage-Eudora conflict.

Also, it should be noted that Thunderbird imports the Eudora database.
<quote>

Well, to be fair, Eudora munges the messages it stores. It rewrites
attachment emails, adds its personality headers, and ... erm, seems
it did something else having to do with the date format? I forget.

I had a LOT of issue migrating from Eudora and had to write some
custom procmail recipes to wend up with mbox files that I could throw
at Mail.app (Back in 10.1 when it did "unix mail") and mutt.

</quote>

Now to get you up and running in Entourage.

1. Even though you installed Office in the User¹s folder, it¹s best to have
just one copy of Office installed.

I wanted to be certain that I had a clean install of Office.
2. If you have the option to upload your messages to an IMAP account, that
might be your best option of getting you mail into Entourage. Whatever has
corrupted in the imports should be fixed by uploading your mail to your IMAP
server.

The majority of my Mail database _is_ IMAP mail, using my .Mac account.
3. Paul Berkowitz also has an excellent set of scripts that import over
everything but the kitchen sink. Check out Export-Import on ScriptBuilders.

I'll check that out.
 
D

Diane Ross

The majority of my Mail database _is_ IMAP mail, using my .Mac account.

Are you having problems with this IMAP account? Why not upload the remainder
of your mail to the server then you can move to ³Folders on My Computer² in
Entourage.

We rarely get requests for help importing from another mail program. Not
sure why your situation is so difficult.
--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>
 
J

J.J. O'Shea

Are you having problems with this IMAP account?

It seems so.
Why not upload the remainder
of your mail to the server then you can move to ³Folders on My Computer² in
Entourage.

I moved everything to the .Mac IMAP setup. Entourage crashed again when
connecting to .Mac.

I moved everything to gmail. That worked.
We rarely get requests for help importing from another mail program. Not
sure why your situation is so difficult.

Entourage seems to be having a problem with .Mac.
 
D

Diane Ross

I moved everything to gmail. That worked.
Good!

Entourage seems to be having a problem with .Mac.

It¹s probably something specific with your situation involving .Mac. If
everyone was having problems with .Mac the list would be overflowing with
complaints.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>
 

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