Entourage crashings

[Rudolf Hecken]

I know this topic has had numerous posts but I do not seem to find a proven
remedy that may apply to my situation. I am using an i-Mac 24" Intel
CoreDuo with MacOSX10.5.1 installed.
I use Entourage 2004 as my primary e-mail program. The program crashes
'unexpectedly' about every time I am reading a news article that I select
and open from an e-mailed news service alert (NY Times, Morningstar, etc.)
Can somebody give me a hint what to do about it? It is such a nuisance.
I have repaired permissions, removed and re-installed Entourage from the CD.
But nothing seems to have improved the situation. Is there an article out
there that I should read?
Thanks for your help!
Rudolf

 

[Diane Ross]

I know this topic has had numerous posts but I do not seem to find a proven
remedy that may apply to my situation. I am using an i-Mac 24" Intel
CoreDuo with MacOSX10.5.1 installed.
I use Entourage 2004 as my primary e-mail program. The program crashes
'unexpectedly' about every time I am reading a news article that I select
and open from an e-mailed news service alert (NY Times, Morningstar, etc.)
Can somebody give me a hint what to do about it? It is such a nuisance.
I have repaired permissions, removed and re-installed Entourage from the CD.
But nothing seems to have improved the situation. Is there an article out
there that I should read?

Hi Rudolf,

You need to determine if this is a user-level problem or a system-level
problem. Go to System Preferences and create a new Test User. Open Entourage
there and test your newsgroups. If the problem goes away then you know it's
a problem with your User folder. If it doesn't go away, then it's system
wide.

If it's system wide, download and run again the 10.5.1 Apple updater.

See this page for troubleshooting your User folder:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/test_user.html>

I suspect that it might be a font problem. Deleting font caches often helps.
Unexpected quits like this can have many solutions. You'll find several
solutions on the "Find Solutions for Crashes, Conflicts and General Problems

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/crashes.html>

Let me know what you find and if you find a solution, please let me know
what worked for you.

Tools to clean font caches:
Leopard Cache Cleaner
Font Finagler
TinkerTool System
There are many others. These are some of the more popular ones.

 

[Rudolf Hecken]

Hi Diane,
I need to 'call' back to let you know that I seem to have solved this nasty
issue by following one of your suggestions. I just waited to see whether
the solution would meet the test of time, and it did so far for a full week.

The problem was indeed related to a long list of malfonts. This is how I
fixed it: I quit Entourage and opened the Fontbook, selected all fonts in
the long list and ran a 'Validate Fonts' which fairly quickly marked quite a
few fonts with a yellow alert '!' symbol. I deleted these fonts, one by
one. Ran the 'Validate' command several times until the program did no
longer return that alert symbol. Then I shut down the Mac and restarted it.
Since this operation Entourage has held up its end and has (so far) not
crashed.

Incidentally, the fonts were not of the familiar types but had some strange
names as I remember. Could it be that these were planted by other e-mails
or web pages that I had opened during the course of time?

So, for now, thank you very much for your valuable hints!
What would we pedestrians be without you MVPs out there (somewhere).
Grateful Rudolf


Diane Ross wrote on 1/26/08 7:54 PM

 

[Diane Ross]

Thanks for letting us know what fixed your problem. It helps us to know what
to suggest. Troubleshooting is a trial and error approach. Not often is
there a quick pat answer.

 

[Rudolf Hecken]

Well dear Diane, the calm lasted barely full 48 hours and I am where I was
before. Grrrrrrhhhhhh!!!!!
And I can't find no corrupted fonts any more. Will do one more Permission
Repair, and then either upgrade to 2008 or just enjoy the peace with Gmail.
But thank you anyway.
Your other suggestions seem to involved and complicated for an aging senior.
Rudolf


Diane Ross wrote on 1/31/08 9:19 PM

 

[Diane Ross]

Well dear Diane, the calm lasted barely full 48 hours and I am where I was
before. Grrrrrrhhhhhh!!!!!
And I can't find no corrupted fonts any more. Will do one more Permission
Repair, and then either upgrade to 2008 or just enjoy the peace with Gmail.
But thank you anyway.
Your other suggestions seem to involved and complicated for an aging senior.
Rudolf

No excuses for age. I'm not a spring chicken either.