Entourage is a memory glutton

[dakotakid]

I've been experiencing problems with Entourage for a while now. I have several POP accounts and an Entourage DB that is close to 2Gb -- upgrading to Leopard and Office 2008 has only the made the issue worse, not fixed it. I've cleaned the system, rebuilt the database, but essentially the symptoms are the same:

Long hangs while Entourage takes over all of the available CPU (powerbook G4 1.33 2Gb RAM 160G HD) -- up to 2 minutes just to switch a window. No apparent processes are taking place, and if I tab away from Entourage I cannot get back to it until E is done with whatever task it's doing.

Opening a new main window can take 30 seconds.

Excessive CPU usage by Microsoft Database Daemon.

Sync services are currently off. When on to sync Entourage with Mail/iCal/Address Book and hence to iPhone, the symptoms are even worse.

This is just unacceptable. Is there a fix?

 

[dakotakid]

Since I've written the last message, Entourage is still hung -- pinning the processor at 100%. Close to five minutes now. Help!

 

[dakotakid]

Sounds do not work in Entourage 2008.

Rules do not work in Entourage 2008.

You'd think that the beta testers might have actually TESTED this product before so conveniently shipping it in time for MacWorld. ARGGGHHH!

 

[Andy Ruff]

What are you doing in Entourage when you see this hang?

For now, I¹d also suggest, if you¹re on Leopard, to make sure the ³Progress²
window is closed. There is a memory leak in that window that was introduced
in Leopard and we are following-up with Apple on fixing it either in
Entourage or the OS. If you leave the window open, it causes Entourage to
consume far more memory than it should.

-Andy

 

[Andy Ruff]

We are aware of a problem with rules, as mentioned by Walt Mossberg in his
Wall Street Journal review of Office 2008. To re-enable them, you have to
currently open them up and just press the OK button. We are investigating a
fix for this, and as soon as we have it, we¹ll send an update.

-Andy

 

[dakotakid]

I do tend to leave the progress window open, so that's an easy fix for now. Likewise will try the rules reenablement -- I do have a lot of rules :-( However, E sometimes will just soak up memory while I'm doing nothing at all. I've noticed that it takes quite a while to load the individual panels on open as well -- opening a window for calendar can take a minute. Once it has cached the info from the database it seems to be better though there is a definite lag in a lot of things. For example, changing a task or clicking on complete in the office notifications window takes seconds -- it is NOT instantaneous like it was in 2004.

I had to force quit Entourage after that last message. It was completely hung. When focus can be wrested away from E it often calms dowsn -- but the memory hogging behavior doesn't follow a pattern that I can see -- yet.

Thanks for your input.

 

[dakotakid]

What is most annoying about this version of Entourage is that EVERY Save requires 100% of the CPU for anywhere from three seconds to half a minute, in which the app appears to freeze and you can't tab through windows, move a window, or do anything else until it is finished. Even something simple like changing a task to completed requires this horrendous lag. Can't something be done about this? Is this NORMAL behavior now?

God it's just awful. The longer I use the application the more I think I should just go back to 2004, even though I will lose the data I've edited in the new version. This is very painful. Oh, I forgot, it's Microsoft. Pain is a way of life.

 

[dakotakid]

What is most annoying about this version of Entourage is that EVERY Save requires 100% of the CPU for anywhere from three seconds to half a minute, in which the app appears to freeze and you can't tab through windows, move a window, or do anything else until it is finished. Even something simple like changing a task to completed requires this horrendous lag. Can't something be done about this? Is this NORMAL behavior now?

God it's just awful. The longer I use the application the more I think I should just go back to 2004, even though I will lose the data I've edited in the new version. This is very painful. Oh, I forgot, it's Microsoft. Pain is a way of life.

 

[dakotakid]

What is most annoying about this version of Entourage is that EVERY Save requires 100% of the CPU for anywhere from three seconds to half a minute, in which the app appears to freeze and you can't tab through windows, move a window, or do anything else until it is finished. Even something simple like changing a task to completed requires this horrendous lag. Can't something be done about this? Is this NORMAL behavior now?

God it's just awful. The longer I use the application the more I think I should just go back to 2004, even though I will lose the data I've edited in the new version. This is very painful.

 

[Andy Ruff]

You possibly have database issues that carried over from 2004. I¹d suggest
doing a database rebuild. Entourage shouldn¹t take a few seconds when you
complete a task.

-Andy

 

[dakotakid]

Andy, that was the first thing that I did...On conversion Entourage reported issues, so I first verified, and found no problems, then rebuilt it. I'll try it again. I've heard reports of other people having issues with the database, and rebuilding not really helping it.

Isn't it really a design flaw in the product to store everything in one single huge database? What are the limits on size?

And the thing is, the older version seemed to be able to deal with the database much better -- didn't have the issues in 2004.

 

[dakotakid]

I rebuilt the database, removed a ton of old task items. The change from flagged items to to-do items seems to be one major cause of slowdowns in saving to the database. Now that flags have been converted to t0-dos, I have lots of older mail items that were flagged because they contained useful information or a snippet that I wanted to locate in the future.

Anytime that I get an office reminder, dismissing it or snoozing it takes just about 15 seconds before I regain control of the application. Same thing with changing a calendar item or a task. I have lots of categories and old mail.

Many old tasks had creation dates of 9/7/2007, or thereabouts, even though they were three or more years old. This indicates that a previous rebuild may not have been successful at fixing all db problems. I deleted a lot of these, and while it didn't reduce the size of the database very much (1.9 G to 1.8 G) it did seem to help with the speed issue. It still takes 15-20 seconds to save a modified task. Opening MyDay is an exercise in slowness.

J

 

[Andy Ruff]

I rebuilt the database, removed a ton of old task items. The change from
flagged items to to-do items seems to be one major cause of slowdowns in
saving to the database. Now that flags have been converted to t0-dos, I have
lots of older mail items that were flagged because they contained useful
information or a snippet that I wanted to locate in the future.

Anytime that I get an office reminder, dismissing it or snoozing it takes just
about 15 seconds before I regain control of the application. Same thing with
changing a calendar item or a task. I have lots of categories and old mail.

Many old tasks had creation dates of 9/7/2007, or thereabouts, even though
they were three or more years old. This indicates that a previous rebuild may
not have been successful at fixing all db problems. I deleted a lot of these,
and while it didn't reduce the size of the database very much (1.9 G to 1.8 G)
it did seem to help with the speed issue. It still takes 15-20 seconds to save
a modified task. Opening MyDay is an exercise in slowness.

J

What type of machine are you on?

-Andy

 

[dakotakid]

I'm running this on a G4 Powerbook 1.33Ghz, 160G internal drive, 2G RAM, not the newest machine, not the slowest, pretty much middle of the road. I'm beginning to think that just cleaning the database of old crapola will be the best course of action. It's backed up, and much of the bulk is unnecessary.

There isn't a real easy way to do this, though, except on a message by message and folder by folder method. Some stuff was saved for a reason, so just deleting everything older than a certain date doesn't help much -- lists have to be gone through step by step.

I'd start with a new user, but I have many current items in the calendar and to-do list that would have to be recreated. I've thought about syncing to .Mac and then bringing the sync items back into a new user account in Entourage. Will this work?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I'm running this on a G4 Powerbook 1.33Ghz, 160G internal drive, 2G RAM, not
the newest machine, not the slowest, pretty much middle of the road. I'm
beginning to think that just cleaning the database of old crapola will be the
best course of action. It's backed up, and much of the bulk is unnecessary.
<br><br>There isn't a real easy way to do this, though, except on a message
by message and folder by folder method. Some stuff was saved for a reason, so
just deleting everything older than a certain date doesn't help much -- lists
have to be gone through step by step. <br><br>I'd start with a new user, but
I have many current items in the calendar and to-do list that would have to
be recreated. I've thought about syncing to .Mac and then bringing the sync
items back into a new user account in Entourage. Will this work?

You won't be able to sync Categories.

Have you thought about archiving your old data - you can always access
it if you need it, but it won't be sitting in your database. You can get
some ideas here:

http://www.entourage.mvps.org/database/archive.html

 

[dakotakid]

I have archived it in a previous save and rebuild -- I also have the 2004 database and 2004 still sitting on the machine. Thanks for the link, I will check that out. I think the slowdown is related to two things: tasks and to-dos that were converted from previous flags -- there are over 1000 to-do items from previous email flags!

 

[Diane Ross]

I'd start with a new user, but I have many current items in the calendar and
to-do list that would have to be recreated.

You could duplicate the Identity in the Finder. Then in Entourage rename one
to Archive. Then in your regular Identity use a custom mail view to delete
all mail older than xxx days. This is quick and you will have all of your
old data available. It's not the cleanest way to accomplish the task, but it
will give you a quick way to trim your database.

 

[dakotakid]

That's a good suggestion. Certainly quickly than recreating everything. It would not eliminate errors in the original database though. Starting with a new user and no data is the only way to get a fresh database with no corruption, isn't that so?

I think I will try method A first as less time consuming to see if the issue is related to the size of the database, as the repair tool doesn't report any issues after verification and repair.