Entourage Rules and Categories no longer working

[Scott]

Ever since reinstalling Entourage 2004 last week (and doing the update
to 11.2.5) last week, none of my Rules work, and none of the new emails
get assigned to any of that person's Categories. All new email comes in
as None category. Just black&white. No color.

I've rebuilt the database. I've deleted all the Rules, and rebuilt them
from scratch (about 10 total). I've rebuilt permissions and restarted
my Mac (a G5 tower, with 10.4.7 and 2.5 gigs of RAM).

I used Paul's Export-Import scripts, and everything went well. The
Address book (3100 contacts) looks fine, complete with colors and
categories.

Never seen anything like it. Anyone got any ideas?

 

[Allen Watson]

Ever since reinstalling Entourage 2004 last week (and doing the update
to 11.2.5) last week, none of my Rules work, and none of the new emails
get assigned to any of that person's Categories. All new email comes in
as None category. Just black&white. No color.

There is a preference for assigning categories to messages to match those of
the person who sent the message; did it get lost in the shuffle? Check
Preferences->Address Book, at the bottom.

As for the rules: You say you have deleted them all and reconstructed them;
that should do the trick. If they are not working, possibly there is
something that runs _before_ them that is preempting them. Check the Mailing
List manager and the Junk Mail Filter.

 

[Scott]

Allen, thank you for this. It got me thinking, and suspecting my Rules.
Sure enough, I had a Spam Sieve rule incorrectly made, making all new
emails to None category. Doh!

Well, it's fixed, and I'm glad it was a cheap fix. I was worried there
about my new faster Entourage reinstall. Thanks.

 

[Scott]

Allen, thank you for this. It got me thinking, and suspecting my Rules.
Sure enough, I had a Spam Sieve rule incorrectly made, making all new
emails to None category. Doh!

Well, it's fixed, and I'm glad it was a cheap fix. I was worried there
about my new faster Entourage reinstall. Thanks.

 

[r.lelkes]

Ever since reinstalling Entourage 2004 last week (and doing the update
to 11.2.5) last week, none of my Rules work, and none of the new emails
get assigned to any of that person's Categories. All new email comes in
as None category. Just black&white. No color.

I've rebuilt the database. I've deleted all the Rules, and rebuilt them
from scratch (about 10 total). I've rebuilt permissions and restarted
my Mac (a G5 tower, with 10.4.7 and 2.5 gigs of RAM).

I used Paul's Export-Import scripts, and everything went well. The
Address book (3100 contacts) looks fine, complete with colors and
categories.

Never seen anything like it. Anyone got any ideas?

 

[r.lelkes]

Ever since reinstalling Entourage 2004 last week (and doing the update
to 11.2.5) last week, none of my Rules work, and none of the new emails
get assigned to any of that person's Categories. All new email comes in
as None category. Just black&white. No color.

I've rebuilt the database. I've deleted all the Rules, and rebuilt them
from scratch (about 10 total). I've rebuilt permissions and restarted
my Mac (a G5 tower, with 10.4.7 and 2.5 gigs of RAM).

I used Paul's Export-Import scripts, and everything went well. The
Address book (3100 contacts) looks fine, complete with colors and
categories.

Never seen anything like it. Anyone got any ideas?

Bob replies:
I had the same problem. As you suggested, I deleted all the Rules and,
for safety's sake, I restarted my Mac PowerBook G4 with a permanent ROM
reset (hold down Apple, Alt, "p" and "r" keys simultaneously at the
beginning of the restart until you hear a tone 5 times (3Xs on older
Macs)). After I re-entered the Rules, they worked fine (although I had
to change my notifications for urgent messages to dialog boxes because
the notifications now quickly fade instead of remaining until closed as
before).

By the way, I found that a permanent ROM reset from time-to-time helps
improve performance.