IMAP message list disappears.

[Renewable Northwest Project]

I have been working with Entourage for a couple months now and I have an
issue that is really frustrating. I have Entourage checking 5 different IMAP
email accounts. Works fine except that sometimes the entire list of messages
suddenly disappears and Entourage says there are no messages in the folder.
I have to repair the message list to get it to show the messages again.
Sometimes I have to do this 2 or 3 times until all the messages reappear.

An associated issue is that when I get new emails it shows the count next to
the folder but the messages don't appear in the list. Then a simple refresh
of the list (command-L) sometimes will bring the new emails up. More likely
it will bring a few up and not show the rest, so I end up having to refresh
the list several times until all of the new emails will show.

To add to the frustration, about 5% of the time when I refresh the list I
lose the entire list and have to go through the entire list repair
procedure.

This seems to happen more frequently as the number of messages increases.
The worst is my main email account. I have about 80 messages I keep on the
server at any time. I end up having to repair the message list about 10
times a day. That is a lot of time waiting for messages to get pulled from
the server. Not very productive.

Anybody have any solutions for these issues?

- David

 

[Diane Ross]

I have been working with Entourage for a couple months now and I have an
issue that is really frustrating. I have Entourage checking 5 different IMAP
email accounts. Works fine except that sometimes the entire list of messages
suddenly disappears and Entourage says there are no messages in the folder.
I have to repair the message list to get it to show the messages again.
Sometimes I have to do this 2 or 3 times until all the messages reappear.

An associated issue is that when I get new emails it shows the count next to
the folder but the messages don't appear in the list. Then a simple refresh
of the list (command-L) sometimes will bring the new emails up. More likely
it will bring a few up and not show the rest, so I end up having to refresh
the list several times until all of the new emails will show.

To add to the frustration, about 5% of the time when I refresh the list I
lose the entire list and have to go through the entire list repair
procedure.

This seems to happen more frequently as the number of messages increases.
The worst is my main email account. I have about 80 messages I keep on the
server at any time. I end up having to repair the message list about 10
times a day. That is a lot of time waiting for messages to get pulled from
the server. Not very productive.

Anybody have any solutions for these issues?

Your situation is not normal. If you could provide some more info we might
be able to suggest some troubleshooting tips to help find the cause on your
computer.

Give info like this:

G4 Dual 1.42 GHZ, Memory 2GB, Mac OS X 10.4.9

How full is your drive?
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/performance2.html>

What version of Office do you have installed?

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/version/index.html#find_version>

The first thing you need to do is determine where the problem is located so
you can take the appropriate steps to correct the problem. The easiest way
is to test default setting to see if you can reproduce the problems. This
would be in a new User and a blank Entourage database.

Troubleshooting Entourage in a New User Account

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

Troubleshooting Your User Account for a Problem

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

 

[Renewable Northwest Project]

Thanks, Diane.

Here are my specifics:

MacBook 2GHz Core Duo running 10.4.9 with 1 GB RAM.

I am using Office 2004.
The Entourage version number from the About dialog box is 11.3.3 (061214).
The Office version numbers using that sweet little script is:

Last update applied: 11.3.4
Microsoft Entourage: 11.3.3
Microsoft Excel: 11.3.3
Microsoft Word: 11.3.4
Microsoft PowerPoint: 11.3.2
MSN Messenger.app: 040331
Microsoft Component Plugin: 11.3.4
Junk E-Mail Protection: 11.3.4
Mac OS X 10.4.9 (8P2137)

With the RAM, running my typical programs (Entourage, Word, Firefox, ,
Activity Monitor shows about a third active, a third inactive and a sixth
totally free. The Page In/ Page Out ratio leads me to believe I should get
some more RAM, but when I run top in Terminal the last second numbers are
sitting at 0 unless I am launching a program, so at least the system isn't
thrashing, and I am not experiencing any problems elsewhere. Just this
problem with Entourage and IMAP. (Entourage and POP worked fine.)

I have a 75 GB HD with 49 GB free, so disk space is not the issue. Disk
activity does not seem unusual or extreme, either. Just normal spikes when
the disk should typically have activity going. No unusual background
activity going on.

I will run through the Entourage and user account troubleshooting steps and
report back.

- David

 

[Diane Ross]

Now that¹s a good report on specifics. Good job!

I agree that getting more RAM would be a good idea. 1GB just isn¹t much now
days.

Try installing tcpflow and montior the traffic when you are using your IMAP
accounts. You might see something that will give you a clue as to what is
going on between Entourage and your server.

Test your network with tcpflow. See directions here:

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

 

[Renewable Northwest Project]

OK, I know it has been forever since I last updated this issue, but I
thought I would close the loop for anyone that comes along later.

After trying all of the testing options suggested I failed to find anything
unusual. I did add more memory to the system, but that didn't solve the
issue. At this point I just basically gave up.

Then, a few weeks later, the problems just stopped. Seems either Smarter
Mail was updated (that's the email server program our hosting company uses)
or CrystalTech (our host) made some sort of change on their end. I am not
sure which. I had bugged both of them to look into this problem many times
before and never seemed to get anyone's attention. When I had a week with no
problems whatsoever I contacted CrystalTech and their person didn't know of
any changes that had been made so I guess I will never know for sure. All I
know is that it wasn't anything on my end (no software updates done at that
time, or settings changes) and the problem seems permanently solved.

I wish I had more to report. It wasn't an issue with Entourage, though, as
far as I can tell.