Living on same LAN with Entourage

[Bill Weylock]

Hope someone can help me with this. I have just started using by PC on the
same LAN as my Mac throughout the day, and emails are a disaster ­ but not
predictably.

Details follow, but core problem (I think) is that Outlook2003 marks some
(not all and not on every pass) messages on my POP server as READ, and
Entourage on the Mac side does not download them as it should.

If that¹s not clear, read on. But if it¹s a known issue, is there anything I
can do about it?

Even more oddly, I can¹t reproduce it now. This morning they are both
downloading all messages.

DETAILS...

For reasons that would both amuse and bore you I have Mac desktop and an IBM
T40 laptop.

I¹m a Mac user from way back, but I¹m reasonably competent in Windows
through Virtual PC and then through wrestling my notebook into something
like submission.

I have NOT been using Outlook2003, however, until this past week. I¹ve
opened it, realized I had to learn new paradigms, and closed it. Now I have
it set up and actually kind of like it. In fact, I do like it ­ a lot.

BUT. Always before I have worked with email on the PC with Eudora, which is
wonderfully cross-platform and powerful and an old old friend (but clunky).
On the Mac side, I use Entourage (Office 2004). I have also generally kept
the notebook off until I was ready to leave town. Then I would fire it up,
let Eudora catch up on email, and take off.

I have my own domains and leave mail on the POP servers for 45 days so the
notebook can always ³catch up.² I also send copies of everything outbound to
a special account that all computers download from automatically, so my
³sends² are coordinated as well.

Yesterday, for the first time, I decided to leave the notebook on with
Outlook running while I did other work on the desktop Mac. They are
networked together, and I needed files from both.

I missed dozens of email messages! When I realized it was happening, I
accessed the server directly from the Mac and saw them sitting there, but
they were all ³gray² indicating they had been read and therefore had never
been downloaded to the folders I check for new mail.

I figured that Outlook was marking messages on the server as READ and
Entourage was honoring that. Eudora on the Mac side downloaded them all with
no problem.

Is there any way to avoid this? Entourage does not do it to Outlook. If the
Mac sweeps first, Outlook still sees the mail as new and downloads it
anyway. Worse, it seems to have gone away. But how can I be sure it won¹t
happen again.

Sorry this is so confusing. You should see inside my head if you want a real
scare.

- Bill Weylock



Macintosh G5 1.8Ghz (single)
Tiger 10.4.7
Office 2004

ThinkPad T40
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

Treo 650 (Cingular)
(sigh)

 

[William Smith]

Hi Bill!

My comments are inline with yours.

I missed dozens of email messages! When I realized it was happening, I
accessed the server directly from the Mac and saw them sitting there, but
they were all ³gray² indicating they had been read and therefore had never
been downloaded to the folders I check for new mail.

"Gray" in Entourage is typically the color used when messages are marked
as "junk". In other words, Entourage comes pre-configured with several
Categories that you can use to classify messages. If you have not added
your own categories and haven't modified the existing categories then
possibly your messages are getting marked as junk.

To test this idea, double-click one of your gray messages to open it in
its own window and look for a yellow bar at the top that indicates your
message has been marked as junk.

Otherwise, you may have some of your own rules or your own categories in
Entourage affecting your incoming messages. Be sure to check rules as
well as the Mailing List Manager.

I figured that Outlook was marking messages on the server as READ and
Entourage was honoring that. Eudora on the Mac side downloaded them all with
no problem.

If you're indeed using POP then no information about the status of your
mail messages is being uploaded back to the server. A POP server is a
download-only protocol. Besides downloading your messages, the only
other thing a POP email client can do with the server is delete the
message.

Therefore, whether or not you've read your messages on one machine does
not affect the "read" status on another machine. All newly downloaded
messages are "unread".

IMAP, however, does allow you to store messages on a server and keep
them there with statuses that you've read messages. Other email clients
connecting to the same IMAP account will indicate that your messages
have been read.

It's not uncommon for an email service to offer both POP and IMAP access
to the same accounts.

Is there any way to avoid this? Entourage does not do it to Outlook. If the
Mac sweeps first, Outlook still sees the mail as new and downloads it
anyway. Worse, it seems to have gone away. But how can I be sure it won¹t
happen again.

This sounds like you're connecting from Entourage as a POP email client
and that Entourage is not set to leave messages on the server.
Regardless, all messages will still come across to Outlook at unread
because you're using a POP account.

Try looking into connecting via IMAP for both machines. You'll probably
have better luck managing your mail between them and messages are
deleted only when you delete them. You can safely test an IMAP
connection to the same account using the same login information without
having to delete your POP account first.

Hope this helps! bill

 

[Bill Weylock]

Bill -


Thanks, but it doesn¹t.

I have no confusions about how email accounts work, although you¹re of
course totally right to assume that at first. I¹ve been using email since
the 80s when it was done with line commands.

No rules are in effect that would account for anything that occurred.

Nothing has been done to the messages on the server. That¹s why Eudora was
successful with the same pass that Entourage screwed up.

The only thing I could figure is that somehow Entourage and Outlook
communicate with each other about what ³Office² has read and not read. That
doesn¹t seem to be the case because the situation has not repeated itself in
the days since, and I changed not a single thing.

Instead of saying ³grayed,² I should have said ³showed as already
downloaded.² When I access one of the Entourage online account folders,
anything that has not previously been downloaded in an automatic
send/receive (runs every 10 minutes) is in bold. Others are dimmed. The
messages I was missing showed up as dimmed even though they had not been
downloaded to any folder in Entourage. Checking on the Outlook side, I saw
that they had been properly delivered to the correct mailboxes specified in
Rules. And, no, the Outlook rules are definitely not (intentionally) set to
mark items read or delete them or perform any action except to move them to
a folder.

Since I can¹t reproduce it, it seems to be moot. It¹s alarming though. I
don¹t like things happening that have no explanations. That means they can
happen again.

Thanks anyway.

I maintain my own domains and web presence. IMAPs are not of any interest to
me. Nor, please, do I want to debate that. I do know that they have
advantages.

My questions pertain to managing POP accounts, not whether having them is a
good idea.


Best,


- Bill

Hi Bill!

My comments are inline with yours.

"Gray" in Entourage is typically the color used when messages are marked
as "junk". In other words, Entourage comes pre-configured with several
Categories that you can use to classify messages. If you have not added
your own categories and haven't modified the existing categories then
possibly your messages are getting marked as junk.

To test this idea, double-click one of your gray messages to open it in
its own window and look for a yellow bar at the top that indicates your
message has been marked as junk.

Otherwise, you may have some of your own rules or your own categories in
Entourage affecting your incoming messages. Be sure to check rules as
well as the Mailing List Manager.

If you're indeed using POP then no information about the status of your
mail messages is being uploaded back to the server. A POP server is a
download-only protocol. Besides downloading your messages, the only
other thing a POP email client can do with the server is delete the
message.

Therefore, whether or not you've read your messages on one machine does
not affect the "read" status on another machine. All newly downloaded
messages are "unread".

IMAP, however, does allow you to store messages on a server and keep
them there with statuses that you've read messages. Other email clients
connecting to the same IMAP account will indicate that your messages
have been read.

It's not uncommon for an email service to offer both POP and IMAP access
to the same accounts.

This sounds like you're connecting from Entourage as a POP email client
and that Entourage is not set to leave messages on the server.
Regardless, all messages will still come across to Outlook at unread
because you're using a POP account.

Try looking into connecting via IMAP for both machines. You'll probably
have better luck managing your mail between them and messages are
deleted only when you delete them. You can safely test an IMAP
connection to the same account using the same login information without
having to delete your POP account first.

Hope this helps! bill[/QUOTE]




Tiger 10.4.7
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003
G5 1.8Ghz (single)
ThinkPad T40
Treo 650
(sigh)