MacBook Pro + Entourage 2004 = Endless Syncronization & Delayed Delivery of Email

[erik]

Running Entourage 2004 v11.3.3 on a 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Due MacBook
Pro with 2 GB of RAM I am experiencing the following:

1. The Progress window is *always* syncronizing... I have a POP
account that syncs in a heart beat but my Exchange account literally
*never* stops trying to complete sync'ing with the server.

2. Incoming email to the Exchange account is delayed for up to 30
minutes (sometimes less but usually around 20-30 min). I can access my
account through a web interface so I know that email is delivered as
timely as expected but for some reason it takes 20-30 min before it
shows up in my client.

Since my colleagues with PowerPC based Macs are not experiencing the
same type of problems with the same type of Exchange accounts on the
same network I have reason to believe this related to MacBook Pro.

- Is this a know issue?
- Is there a fix?

 

[erik]

After a little further searching of this group I found a few other
posts describing reasonably similar issues but not a conclusive fix.

A little more details about my set up:
- In the account settings "Exchange server name" I use the the same
address as I use for web-access of my Exchange account. This due to
the fact that I sometimes need to access email form outside the local
network.
- The network I'm on is enterprise class. The actual exchange servers
may be located off-site but everyone but me has "instant" access to
email sent from colleague to colleague.

I still wonder: Is there a fix?

 

[Diane Ross]

A little more details about my set up:
- In the account settings "Exchange server name" I use the the same
address as I use for web-access of my Exchange account. This due to
the fact that I sometimes need to access email form outside the local
network.
- The network I'm on is enterprise class. The actual exchange servers
may be located off-site but everyone but me has "instant" access to
email sent from colleague to colleague.

Connecting Entourage to an Exchange Server from Home

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/exchange/exchangeathome.html>

Connecting Entourage to an Exchange Server at work

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/exchange/exchangeatwork.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/>

 

[erik]

@ Diane

Maybe I misunderstand you - but I don't need help setting up Entourage
from home/work.

I need a fix for delayed delivery of email:

Running Entourage 2004 v11.3.3 on a 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Due MacBook
Pro with 2 GB of RAM I am experiencing the following:

1. The Progress window is *always* syncronizing... I have a POP
account that syncs in a heart beat but my Exchange account literally
*never* stops trying to complete sync'ing with the server.

2. Incoming email to the Exchange account is delayed for up to 30
minutes (sometimes less but usually around 20-30 min). I can access
my
account through a web interface so I know that email is delivered as
timely as expected but for some reason it takes 20-30 min before it
shows up in my client.

Since my colleagues with PowerPC based Macs are not experiencing the
same type of problems with the same type of Exchange accounts on the
same network I have reason to believe this related to MacBook Pro.

 

[Diane Ross]

Maybe I misunderstand you - but I don't need help setting up Entourage
from home/work.

I need a fix for delayed delivery of email:

This will have to wait until one of the exchange mvps can respond. I was
just trying to cover the basics to make sure nothing was overlooked in the
setup.

--
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/>

 

[William Smith]

After a little further searching of this group I found a few other
posts describing reasonably similar issues but not a conclusive fix.

A little more details about my set up:
- In the account settings "Exchange server name" I use the the same
address as I use for web-access of my Exchange account. This due to
the fact that I sometimes need to access email form outside the local
network.
- The network I'm on is enterprise class. The actual exchange servers
may be located off-site but everyone but me has "instant" access to
email sent from colleague to colleague.

I still wonder: Is there a fix?

Hi erik!

This additional bit of information helps.

Currently, you've set up Entourage as if you were connecting from
outside your company network. But when you're inside your network you're
most likely going out to the Internet and coming back inside. Your email
traffic is probably subject to hopping through multiple servers, which
is causing your delay.

Can you do a test for me?

In Entourage go to the Entourage menu and select Switch Identity...
Recreate the Exchange account except instead of using your web-access
server address use the internal address of your Exchange server. I would
imagine you'll see remarkable improvement.

If this does improve Entourage's performance then you really have very
little that you can do other than have one identity for inside and a
second for connecting from outside your network.

You may be able to get a little boost in performance if you put
Entourage into Headers Only mode. This downloads only subject, date and
sender information but not the body until you open or preview the
message. You do this by editing your Exchange account's settings in
Entourage and going to the Options tab. Set "Partially receive messages
over 9999 kb always". You'll notice that you're in Headers Only mode
when you look at the name of your Exchange account in the Folders List
on the left.

Hope this helps! bill

 

[erik]

@ Bill

Thanks for the suggestions.

Connecting directly using the internal address for the Exchange server
results in the server asking for my password but not accepting it...
strangely it did synchronize older email but nothing new made it
through to my client.

The IT guys wanted to test setting up a new Exchange account and have
any new email forwarded there - in effect a fresh identity with an
empty inbox - and now email was delivered instantly.

So next I implemented rules that would move any email that was sent or
received past 6 months into a separate folder as well as remove any
attachments. Btw - removing the attachments did not seem to have any
effect on the size of the Entourage database... which is just under 3
GB (i work with design so there are a lot of large .PSDs in my
attachments).

The older-than-6-months-rule brought my inbox down from +12k items to
+3.5k items and resolved the issue somewhat - the synchronization is
no longer endless but there is still a delay in delivery of email.
Incoming email still show up instantly in my web access, a few second
later in my colleagues Entourage clients (on Power PC based Macs) and
then anywhere from 10 to 20 min later in my Entourage inbox (on an
Intel based Mac). The delay used to be 10-30 minutes so it is an
improvement.

Putting Entourage in Headers Only mode seem to yield another 5-10 min
in delivery... but unfortunately this still means I'm 5-10 behind.

A couple of questions:
- What would you suggest next?
- Is +3.5k items in the inbox still too much?
- Does the size of the Entourage database affect the "responsiveness"
of email delivery?
- If so, is there a way to expunge select attachments so that the
size of the database come down?
- Since PowerPc based Macs on the same network are not experiencing
the same problems, is it reasonable to suspect the Intel hardware
factor?
- If so, what is the ETA of Office 2007/8 for Mac?

 

[Sable Cantus]

- Is +3.5k items in the inbox still too much?

Since email folders tend to be one long file, having so much in your inbox
is asking for a corrupt mailbox - which loses all of your email for you.

- Does the size of the Entourage database affect the "responsiveness"
of email delivery?

Not in my experience. Free space on the HD seems to affect it more.

- If so, is there a way to expunge select attachments so that the
size of the database come down?
- Since PowerPc based Macs on the same network are not experiencing
the same problems, is it reasonable to suspect the Intel hardware
factor?

I think it's safe to assume that you are pushing the limits of Rosetta here
....

Have you updated to 10.4.9 with 11.3.4 of office? This combination has
dramatically increased Entourage's performance on my MBP - it's now usable.

 

[Diane Ross]

Btw - removing the attachments did not seem to have any
effect on the size of the Entourage database... which is just under 3
GB (i work with design so there are a lot of large .PSDs in my
attachments).

Like many file systems & databases, deleting a message in Entourage only
deletes the index entry, and the actual disk space occupied by the message
is left intact as a 'hole' in the database, and will remain like that until
the space is re-used by fresh incoming content.

There is no way to securely overwrite these holes, but you can use the
'compact' function of the database utility to create a new copy of the
database without any holes.

However, this is not all bad, since the wasted space is used up with new
data as it is added. This way, over a period of time (assuming that you are
deleting stuff as you go) the database will probably reach an optimum size,
after which the stuff you delete is roughly equal to the stuff you add, and
no further growth takes place.

For the attachments, I recommend using a script that removes the attachments
and leaves a note in the message indicating an attachment was removed and
where the attachment is moved.

There are two listed on the Favorite Scripts Page for attachments:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/script/fav_scripts.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/>

 

[erik]

Have you updated to 10.4.9 with 11.3.4 of office? This combination has
dramatically increased Entourage's performance on my MBP - it's now usable.

I was under the impression that the only update to Entourage in 11.3.4
was an updated junk mail corpus, but yes - I'm running MacOS 10.4.9
since it came out and I ran the office 11.3.4 update last week...
however, while get info on the Word app indicates v11.3.4, Entourage
still say v11.3.3...

 

[Diane Ross]

I was under the impression that the only update to Entourage in 11.3.4
was an updated junk mail corpus, but yes - I'm running MacOS 10.4.9
since it came out and I ran the office 11.3.4 update last week...
however, while get info on the Word app indicates v11.3.4, Entourage
still say v11.3.3...

That's correct. Office updates don't update each application making it
confusing for users. The Microsoft Component Plugin always gets updated.
That's the true test to see if you were updated.

Download this handy script that gives you version info.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/script/fav_scripts.html#favscript_findVersion

--
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/>