Problem restoring Entourage database

[Joed]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC

I accidentally deleted a group of my address book contacts. Rather than manually re-entering, I thought it would be a good time to go through the restore process (since I've been backing up religiously, but never needed to restore before).

Did the process as directed in Help. All seemed well until I needed to make a calendar entry in September. Entourage totally locks up. I must force quit. Sometimes I can then restart Entourage and it will function as long as I do not go to September, other times I must reboot the machine. At first I thought this was just a random event, but after many repetitions, I see it is totally related to something about the month of September.

I have verified the database (database utility says all is well) and then gone on to rebuild it anyway. Nothing has changed. August and earlier months work well in all respects, but cannot get to September.

If I attempt to access Sept or jump past it using the View Date function, it locks as well.

I am not finding difficulties in any other area of Entourage functionality (contacts, email, etc) only the Calendar and only September or later. Help!

 

[Diane Ross]

I accidentally deleted a group of my address book contacts. Rather than
manually re-entering, I thought it would be a good time to go through the
restore process (since I've been backing up religiously, but never needed to
restore before).

Are you restoring from Time Machine? One of the reasons we do not recommend
using Time Machine to backup your database is if the database is copied
while it is open, it can be corrupted.

Do you still have the Identity where you deleted the group? This is what I
would do. Rename that Identity then use restore to get the Identity that
contains the group. Open that Identity and export the group info. Switch
Identity to the working Identity and import the group into that. You should
be back to your stable working Identity.

I wrote two tutorials on creating an automated backup of your Identity:

Entourage and Time-Machine-like backup (creates chronological backup of
Identity can be used by both Tiger and Leopard allowing you to roll back to
previous dated backups.

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/entourage_and_time_machine.html>

Alternative method to use Entourage and Time Machine (does a once a day or
whatever time period you select) This will result in a good copy.

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/alternative_method_to_use_entourage_
and_time_machine.html>