Spinning wheel when connected to Exchange

[Chris Hendricks]

When I use Entourage connected to my Exchange server, I get the little
spinning rainbow wheel a lot. This occurs primarily when I am typing an
email, appointment, task, etc. Sometimes the wheel takes 3-5 seconds to go
away, other times it takes up to 15-20 seconds. I can keep typing while the
wheel is up, and it catches up when the wheel goes away. It doesn't matter
whether Entourage is actually connecting to the Exchange server or not.

When I'm not online with the Exchange server, I don't notice the spinning
wheel. I have tried running this on its' own with no other apps. I don't
notice any drop in CPU time or RAM (I have a 1.67 GHz G4 Powerbook with 1.5
GB RAM and plenty of disk space)

Any ideas? It's not life threatening, but it sure is a pain.

 

[hoss]

I also get this but only after I reformatted and reinstalled my apps on
my dual G5 with 3.5 gigs of ram. I also upgraded to 10.4.2

 

[Julian W. Waits, Sr.]

When I use Entourage connected to my Exchange server, I get the little
spinning rainbow wheel a lot. This occurs primarily when I am typing an
email, appointment, task, etc. Sometimes the wheel takes 3-5 seconds to go
away, other times it takes up to 15-20 seconds. I can keep typing while the
wheel is up, and it catches up when the wheel goes away. It doesn't matter
whether Entourage is actually connecting to the Exchange server or not.

When I'm not online with the Exchange server, I don't notice the spinning
wheel. I have tried running this on its' own with no other apps. I don't
notice any drop in CPU time or RAM (I have a 1.67 GHz G4 Powerbook with 1.5
GB RAM and plenty of disk space)

Any ideas? It's not life threatening, but it sure is a pain.

I am also having this problem. However, it is intermittent for me. I
cannot find any direct correlation to anything on my system to explain this
problem. My other applications function properly while the spinning wheel
appears in Entourage.

 

[Steve Tenney]

I am also having this problem. However, it is intermittent for me. I
cannot find any direct correlation to anything on my system to explain this
problem. My other applications function properly while the spinning wheel
appears in Entourage.

I see the same problem. Don't know if there's some setup issue that might
correct it. I'm running 10.3.9, but will be upgrading to 10.4 soon.

Thanks,

Steve Tenney

 

[Chris Hendricks]

Here's a response I got on the list that worked for me...

Joe Selvaggi blames it on Spotlight and has a suggestion:

I am experiencing the spinning ball problem in Entourage since upgrading to
Tiger. There a corresponding sound (like frantic memory/ disk swapping
activity) coming from my PowerBook.
Apparently it's Spotlight trying to index the Entourage Mail DB. Tell
Spotlight to ignore the

Microsoft User Data folder (Users > Documents > Microsoft User Data) should
do the trick, or at least it appears to work.

 

[Juliemaya]

This fix also seems to have worked for me, as well - no problems today
since implementing the fix yesterday afternoon. Thanks!

 

[Gomberg, Jeffrey G.]

I've been having the same problem, only the spinning wheel generally occurs
while I'm in the middle of composing a message. If I'm lucky I can type a
few words before having to wait about 20 seconds to type a few more words.
The application behavior is both frustrating and unproductive.

One could argue that "it's a feature" designed to promote "thoughtful
composition", but I would argue that Entourage needs better thread
management. But I digress.

Prior to composing this message I adjusted the Spotlight System Preferences
per Joe Selvaggi via Chris Hendricks and so far, no application hang or
"spinning wheel".

This begs the question, does the problem arise from Spotlight, or from
Entourage. And what am I giving up by blocking Spotlight from accessing the
Microsoft User Data Folders?

I am also noticing an improvement in overall Entourage/Exchange
synchronization speed. This suggests both Apple and Microsoft have some
collaborative development work to do to resolve the issue fully.
________________________________________

 

[wiggy]

I'm having the same issue but still using 10.3.9 so spotlight wouldn'
be the issue.

When I use Entourage connected to my Exchange server, I get th
little
spinning rainbow wheel a lot. This occurs primarily when I am typin
an
email, appointment, task, etc. Sometimes the wheel takes 3-5 seconds t
go
away, other times it takes up to 15-20 seconds. I can keep typing whil
the
wheel is up, and it catches up when the wheel goes away. It doesn'
matter
whether Entourage is actually connecting to the Exchange server o
not

 

[Joe Husk]

Do you have a large calendar? I have added my boss, who has a very large
calendar to my account and I get a spinning cursor a lot as well. Very
painful.

Next time you're using Entourage go to the Window menu and select Progress.
When the spinning cursor appears see what operation is occurring.

In my experience, Entourage needs some additional optimization for
"Enterprise" usage.

-joe

 

[Steve Tenney]

I'm still having the spinning wheel problem. I do have a database that's
5.5 GB and I don't know if I've done anything in particular to create a
database that is that large. I have a 500 MHz G4 Cube with 2 GB of memory,
so I don't have a particularly fast processor. I have deleted many messages
with attachments and compacted the database, but it hasn't gotten all that
much smaller nor has there been much of a reduction in the spinning wheel.
I've noticed looking at activity monitor that after the spinning wheel has
been up for a while it indicates that the process is hung. It does come
back though. It is very painful.

Steve

 

[kip.ruefle]

I was running 10.4.2 and installed the Office 20004 Srv Pack 2 which
did
address some of the issues with MS exchange intergration with previous
entourage versions but I am still getting the spinning ferris wheel of
death
as well as the hangs which still makes the application unusable.

I also just upgraded to 10.4.3 and I see no difference.

I also excluded the MS user data folder from Spotlight.... still n
difference.

In fact, after upgrading to Office 2004 11.2.1 update AND mac Os
10.4.3, I think the wheel is WORSE then it used to be.

I can get my mail, access personal and public calendars, get to the
global
address book..from my exchange server...but I still suffer from the
hangs
and spinning wheel.

-kip

 

[deckman]

I also get this on 10.4.3, Entourage 2004 11.2.1, Exchange 2003,
connecting from a dual g5 2ghz.

Seems to happen when synching with a large folder or syching a lot of
emails to Exchange.
I used to have extremely large Sent and Deleted items folders (10,000
emails each) and this occurred constantly. After archiving and
emptying these folders, Entourage pretty much stopped showing the
spinning ball.

I also occassionally receive a large number of emails (2500 over the
course of a couple days). This happened over the weekend and I noticed
that Entourage had trouble when synching this folder. Especially when
I went through and deleted all the files. When synching the emails
with the deleted items folder, it constantly gave me the spinning ball
for about 6 hours, until the folder was totally synched up.

 

[Kip Ruefle]

I cleaned up my very large SENT items, and emptied my DELETED items, and I
have noticed a profound improvement. The spinning wheel doesn't come up as
frequently, and when it does it does not hang the application as long.

I did make the mistake of deleting items from Entourage, and that caused the
application to be unusable for the rest of the day as it synced the del
items folder back to the Exchange server, so I would whole heartedly agree
to do your clean up via the OWA or Outlook client, especially when deleting
items and emptying the del items folder.

-kip

I also get this on 10.4.3, Entourage 2004 11.2.1, Exchange 2003,
connecting from a dual g5 2ghz.

Seems to happen when synching with a large folder or syching a lot of
emails to Exchange.
I used to have extremely large Sent and Deleted items folders (10,000
emails each) and this occurred constantly. After archiving and
emptying these folders, Entourage pretty much stopped showing the
spinning ball.

I also occassionally receive a large number of emails (2500 over the
course of a couple days). This happened over the weekend and I noticed
that Entourage had trouble when synching this folder. Especially when
I went through and deleted all the files. When synching the emails
with the deleted items folder, it constantly gave me the spinning ball
for about 6 hours, until the folder was totally synched up.

 

[deckman]

So it would seem, at least for some of us, that large folders of
emails, or moving large numbers of emails from one folder to another
causes some synching issues with Entourage 2004 that are freezing it
up.

Hopefully someone from Microsoft is listening??? Even though the
synching of these large folders may take a long time, shouldn't
Entourage be able to handle this without freezing up?

I cleaned up my very large SENT items, and emptied my DELETED items, and I
have noticed a profound improvement. The spinning wheel doesn't come up as
frequently, and when it does it does not hang the application as long.

I did make the mistake of deleting items from Entourage, and that caused the
application to be unusable for the rest of the day as it synced the del
items folder back to the Exchange server, so I would whole heartedly agree
to do your clean up via the OWA or Outlook client, especially when deleting
items and emptying the del items folder.

-kip

 

[Kip Ruefle]

Well...that worked in the morning for me, but by the afternoon I was getting
the spinning wheel again, and this morning I've been getting the spinning
wheel as well even though I let entourage run all night so it would be
synced when I came in .

I wonder if it the fact that I am subscried to some newsgroups, and our site
has lots of Public Folders causes the constant hanging?

-kip