There is a problem with the Office database

[Paul_Butcher]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I've been running Office 2008 Home & Student Edition on a 3 year old MBP just fine for the last year. Today, I upgraded to a nice new unibody MBP, after which Office continued to work just fine. Then I tried to upgrade to the "full" Office, for which my employer has recently bought a volume license. No matter what I do, I get "There is a problem with the Office database" after installation.

I've tried uninstalling with the "Remove Office" tool, emptying Trash and rebooting, then reinstalling. Same problem after the reinstall.

I've also tried running the "Microsoft Database Utility" (which confirms that the database is corrupt). Then rebuilding it (says "Your database was successfully rebuilt", then verifying again (says "Problems were found with your database").

Any ideas for anything else that I can try?

Thanks!

 

[Diane Ross]

Then I tried to upgrade to the "full" Office, for which my employer has
recently bought a volume license. No matter what I do, I get "There is a
problem with the Office database" after installation.

Often this is bogus error. Simply remove the Microsoft User Data folder from
Documents to the Desktop. Let Entourage create a new MUD folder. Then you
can drag the contents of the MUD folder on your desktop to the newly created
folder.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/error/install_update.html#fails9>

 

[Paul_Butcher]

Thanks Diane. That got me over that hump. Unfortunately I've run right into another :-( Microsoft AutoUpdate just downloaded Office Update 12.1.0 and it asks me "Where is System Event.app" (and shows me a dialog containing a list of all of the applications installed on my system, a list that does not contain "System Event.app"!).

Any ideas what's up?

 

[Diane Ross]

Thanks Diane. That got me over that hump. Unfortunately I've run right into
another :-( Microsoft AutoUpdate just downloaded Office Update 12.1.0 and it
asks me "Where is System Event.app" (and shows me a dialog containing a list
of all of the applications installed on my system, a list that does not
contain "System Event.app"!).

Any ideas what's up?

That's a new one for me. Can you send me a screenshot off list?

BTW, did you restart after installing Office? Did you install with all
applications quit?

dianeross at mvps dot org

Or

entouragehelp at gmail dot com

 

[Paul_Butcher]

Sorry for the delayed reply Diane.

Before you sent your reply, I tried hitting cancel on the dialog asking me for the location of System Event.app and (after asking me one further time) the installation proceeded (and apparently succeeded).

This didn't give me a warm feeling, however, so I tried uninstalling and reinstalling again. And this time, I don't get the same error.

I have no idea what I did differently this time around. Frustrating!

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Diane Ross]

Before you sent your reply, I tried hitting cancel on the dialog asking me for
the location of System Event.app and (after asking me one further time) the
installation proceeded (and apparently succeeded).

I've seen installs continue after ignoring or canceling out an error and the
install was bad. You did the right thing by doing it over.

A while back a window would popup but be hidden telling users to quit all
Microsoft applications. This one cause all sorts of problems when the users
continued the update.(this was a result of an Apple security update changed
the way an installer could run scripts)