Entourage
 

Hi Guys,

Can anyone help, I am using OS 10 .3.9 and have been using entourage for about a year without any problems until now, I booted up the G4 as usual and started entourage and found that it had lost all the data and came up with the welcome message from Microsoft, so I checked out the Microsoft user data and there seems to be data in the main identity folder but I cannot retrieve it I have gone through the restarting entourage and holding down the alt key but luck, I have also tried to import the data to Apples mail software but it doesn’t recognise the file any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks

You just discovered the reason why poeple in their right minds don't entrust their data to applications whose editors cannot be bothered to publish its format in order to discourage you from migrating to another software.

stevecmyk, what version of Entourage are you using?

Do a search for Microsoft User Data. Hopefully, you will find two. One will show a date and time when your Microsoft User Data was created anew (as indicated by the "welcome" message when you launched Entourage).

What you're looking for, however, is a second MUD folder or at least a second Main Identity that Get Info will show has an older date--when Entourage was still working fine. Get Info should also show a substantially larger folder.

What worked for me in the past was to trash the brand new Main Identity and replace it with the older Main Identity. You've also got other valuable files in your older MUD folder that could be moved to replace the just-created ones.

If you regularly backup important data, another option would be to capture the important files and folders from there.

Respectfully, Norm

Hi,
I did a search for a second MUD folder no luck. What I don’t understand is how this information could have in theory just disappeared? The get info is indicating that the database file inside the main identity folder is 18 MB as I haven’t used this yet do you think that seems a lot of info.

18MB does not represent much information in an Entourage database. Do an exact search for "Database" and see what comes up. Again you are hoping for more than one response...

Still just the one database file all others represent different software.
The entourage version is 2004

look in the trash
 

This happened to me twice in the last month. Each time, my user files were in the trash. I put them back in the Documents directory and Entourage started up normally.

1. Did you use the Finder to search for Main Identity?

2. My first response suggested using a backup copy of your Microsoft User Data folder. Did you?

3. If there is no backup copy: Have you tried to do a rebuild of the one Entourage database you were able to find? Use the Database Utility in Microsoft Office/Office folder. If you can access Entourage's Help, you'll find specifics on how that works. You'll note that you can also rebuild by depressing the Option key and while holding it down, launching Entourage.

Respectfully, Norm

Still no joy, only the single main identity folder with only 18mb on it. There is nothing on this except the start up info.
It seems as if old original database folder has disappeared some how. If I were using a windows machine I would have suspected someone had hacked into the data.

There will only be one main identity unless the user has used the Database Utility or if they have copied over their MUD folder. Otherwise Entourage will not create any of those by itself...

Actually Entourage can create more than one Main identity and more than one Microsoft User Data folder. I have a client that will decide to rename his Documents folder once in a while. The OS will create a new one and the next time Entourage is started it will start over with a new Microsoft User Data folder in the new Documents folder. Then he'll call me and say that his mail is all gone!

I think that's what some of us were hoping this poster did, inadvertently rename the Documents folder or even rename his user folder. Messing around with those two folders is one cause of what happened, and is fairly easy to fix. Unfortunately it appears that stevecmyk was smart enough not to do those things. That makes solving the problem tougher.

Good points.

That's why I suggested the search for "Main Identity", in case the name of the "Microsoft User Data" folder had been changed. Maybe I should have suggested a search for "Database", too. (Consider it now suggested!)

Twice in this thread, I suggested going to a backup copy if one exists. I hope that stevecmyk is in the habit of backing up his Documents folder regularly and frequently. If so, the worst case scenario would be the loss of a day or couple days of data from the Microsoft User Data folder.

If he/she did not create any backups, would Data Rescue be able to search deeper than the finder in looking for the old database?

Respectfully, Norm

voldenuit - you have a very misguided outlook on life. We all on one level or another don't like Microsoft, but come on! You can import/export Entourage data into many formats, including !gasp! Apple's Mail.

I have used Entourage since it was first introduced. Because of this I find the feature set of Apple Mail, while nice, a bit lacking.

As for the database problem. 18 MB? That surely isn't right. I hope you have a backup. I have never encountered such a problem, so I cannot give you much advice then what has already been given, use a backup.

Good luck!

Ken

I'd rather not have Outlook any more than Entourage ;) .

This is not the mindless M$-bashing it might look like.

As the original poster has discovered, the database holding all his mail is corrupt. To the best of my knowledge the format of said database is not documented.

All I am saying is that either preferring products with documented file formats or having real good backups are the only options here not to loose data in the long run.

Hi Guys

Sorry for the delay in replying but I have been frantically trying to solve this problem So far I have to say I did not have a back up of the database, I have tried to open the file in different mail programmes without success. It would seem as if the data has some how become corrupt, although it opens the database from the main identity it will only display as a fresh install and therefore does not open any of the 18mb of memory.

For persons other than Steve who are following this thread, please know that it is vital to frequently backup not only your User Data folder but also all your important documents and photos.

Did you do the re-build recommended earlier in this thread?

If so and the rebuild failed, I would use one of the two free calls to Microsoft Tech Support to which I became entitled when I bought my license to Office 2004. Here's some info that I copied over a year or so ago from their website. I'd hope it still applies:
You might wish to go on-line yourself and see if the info and the phone number are still current.

In earlier versions of Office, my Entourage database became corrupted but never failed to respond to rebuild. The current version of Entourage (11.1.0) is particularly solid.

My Main Identity folder, which includes Addresses, several years of Notes and Tasks, a limited amount of email messages, and other data, is only 26.2 mb. But it was compacted after I used Font Book to disable some fonts (the wrong ones!) and did a rebuild a couple weeks ago.

Incidentally, my Microsoft User Data folder resides on an OS-free documents-photos-music partition from where I have aliased it (nipping off the word " alias" and its leading space. That way, if my volunteer beta testing or anything else fouls up my Tiger boot volume, I do no damage to my documents or my MUD database. But I also back up that partition on a regular schedule and also clone it to other drives.

Respectfully, Norm

How would the current situation change if it was documented?

Has a Mail database never been corrupted?

Backups. They're not just for breakfast any more.

Hi Norm,
Yes I did try rebuilding by starting up Entourage and holding down the alt key. This made no difference.
I did notice the message suggesting that it may take a long time, but in this
case it took no more than five seconds. Which indicates that it was unable to see the database file. I have even copied the whole MUD and loaded it on my other Mac, which also has entourage but had the same effect, acts as if it a fresh install. Also tried to rebuild from there, with no success.
Usually I back up every couple of days to the server, been so busy this week it didn’t happen and guess what? It gets corrupted.
Thanks Norm for the Microsoft info I will try and make contact with them. For me now I just what to find out how this happened.

Because you could scrape the data out of the corrupt database with a silver spoon then.
Although Apple has not yet officially documented the emlx format of Mail 2 and not using an established format such as maildir does not look like a particularly smart move, you could get your data back as there is no deliberate obfuscation going on as in the case of the proprietary db used by Entourage.

Backups are always good of course, they are a must with closed-format data.

Or a reason to decide against using such software.

Hi guys -
been using Entourage for 6 months now, really no problems. It works significantly better than Outlook - no lockups, oddities, etc.
However, today I started up, and got the welcome screen - all email and folders and rules - gone! Argh! The backup was just a week or so ago, but still, recent emails were lost.

After reading this forum, and searching for M.U.D. (love the spotlight feature in Tiger) I found two folders. One, 18MB, the new one. Then the original was found with additional folders I had created, extra sounds for rules, about 40MB. What had happened is that I moved my documents folder yesterday and hadn't shut down since. When starting up, Entourage couldn't find the folders, so it started new ones.

I moved the old MUD to where the new ones were, started up and viola! All files were back.

Hope this helps someone.
Dan

Your realy not the first one to get that kind of problem... Maybe they should write a warning for the MUD folder... "Do Not touch unless you wishto panic !" :D

Steve,

I've used Entourage since the day it came out. It's the program I know best.

What you are seeing, when you open up Entourage, is a brand new Default Identity that Entourage built because it could not find your other real Main Identity. Your data is NOT in that default Identity, so don't even try.

Unless your Main Identity was trashed, and then the trash emptied, it's on your hard drive, somewhere. It could be renamed, it could be really hidden, it could have another name given to it other than the default "Main Identity." But it's there.

I think your Main Identity has been placed either on another HD, or has had its name inadvertently changed. So, as long as you have searched for the following names:

Microsoft User Identity
Main Identity
Identity

... then I would start using other completely different search criteria. I would start by finding all large files, period. While we don't know the size of your Main Identity, my guess is that it's over 250Megs. I'd start there. Just do a search for all files larger than 250 megs.

Also, the holy grail of All Things Entourage is at entourage.mvps.org/