Corrupted Address Book

[kk74974]

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

I just suscribe to MobilMe. After it synced, my Entourage address book seems to be corrupted, as I try to erase a (or several) contacts and entourage freezes and I have to forze the application to quit from the OS menu.
How can I replace my entire address book without having to delete every contact in it?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I just suscribe to MobilMe. After it synced, my Entourage address book
seems to be corrupted, as I try to erase a (or several) contacts and
entourage freezes and I have to forze the application to quit from the
OS menu. How can I replace my entire address book without having to
delete every contact in it?

Well you could do it from an archive, but do you have a backup Entourage
archive of your address book?

Otherwise you could start entoruage pressing the alt key down to rebuild
the identity. It could clear out the problem

Corentin

 

[kk74974]

Hi Corentin, thank you for your help.
But, how can I know if a have a backup Entourage archive of mt addres book? Do you mean like from Time Machine? If you mean TM, I do have TM activated. If you mean other backup type, I do not know if I have it.
Also, by starting entourage with alt key down will erase any email message I have saved on, or this will only rebuilt my addres book?

 

[Diane Ross]

But, how can I know if a have a backup Entourage archive of mt addres book? Do
you mean like from Time Machine? If you mean TM, I do have TM activated. If
you mean other backup type, I do not know if I have it.
Also, by starting entourage with alt key down will erase any email message I
have saved on, or this will only rebuilt my addres book?

You can try the Time Machine backup to restore you complete Identity. I
would move or rename your current Main Identity so you do not loose your new
mail. It's not possible to restore just your Address Book.

Before you rebuild, you need to make a duplicate in the Finder of the Main
Identity folder.

~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2008 Identities/Main Identity

Rebuilding works on the entire Identity not just one part like the Address
Book.

How to rebuild:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/database/rebuild.html>

It's advised not to let Time Machine backup your Entourage database. If the
database is copied while being used, the backup could be corrupt. You can
set the Time Machine to exclude the Microsoft User Data folder and create an
iCal event to copy it over at night while not in use so you get one backup
daily in Time Machine. Also copying your database hourly can tax your system
plus fill up your drive. Considering a typical database of 2 GB backed up
hourly for 8 hrs would be 16 GB. That's a lot of background activity.

Alternative method to use Entourage and Time Machine (does a once a day or
whatever time period you select)

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

Entourage and Time Machine (creates chronological backup of Identity can be
used by both Tiger and Leopard)

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

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi Corentin,
hi,

thank you for your help. But, how can I know if a have a
backup Entourage archive of mt addres book?

Well I was hoping for you that you manually made one by exporting all
your contacts in and Entourage archive....

Do you mean like from Time
Machine? If you mean TM, I do have TM activated. If you mean other
backup type, I do not know if I have it. Also, by starting entourage
with alt key down will erase any email message I have saved on, or this
will only rebuilt my addres book?

Time machine is an option, but a last resort one.
The problem is that any modification to your database triggers a Time
machine backup, so it will very quickly fill up your time machine drive.
For this reason, most people recommend not including the Entourage
database in the TM backups.

I f you have a TM backup f your database, you can restore it, BUT, you
can't selectively restore the contacts. It will revert *everything* to
the state it was in at the time of the backup. You might lose e-mails in
the process for instance.

If you really want to do that, you might export your e-mails to an
Entourage archive to make sure you can later restore them

Corentin