Database Utility restores only some email

[Other]

A client of mine stores every email she receives indefinitly. These
emails generally contain many large graphic file attachments. She let
her Entourage 2004 (11.2.1) database grow until it reached 29 GB, yes GB!

Suddenly, Entourage returned an error and refused to open her database.
Database Utility was unable to successfully verify and rebuild the
database. Working backwards through our backups, I finally found a
backup (several days old and at the end of our backup cycle) that
Database Utility could read through. However, Database Utility only
restored about 10 GB of emails. Many of those emails were corrupted.

Is there a limit to the size of the databases that Database Utility can
recover?

Can the database be edited by hand or split (as with .pst files) so that
Database Utility can restore more data?

Are there any other options?

Thanks in advance,
designr

 

[Diane Ross [MVP]]

A client of mine stores every email she receives indefinitly. These
emails generally contain many large graphic file attachments. She let
her Entourage 2004 (11.2.1) database grow until it reached 29 GB, yes GB!

Even though Entourage can handle huge amounts of data I would suggest other
options for storing such large amounts of mail like creating other
Identities that can easily be switched to for old mail.

Suddenly, Entourage returned an error and refused to open her database.
Database Utility was unable to successfully verify and rebuild the
database. Working backwards through our backups, I finally found a
backup (several days old and at the end of our backup cycle) that
Database Utility could read through. However, Database Utility only
restored about 10 GB of emails. Many of those emails were corrupted.

Is there a limit to the size of the databases that Database Utility can
recover?

Entourage 2004 has no size limit, just a limit to the number of items in the
Entourage database: 2 million database items.

Note: Database items, not Entourage objects (such as messages, contacts,
events, etc.). An Entourage developer, explains it this way: An email or
news message is actually TWO database items, and for anyone with near a
million Entourage objects (messages, contacts, events, etc.), they will
almost all be messages - the other stuff will be "loose change". So the
limit is effectively just under 1 million messages. Entourage will notify
you if you ever approach the limit.

Can the database be edited by hand or split (as with .pst files) so that
Database Utility can restore more data?
No.

Are there any other options?

Try going further back for a backup that is not corrupted.

 

[Other]

Try going further back for a backup that is not corrupted.

Diane,

Thanks for responding so quickly.

I already went back through the available backup tapes. It was only at
the end of our backup cycle, 2 weeks old, that I found a copy of the
database that could be rebuilt. All of the copies of the database after
that point in time were so badly damaged that the Database Utility
returned an error indicating that the database could not be rebuilt.

Even then, the Database Utility was able to recover less than half of
the data in the 2 week-old database that was readable. It appears that
either:

1. Entourage allowed the user to exceed its maximum capacity and for
several months to continue to add data beyond the recoverable limit. Or,

2. There has for weeks been a long-standing corruption in the database
file and Entourage has allowed the user to continue to add data to the
damaged database.

Never during all these weeks did Entourage report a problem. This
indicates to me that there is a very serious bug in Entourage.

How can I tell our users that they can safely archive emails in folders
in Entourage when at any time a corruption may occur which will cause
all the emails that are received thereafter to be lost forever?

Even though Entourage can handle huge amounts of data I would suggest other
options for storing such large amounts of mail like creating other
Identities that can easily be switched to for old mail.

We explored the possiblity of archiving emails in a different identity.
The problem there is access:

1. All Office applications must be exited in order to switch identities
-- a severe impediment to production.

2. Archived emails can not be forwarded from the alternate identity --
another impediment to production.

Will the next version of Entourage have better archiving capabilities
(i.e., on a par with Outlook for PC)?

Will the next version of Entourage be more compatible with Exchange?

And, most importantly, is there a beta version of the Database Utility
that can recover data from the portion(s) of the database file that were
added after the database corruption occurred?

Thanks in advance,
Designr

 

[Diane Ross [MVP]]

We explored the possiblity of archiving emails in a different identity.
The problem there is access:

1. All Office applications must be exited in order to switch identities
-- a severe impediment to production.

Even though you find that having other identities for archiving is not
efficient, it is a good to have smaller databases that are not corrupted for
backup purposes.

Since your 29 GB database has a lot of attachments, you might consider using
a script to remove attachments from messages. Check out "Friendlier Claris
It! for Entourage"

2. Archived emails can not be forwarded from the alternate identity --
another impediment to production.

You can forward in other identities.

And, most importantly, is there a beta version of the Database Utility
that can recover data from the portion(s) of the database file that were
added after the database corruption occurred?

Sorry, there is not.