Entoruages takes over system resoruces, slows down machine

[lettermail]

Since switching to the latest verion of Entorages (Office 2004) it is
VERY slow to run on my mac. Both in IMAP mode and Exchange mode. Yes we
did a fresh install too. Brand new everything.

Whenever it does an action, it freezes (well, i cannot do anything else
in it) and takes forever. For example, and this is just an example of
something -- it could be anything, when it is updating the exchange
inbox, i cannot mark another folder's messages as junk. OR add a
calendar item when it is syncronizing another online folder.

The colour wheel spins and spins...

It also does not keep a public folder calendar's information in cache
so every time i go to view it... well, it take asbout 15 minutes to
load the data! I am using a fast connection too!

Why is this thing so slow?

I can hear my fans rev when it is processing!

thanks in advance for the help.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Since switching to the latest verion of Entorages (Office 2004) it is
VERY slow to run on my mac. Both in IMAP mode and Exchange mode. Yes we
did a fresh install too. Brand new everything.

Do you by any chance have projects that involve a lot of contacts (and
their e-mails) ??? That is very often the source of such CPU drain.

Whenever it does an action, it freezes (well, i cannot do anything else
in it) and takes forever. For example, and this is just an example of
something -- it could be anything, when it is updating the exchange
inbox, i cannot mark another folder's messages as junk. OR add a
calendar item when it is syncronizing another online folder.

The colour wheel spins and spins...

Yep, that looks like big projects...
Also, is Office fully up to date (run the auto-update from the Help menu
of any Office app).


Corentin

 

[Diane Ross]

Since switching to the latest verion of Entorages (Office 2004) it is
VERY slow to run on my mac. Both in IMAP mode and Exchange mode. Yes we
did a fresh install too. Brand new everything.

Whenever it does an action, it freezes (well, i cannot do anything else
in it) and takes forever. For example, and this is just an example of
something -- it could be anything, when it is updating the exchange
inbox, i cannot mark another folder's messages as junk. OR add a
calendar item when it is syncronizing another online folder.

The colour wheel spins and spins...

Be sure to exclude the main identity folder/MUD from Spotlight. Drag the
Identity folder into the Privacy window of Spotlight. The actual indexing is
done from the files in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Microsoft/Entourage, so the
private/indexable status of the MUD folder isn't relevant.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
The Entourage Blog lists the EHP as one of the top five Microsoft Entourage
resources.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>

 

[lettermail]

Do you by any chance have projects that involve a lot of contacts (and
their e-mails) ??? That is very often the source of such CPU drain.



Yep, that looks like big projects...
Also, is Office fully up to date (run the auto-update from the Help menu
of any Office app).

Projects.. well, not really -- we don't use that function currently
(but i would like to!).

Our contacts are sync'd through Entourage.

Is that what it could be checking?

What can I do?

I am using 10.3.9 OS X and 11.2.5 (060620) Office which is strange be
cause i swear we went to 11.3.0... or are they they same, just using
different codes. When i use the update checker it says everything is up
to date.

thanks in advance,
jg

 

[lettermail]

Be sure to exclude the main identity folder/MUD from Spotlight. Drag the
Identity folder into the Privacy window of Spotlight. The actual indexing is
done from the files in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Microsoft/Entourage, so the
private/indexable status of the MUD folder isn't relevant.

Spotlight? Sorry, I should have specified that I am using 10.3.9

thank you,
jg

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Projects.. well, not really -- we don't use that function currently
(but i would like to!).

Our contacts are sync'd through Entourage.

Is that what it could be checking?

What can I do?

Well, there are several possibilities. You could try to monitor traffic
(tcpdump or Interarchy), to see what happens when it freezes, but it's
fairly tedious.

Chances are that some contacts/e-mails/calendar events are corrupted and
blocking the whole sync process. I would perform a database rebuild
(press alt as you launch Entourage), but there is a catch:
Entourage re-downloads everything from the server. If the error was on
your side, it will be eliminated. THe problem is that Catagories don't
sync with the server so you end up losing them in the process.
You can use a script to back them up and later restore them though, (see
http://www.cortig.net/wordpress/?p=113 ), but you'd have to make sure
the contacts and calendar events properly sync to the server at least
once :-\

Corentin

 

[lettermail]

Well, there are several possibilities. You could try to monitor traffic

(tcpdump or Interarchy), to see what happens when it freezes, but it's
fairly tedious.

Chances are that some contacts/e-mails/calendar events are corrupted and
blocking the whole sync process. I would perform a database rebuild
(press alt as you launch Entourage), but there is a catch:
Entourage re-downloads everything from the server. If the error was on
your side, it will be eliminated. THe problem is that Catagories don't
sync with the server so you end up losing them in the process.
You can use a script to back them up and later restore them though, (see
http://www.cortig.net/wordpress/?p=113 ), but you'd have to make sure
the contacts and calendar events properly sync to the server at least
once :-\

Corentin

I ran the script and it stored the categories and I got them to sync.

BUT the restore script did not work and I can see that a value is
missing when I look at the event_log.

Sample output:

Category: Holiday, Holiday - Canada"
get category "Holiday"
get category "Holiday - Canada"
set category of event id 6080 to {}


I have disabled the other script so that it does not set all of my
categories to none.

I will also write the creator of the script.

Thanks in advance,
jg

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I ran the script and it stored the categories and I got them to sync.

That's a good start.
At least you know the categories are backed-up.

BUT the restore script did not work

:-\
You can always do it manually, but it's a lot more work (use Search to
find all contacts in a category - searching for the relevant term in the
notes - then affect them all the corresponding category).

and I can see that a value is
missing when I look at the event_log.

Sample output:

Category: Holiday, Holiday - Canada"
get category "Holiday"
get category "Holiday - Canada"
set category of event id 6080 to {}


I have disabled the other script so that it does not set all of my
categories to none.

I wonder what's wrong. I'll take a look.
(the scripts are open - any one can take a look at the sources).

Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I wonder what's wrong. I'll take a look.
(the scripts are open - any one can take a look at the sources).

I ran the scripts again on my Mac and could not reproduce what you are
describing. Everything appeared to be OK.

I could back-up categories to the Notes field. I then removed the
categories on a few events and ran the restore script and it restored
the categories just as it should have. More importantly: no event lost
their categories.
I really wonder what happened in your case.
I even tried on various types of calendars (Exchange and local) and got
it to work in both cases.

What the restore script does is the following:
it looks for a line in the Notes that begins with "CATEGORIES", the it
takes as argument the list of items it finds after the colon.
The script then attempts to assign categories based on the names in the
list of categories found in the notes.

The only explanation I would have in your case would be that something
in your categories list threw the script of and it failed to detect
anything.
Any comma in the names of your categories??

Corentin

 

[lettermail]

...

What the restore script does is the following:
it looks for a line in the Notes that begins with "CATEGORIES", the it
takes as argument the list of items it finds after the colon.
The script then attempts to assign categories based on the names in the
list of categories found in the notes.

The only explanation I would have in your case would be that something
in your categories list threw the script of and it failed to detect
anything.
Any comma in the names of your categories??

Here is excatly what it is grabbing (per item), I realized i did not
send the full info:


get content of event id 6084
"
Category: Holiday, Holiday - Canada"
get category "Holiday"

get category "Holiday - Canada"
set category of event id 6084 to {}



As you can see, there is a blank line after the first open quote. It
seems to parse the comma as a delimiter (which it should), so no
problem there. Clearly it is picking up the values, but not passing
them on.

The line:

set category of anEvent to catList

is passing only the braces and no values -- i am assuming that catList
just a simple list-type variable, not an array.


the line way before:

set catList to {}

appears to be keeping the null value, so something in the middle of the
code is not working for me.


I am not familiar with AppleScript, but I have programming is shell
(sh, ksh, some bash), PHP, ColdFusion and limited Perl. So if i need to
do something, i can try to modify the script as a work around. but I am
a bit reluctant to play with the variables for fear of messing up my
calendar as I have no testing ground for it.

The script version I am using is: v1.0 (first release) - 2006-07-03

thanks again,
jg

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi,

Here is excatly what it is grabbing (per item), I realized i did not
send the full info:


get content of event id 6084
"
Category: Holiday, Holiday - Canada"
get category "Holiday"

get category "Holiday - Canada"
set category of event id 6084 to {}



As you can see, there is a blank line after the first open quote. It
seems to parse the comma as a delimiter (which it should), so no
problem there. Clearly it is picking up the values, but not passing
them on.

That's the part that puzzles me. I spent quite some time on this this
evening and could not manage to get it to do the same thing on my Mac.
I cannot figure out what the difference might be :-@

The line:

set category of anEvent to catList

is passing only the braces and no values -- i am assuming that catList
just a simple list-type variable, not an array.

Well a list is an array. Again, it works fine on my Mac which implicates
that there is no problem with the variable type. Something else must be
throwing it off.

the line way before:

set catList to {}

appears to be keeping the null value, so something in the middle of the
code is not working for me.

Yep, that's what really worries me and I can't figure out what fails.

I just ran a test and here is what a typical result looks like:

run: {}
get content of event id 4396
"CATEGORIES: Holiday, Holiday - Canada"
run: {}
get category "Holiday"
category id 12
run: {}
get category id 12
category id 12
run: {}
get category "Holiday - Canada"
category id 15
run: {}
set category of event id 4396 to {category id 12, category id 15}


The main difference in your case is that there is no output to:
get category "Holiday"
No category id is returned. It looks like the category doesn't exist in
this identity, in which case, it means that the script fails to create
the category (and I know where to look to correct this: Entourage should
have returned an error and the script should have created the category -
obviously it didn't).

Here is what part of the script might be at fault:
on error errMsg number errNum
if errNum = -1728 then
make new category with properties {name:aCatName}


I really appreciate your help in this matter.
Can I ask you two more questions to try and really nail the issue??
- do the categories "Holiday" and "Holiday - Canada" already exist in
the identity you tried this in??
- if no, can you create them and see whether the script works properly
once the categories actually exist??

I am not familiar with AppleScript, but I have programming is shell
(sh, ksh, some bash), PHP, ColdFusion and limited Perl. So if i need to
do something, i can try to modify the script as a work around. but I am
a bit reluctant to play with the variables for fear of messing up my
calendar as I have no testing ground for it.

I don't think it's the variable, really. You can always create a new
identity in Entourage, with a few events there to play around with and
make sure the scripts don't destroy anything before running it on your
own events.

The script version I am using is: v1.0 (first release) - 2006-07-03

thanks again,
jg

Thanks again for your help on this,


Corentin

 

[lettermail]

Well a list is an array. Again, it works fine on my Mac which implicates

that there is no problem with the variable type. Something else must be
throwing it off.

Agreed, but there are languages that make the distinction (e.g.: CF).

...

I really appreciate your help in this matter.
Can I ask you two more questions to try and really nail the issue??
- do the categories "Holiday" and "Holiday - Canada" already exist in
the identity you tried this in??
- if no, can you create them and see whether the script works properly
once the categories actually exist??

In fact, they all do exist.

Not a problem on this -- i am grateful for your assistance too!


Thank you again,
jg

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

The main difference in your case is that there is no output to:
get category "Holiday"
No category id is returned. It looks like the category doesn't exist in
this identity, in which case, it means that the script fails to create
the category (and I know where to look to correct this: Entourage should
have returned an error and the script should have created the category -
obviously it didn't).

Well I ran another test.
In a new identity I created an event. I added the tag CATEGORIES: and
two made-up category names I knew I didn't already have and ran the
script.
It had no problem creating the two categores and assigning them to the
event.
I'm a little lost there...


Here is the script event log (for "illustrative" purposes)

run: {}
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
run: {}
get every event
{event id 1}
run: {}
get content of event id 1
"CATEGORIES: Gloubi-Boulga, Pouet"
run: {}
get category "Gloubi-Boulga"
run: {}
make new category with properties {name:"Gloubi-Boulga"}
category id 10
run: {}
get category "Gloubi-Boulga"
category id 10
run: {}
get category id 10
category id 10
run: {}
get category "Pouet"
run: {}
make new category with properties {name:"Pouet"}
category id 11
run: {}
get category id 10
category id 10
run: {}
get category "Pouet"
category id 11
run: {}
set category of event id 1 to {category id 10, category id 11}
run: {}
end tell
run: {}
tell current application
run: {}
activate
run: {}
beep
run: {}
display dialog "Done!"
{button returned:"OK"}
run: {}
end tell



Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

In fact, they all do exist.

Not a problem on this -- i am grateful for your assistance too!

Thanks for the clarification. It tells me that this is not where the
problem is (and I don't know whether it's good or bad since then I
really have no idea what fails).

I'll run more tests on that and I'll get back to you as soon as I can
:-\

Corentin

 

[lettermail]

Despite the fact that it lookslike i have to reassign my categories (I
can do this from here forward)... Entourage is still slow during the
times noted above in the thread.

Any other ideas?

thank you,
jg

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Despite the fact that it lookslike i have to reassign my categories (I
can do this from here forward)...

Yeah I know :-\
I still can't figure out why reaffecting the categories doesn't work for
you :'-(

Entourage is still slow during the
times noted above in the thread.

Any other ideas?

I'm worried that you have something corrupted in your database.
How many contacts and events do you have?
(for information, I have 772 contacts and 154 events and it's not really
slow)


Corentin

 

[lettermail]

I'm worried that you have something corrupted in your database.

How many contacts and events do you have?
(for information, I have 772 contacts and 154 events and it's not really
slow)

I just had a more detailed look at my exchange account tree. We also
have public folders. Now, to be honest, it does not look like it loads
anything until I expand the Public Folders tree and actually click on
an item...

But it does take a *masive* amount of time to download, for example,
our boardroom calendar. Now this calendar only has three resources
associated with it meaning, that for any given day, there about three
entries. So it could potentially have 3 entries for each day of three
years... or 3,000... but it most likely only has entires up to two or
three months in advance of the current date. I am guesing there are not
more than 1,000 entries. I end up going to web mail to view it because
it takes so long.

That said, we have other calendars, contacts and email boxes there too.
Even though t does not look like it loads anything until I actually
click on an item, could that be slowing things down too.

I still think that some of it must be on my side.

thanks again,
jg

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I just had a more detailed look at my exchange account tree. We also
have public folders. Now, to be honest, it does not look like it loads
anything until I expand the Public Folders tree and actually click on
an item...

On my account, the only public resources that are actuallypre-loaded are
the ones I subscribe to. The other ones can take some time to display
since they are not locally cached,

Do youhave a lot of subscribed resources??

But it does take a *masive* amount of time to download, for example,
our boardroom calendar. Now this calendar only has three resources
associated with it meaning, that for any given day, there about three
entries. So it could potentially have 3 entries for each day of three
years... or 3,000... but it most likely only has entires up to two or
three months in advance of the current date. I am guesing there are not
more than 1,000 entries. I end up going to web mail to view it because
it takes so long.

That could be what's slowing down everything for you.
Is this calendar in your favorites?? (if you add it to the favorites, it
might be faster to load because it'll be locally cached as I mentioned
earlier).


Corentin

 

[lettermail]

That could be what's slowing down everything for you.

Is this calendar in your favorites?? (if you add it to the favorites, it
might be faster to load because it'll be locally cached as I mentioned
earlier).

I found a few new ones, so i moved those to favourites as well.
Hoepfully that will help. Our contacts were not in my favourites (it
hought they were), so that might help too.

thanks again,
jer

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I found a few new ones, so i moved those to favourites as well.
Hoepfully that will help. Our contacts were not in my favourites (it
hought they were), so that might help too.

That might make a big difference. I hope it'll correct the problem for
you,

Corentin