Entourage 2008 database is damaged repeatedly!

[Chuck Provancher]

I recently moved from a PC to a Mac running OS 10.6.2, and I've
imported my email from Outlook into Entourage 2008. My mail is
connected via an Exchange server.

I constantly get an error message indicating that my database is
damaged. Generally I don't have any other indications of problems
except for the constant dialog boxes popping up, reminding me that my
database is damaged; although today, I noticed that the message
backlog in one of my folders was missing as well.

I've tried "rebuilding" my database about half a dozen times, which
eats up large amounts of hard drive space and ties up my Mac for hours
at a time, all to no avail; and I've also tried creating a new
Identity. Two days into using my new Identity, I got the same error
message and the cycle started again.

My Database file is quite large. Originally it was 21 GB, but after
much archiving I was able to get it down to about 10 GB. As part of my
job, I receive several hundred emails a day, often with large
attachments, so trimming it down is a challenge. I've tried dragging
folders to an MBOX to archive them, although it seems as though re-
importing them is not particularly easy, so i'm not sure how easily i
can ever access old emails if I need to.

I've seen a few posts like this, but don't know if there has been any
suggestion on how to fix...? Any suggestions would be greatly
appreciated!!

Thanks.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I constantly get an error message indicating that my database is
damaged. Generally I don't have any other indications of problems
except for the constant dialog boxes popping up, reminding me that my
database is damaged; although today, I noticed that the message
backlog in one of my folders was missing as well.

Not so sure the database is actually corrupted.
If you have rebuilt the database and checked again and it hasn't
detected anything, then try deleting the database daemon preference
(then reboot).
The preference file might be corrupted,

Corentin

 

[Diane Ross]

I've tried "rebuilding" my database about half a dozen times, which
eats up large amounts of hard drive space and ties up my Mac for hours
at a time, all to no avail; and I've also tried creating a new
Identity. Two days into using my new Identity, I got the same error
message and the cycle started again.

For Exchange accounts, it's best to just create a new Identity and let it
sync back up to your Exchange server.

Have you saved any items to the folders "On My Computer"?

My Database file is quite large. Originally it was 21 GB, but after
much archiving I was able to get it down to about 10 GB. As part of my
job, I receive several hundred emails a day, often with large
attachments, so trimming it down is a challenge. I've tried dragging
folders to an MBOX to archive them, although it seems as though re-
importing them is not particularly easy, so i'm not sure how easily i
can ever access old emails if I need to.

You can export as .rge file and that's easier to import into a second
Identity to view. You can use custom mail views to help with the export.

To keep current Identity lean, I suggest removing incoming attachments with
one of the "remove attachment" scripts. They will save, remove and link the
saved files to the message, so you can open the file directly from the
message.

Also remove your outgoing attachments with a rule. This is assuming your
outgoing attachments are stored elsewhere on your computer. No need to have
them duplicated and filling up your database.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/example/rule001.html>

**Remove Attachments Script** By Jolly Roger- This script removes all
attachments from the currently selected messages in Entourage. The script
allows you to optionally extract removed attachments to a folder named
"Removed Attachments" on disk, and also optionally adds notes and links to
affected messages.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/downloads/scripts/Remove_Attachments.zip>

**Friendlier Claris it!** By: Rob Buckley

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/script/fav_scripts.html#favscript17>

**Save Attachments** by Paul Berkowitz
If you want to reduce the size of your Entourage Database or simply like to
save your attachments separately to a folder on your computer, you can do so
from an Entourage rule but then have the problem that there's no way to get
from the message to the saved and removed attachment. This script will save,
remove and link the saved files to the message, so you can open the file
directly from the message. You can also choose to go to the folder in Finder
instead from a companion script (useful if the file is stuffed, for
example).

<http://scriptbuilders.net/files/saveattachments20041.0.0.html>
--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://tinyurl.com/bzcrjy> <-- Entourage mailing list
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/entouragehelp>

 

[Kerry]

I recently moved from a PC to a Mac running OS 10.6.2, and I've
imported my email from Outlook into Entourage 2008.

There's one thing you might want to consider here if you keep having
problems with your DB, which is very large BTW and that is using
Outlook probably for you in a VM so you don't have to reboot your Mac.
The Entourage DB is very flaky. Rebuild sometimes does not work and on
a DB of your size well... Secondly, Microsoft is replacing Entourage
with Outlook in their next version of Office due in late 2010 for the
Mac and dumping Entourage and that's probably because there are a lot
of issues with Entourage including the monolithic database which makes
it problematic for backup. Even backing up in the wee hours of the
night either a 10 gig or 21 gig file would not only take a lot of time
but a lot of space especially if they are incremental. This is to be
rectified when they switch to Outlook.

So you can try everything Diane and Corentin are suggesting to get
Entourage to work but I'm not sure it will work well and for long.
You're receiving a couple hundred e-mails a day and you have this size
DB from the get go.... I'd really consider just running Windows in
Parallels v5 and using Outlook. Its preferable your Mac has 4 gigs of
memory and you can leave this running all the time. In Parallels v5 it
runs I find at the same speed as on a dedicated PC. I have Windows 7
running in my Parallels and XP running in VMWare. Parallels in now
better than VMWare I'd say and so do the reviewers.

For myself, I use Entourage as there are some things I prefer about it
over Outlook for my needs but I'm not connected to Exchange and I
don't receive anywhere near those number of e-mails and my db is under
1 gig (I'd be way too nervous having it too large as I've lost data
due to corruption in the past). If I were on Exchange I would be using
Outlook though. I need robustness and reliability over functionality.
In my case I can use Entourage reliably but I also know its pitfalls.