Entourage going increasingly haywire

A

ADR TSP

Hi,
I have several Entourage (Microsoft Office X 10.1.6 on a PowerBook G4)
problems going on at the moment that seem to be based around at least
one corrupt email message.
There appears to be one mail that does not show in my inbox except in
the form of a blank (gray) line across where the line where sender,
subject, date etc would normally appear. If I even drag my cursor over
this gray line I get an error message saying: "Action could not be
completed. Mail error." The same happens if I click on the blank line
as well. Intermittently the same message comes up as soon as I click
"send and receive".
Other intermittent strange occurences are the loss of a option to send
and receive (ie it is no longer bold on my actions bar at the top),
loss of boldness on all (or some) possible actions on the top bar - eg
can't press Reply, Flag, Forward, Delete etc.
At times even the option to Quit Entourage is unbold when I click the
Entourage drop down menu next to File Edit etc.
Like I say these are intermittent, though problems are continually
occuring.
Strangest and most annoying of all is that when I hold the Option key
down and open Entourage in an attempt to rebuild the database so I can
weed out corrupt mails, it has no effect at all and doesn't give me the
option to rebuild. ALL the advice I can find tells me to rebuild using
this method and I haven't found any others...
....so does anyone know any solutions for the above litany of problems?
(needless to say I'm wasting valuable work time trying to find
solutions so if anyone can help please let me know asap!
Thanks for reading this!
ADR TSP
London, UK.
 
D

Diane Ross [MVP]

I have several Entourage (Microsoft Office X 10.1.6 on a PowerBook G4)
problems going on at the moment that seem to be based around at least
one corrupt email message.
There appears to be one mail that does not show in my inbox except in
the form of a blank (gray) line across where the line where sender,
subject, date etc would normally appear. If I even drag my cursor over
this gray line I get an error message saying: "Action could not be
completed. Mail error." The same happens if I click on the blank line
as well. Intermittently the same message comes up as soon as I click
"send and receive".
Other intermittent strange occurences are the loss of a option to send
and receive (ie it is no longer bold on my actions bar at the top),
loss of boldness on all (or some) possible actions on the top bar - eg
can't press Reply, Flag, Forward, Delete etc.
At times even the option to Quit Entourage is unbold when I click the
Entourage drop down menu next to File Edit etc.
Like I say these are intermittent, though problems are continually
occuring.
Strangest and most annoying of all is that when I hold the Option key
down and open Entourage in an attempt to rebuild the database so I can
weed out corrupt mails, it has no effect at all and doesn't give me the
option to rebuild. ALL the advice I can find tells me to rebuild using
this method and I haven't found any others...
...so does anyone know any solutions for the above litany of problems?

All of your symptoms point to database corruption. I'm not sure why you
aren't getting the option to rebuild. I suggest that while you can still
open Entourage that you salvage as much data as possible so you can create a
new Identity.

Option to save your mail can be found here:
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/import_export/alternatives.html>

Your contacts can be exported for backup. File-> Export Contacts.

It's possible that Apple Mail app will be able to import your data. If that
works, create a new Identity in Entourage and import back. This should clean
up your corrupt messages.

I also recommend running Repair Permissions.
To use Repair Permissions:
1. Open Disk Utility in your Applications/Utility folder.
2. Click on the First Aid tab and select Repair Permissions
3. Click on the icon for your boot volume.
4. Click the repair permissions button.

Don't run from CD. Updates contain a newer version of Repair Permissions.

Run Repair Permissions from the volume being repaired.

Good Luck.
 
B

Barry Wainwright [MVP]

All of your symptoms point to database corruption. I'm not sure why you
aren't getting the option to rebuild. I suggest that while you can still

How are you starting entourage? If you are option clicking on a launcher
utility such as DragThing etc, or an alias rather than the app, it may not
work.

Find the original Entourage app in the Microsoft Office folder, and
double-click that directly while holding down the option key - keep the
option key held down until the app starts. You should see a rebuild screen.
 
A

ADR TSP

Thank you Barry. I have been opening Entourage from the original Office
folder to avoid the problem you mention but it still won't do it.
Seems like there are numerous messages that come up blank/gray and
often overlapping onto those adjacent to them. I'm trying to drag as
many of my messages as possible into a new folder in preparation for
exporting them to another programme but every time I get near one of
the blank messages it now QUITS Entourage!
Still, seems like cut and run is my best option, and maybe reload
Entourage of my Tiger CD afterwards.
Thanks for your thoughts anyway!
ADR
 
B

Barry Wainwright [MVP]

and maybe reload
Entourage of my Tiger CD afterwards.

From the Tiger CD?

Are you running the Test Drive then? I wonder if the rebuild has been
deactivated in the Test Drive version...
 

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