Help - urgent - Database has disappeared???

E

emailus

Using Tiger 10.4.2 with Entourage 2004 11.1.0 on a 17" Powerbook.

Getting some weird Entourage lately, which I've managed to overcome
(see other posts) but now I have a BIG problem. Just relaunched
Entourage and suddenly it acts as though I've never used the app
before, ie. asks me whether I want to imoprt data etc. I say no, and
Entourage opens up without my emails, no calendar entries, no tasks,
the lot. All gone.

I've checked to see that the Database file is still there in the Office
2004 Identities>Main Identity folder, and yes it is. I click on the
Database file to see if that works. Entourage is launched, but makes no
difference, opens an empty Entourage.

One weird thing I noticed. My Database file size is and has been around
1Gb. The 'backed up' folder that was created as a result of a Database
Rebuild will generally have the same size Database in it, butt now it
has a Database size of only 18Mb. I'm thinking that maybe this is the
Database that Entourage is now accessing???

Urgent suggestions very welcome.

Cheers
 
E

emailus

Urgency has disappeared. I trashed the 18Mb database, and relaunched
Entourage, and bingo everything back. It asked me to selct a database,
giving me only one option (Main Identity) and it worked.

Sorry if I've wasted anyone's time.
 
B

Barry Wainwright

Using Tiger 10.4.2 with Entourage 2004 11.1.0 on a 17" Powerbook.

Getting some weird Entourage lately, which I've managed to overcome
(see other posts) but now I have a BIG problem. Just relaunched
Entourage and suddenly it acts as though I've never used the app
before, ie. asks me whether I want to imoprt data etc. I say no, and
Entourage opens up without my emails, no calendar entries, no tasks,
the lot. All gone.

I've checked to see that the Database file is still there in the Office
2004 Identities>Main Identity folder, and yes it is. I click on the
Database file to see if that works. Entourage is launched, but makes no
difference, opens an empty Entourage.

One weird thing I noticed. My Database file size is and has been around
1Gb. The 'backed up' folder that was created as a result of a Database
Rebuild will generally have the same size Database in it, butt now it
has a Database size of only 18Mb. I'm thinking that maybe this is the
Database that Entourage is now accessing???

Urgent suggestions very welcome.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Yes, an 18mb database is the default 'empty' database you get at startup. It
seems as though something deleted your original database and entourage
created a new one.

Possibilities for the database being deleted are: an anti-virus programme
that has scanned it, detected something suspicious (possibly a virus laden
spam message) and has quarantined the entire database file; disk corruption
- check the disk structure with DFA or some other utility; 'operator error'
- look in the trash.

It is far more likely to be a system problem than an entourage one to cause
the database to disappear, since entourage has no built in functions for
deleting the database that could 'accidentally' fire.
 
B

Barry Wainwright

Urgency has disappeared. I trashed the 18Mb database, and relaunched
Entourage, and bingo everything back. It asked me to selct a database,
giving me only one option (Main Identity) and it worked.

Sorry if I've wasted anyone's time.
Click to expand...

Are you going to write a book about other characters than Harry Potter?
Yes, when I've finally finished all seven Harry Potter books, I will write
something else.
 
S

superjedigeek

Have had this happen to me twice now. First time was when I upgraded
to Tiger, and used the migration assistant to move the User folder.
Second time was when the security update (8/17/05) downloaded.

Both times, the old "Main Identity" was gone, replaced with a new
database with an 18MB sized Identity.

Seems to me like this is a permissions issue? Entourage and OS X have
been so stable in the past, I'm surprised this is happening. I'm now
having to synch with an Exchange server just so I don't lose my email.

For details, the 1st time:
- installed Tiger on External firewire drive with no OS on it
- opened up migration assistant outside installation, selected moving
of my user folder
- opened Entourage, 4.1GB of email vanished

The 2nd time:
- running 10.3.x, downloaded security update
- rebooted
- opened Entourage, 570MB of email vanished

There is a pattern here, I believe.
 
N

Nathan Herring [MSFT]

Have had this happen to me twice now. First time was when I upgraded
to Tiger, and used the migration assistant to move the User folder.
Second time was when the security update (8/17/05) downloaded.

Both times, the old "Main Identity" was gone, replaced with a new
database with an 18MB sized Identity.

Seems to me like this is a permissions issue? Entourage and OS X have
been so stable in the past, I'm surprised this is happening. I'm now
having to synch with an Exchange server just so I don't lose my email.

For details, the 1st time:
- installed Tiger on External firewire drive with no OS on it
- opened up migration assistant outside installation, selected moving
of my user folder
- opened Entourage, 4.1GB of email vanished

The 2nd time:
- running 10.3.x, downloaded security update
- rebooted
- opened Entourage, 570MB of email vanished

There is a pattern here, I believe.
Click to expand...

Even if the OS-provided migration tool is not quite handling the transition
correctly (or some confluence of it and us), you should still be able to
look at your older identity in the old OS's user's Document's Microsoft User
Data folder. Is the version the migration assistant copied over not the same
as it was on the other partition? You should still have the 4.1 GB over
there, unless you subsequently reformatted that partition. (Or does the
migration tool also handle in-place upgrades?)

As for downloading a security update and not having access to your identity,
seems bad, but having Entourage re-start you from scratch because it can't
access it is extremely bad. Do you know which security update you took? Do
you know what version of 10.3.x you had before the security update? (i.e.,
could we reproduce this over here ourselves?)

If someone could report a case where errant permissions caused us to take a
valid (yet inaccessible) identity and do bad things to it (i.e., replace it
with a default empty database of 18MB), especially if it reproduces in 11.1,
we'd love to know. It'd be even more useful if we knew what was causing the
errant permissions to be able to gauge how bad the situation is.

-nh
 
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