How do I delete duplicate contacts in Entourage 2008?

[scdda]

Since upgrading to MS Office 2008 my Entourage contacts have multiplied like crazy! Each contact has a minimum of three duplicates, with a few setting the record at 11 duplicates! Is there a way to merge and/or delete this duplicate contacts in Entourage? I tried the suggestion to export the list, import to Address Book and use AB's merge/delete duplicate feature, but here is the weird thing: only a fraction of my Entourage contacts (not the duplicates, the actual entries) get transferred over to Address Book. I have tried everything unsuccessfully so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you and have a great weekend,
SCDDA

 

[Donald Stidwell]

Since upgrading to MS Office 2008 my Entourage contacts have multiplied like
crazy! Each contact has a minimum of three duplicates, with a few setting the
record at 11 duplicates! Is there a way to merge and/or delete this duplicate
contacts in Entourage? I tried the suggestion to export the list, import to
Address Book and use AB's merge/delete duplicate feature, but here is the
weird thing: only a fraction of my Entourage contacts (not the duplicates, the
actual entries) get transferred over to Address Book. I have tried everything
unsuccessfully so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you and have a great weekend,
SCDDA

Isn't it marvelous? (Sarcasm). This is caused by the broken and very faulty
synchronisation with Sync Services. I had to manually delete all my
duplicates in Entourage and then turn off synchronisation with dot Mac and
address book. Worked just fine in Entourage 2004 - can't imagine how they
managed to break it so well in Entourage 2008. I guess we'll have to wait
for a fix from Microsoft on this one as well.

Don

 

[Diane Ross]

Since upgrading to MS Office 2008 my Entourage contacts have multiplied like
crazy! Each contact has a minimum of three duplicates

Turn off Sync Services.

To get rid of duplicates use one of the scripts to remove duplicates.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/duplicates.html>

Remove Duplicate Messages Author: Jolly Roger

This script uses a thorough method of examining message
headers that guarantees it won't mistakenly mark two messages that
happen to have the same subject as duplicates.

This script takes a lot more time than the other scripts. I've used them all
with no problems.

 

[Robert_Meltz]

The problem still exists following today's (3/11) Office 2008 upgrade. I seem to notice the duplicates popping up after iSync runs - and particularly after I add a new contact in the mac Address Book rather than Entourage. They sync fine - albeit while duplicating themselves in the Entourage's address book. Does anyone know if a solution/fix is forthcoming? Thx.

 

[Eric_Landwehr]

I recently installed Entourage 2008 on five computers and only one is having this problem.

In this particular case the address book on our Outlook Web Access server seems to be creating and duplicating entries in the address book.

When Entourage synchronizes with the OWA server it is constantly updating the contacts back into Entourage. The user currently has 4,623 pages (with some addresses duplicated 144 times) in her OWA address book. Even stranger, most of the contacts are people she has never emailed or received email from, (but names that would be in our global directory).

I have been observing the OWA address book and it has had as many as 5,263 pages or as FEW as 3,361 all in the course of the same day!

Is there any way to quickly delete all of the addresses in the OWA address book and start over?

Would it work to convert her account from IMAP to POP, delete her entire address book in Entourage and then change her account back to IMAP? If I did that would I be able to keep her current mail folders and sub-folders in tact?

Any comments would be appreciated! Thank you!

 

[Diane Ross]

I recently installed Entourage 2008 on five computers and only one is having
this problem.

In this particular case the address book on our Outlook Web Access server
seems to be creating and duplicating entries in the address book.

Have you applied the 12.0.1 updater. It fixes this problem.

 

[Eric Westby]

Have you applied the 12.0.1 updater. It fixes this problem.

Dear Diane et al,

Just found this forum after tearing my hair out with this duplicating contacts problem in Entourage 2008.

Sadly, 12.0.1 has had no effect on the problem for me: as long as Sync Services is on, my Entourage contacts duplicate again and again, seemingly at random. I thought perhaps a new copy was being created with each sync, so I stopped syncing my Treo ... and new copies continued to appear.

Using the "Look for Duplicates..." menu item in Apple's Address Book app finds the dupes there, but has no effect on the duplicate contact items in Entourage's address book.

The update definitely "took": I ran it from the standalone updater, and my copy of Entourage is at 12.0.1.

Can anyone else confirm that 12.0.1 had no effect? I've had to turn Entourage Sync Services off entirely for the time being, just to keep my 775 contacts from turning into 3,875 again.

Thanks,
Eric.

 

[Eric_Westby]

Rats, no reply ... if I'm the only one for whom the 12.0.1 update didn't cure the duplicating contacts problem, I'll reinstall Office and start over. But I'd really like to know if there's a preponderance of data before going to all the trouble!

If no one can answer, does someone know if there's an Office for Mac forum with more participation? I tried asking a similar question on the Apple forum, but the graybeards there don't like anyone asking questions about third-party Mac apps....

 

[Diane Ross]

Rats, no reply ... if I'm the only one for whom the 12.0.1 update didn't cure
the duplicating contacts problem, I'll reinstall Office and start over. But
I'd really like to know if there's a preponderance of data before going to all
the trouble!

A reinstall is not going to fix your problem. It's possible the duplicates
are just being rewritten from the Truth database.

I would get all of your data into one source. Delete all other data. Then
turn sync back on.

Understanding how Entourage syncs might help in finding a solution.
Basically, all applications sync to a file called the "truth." See the
diagram in Bill's blog article:

Everything you wanted to know about syncing. The Truth, The Whole Truth, and
Nothing But The Truth.

³Why does syncing play Gossip with my contacts?³

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2007/07/why_does_the_syncing_play_goss.html>

<http://tinyurl.com/34qkrv>

If the Truth is full of duplicates, you can tidy up Entourage's contacts,
but then the Truth will write them back.

========================
How do I reset sync services and start fresh? (Warning this erases data!!!)

1) Turn OFF all sync services in Entourage preferences
2) Quit ALL Office applications (including Daemon - How to quit daemon)
3) Quit Safari, Address Book & iCal and all applications synching through
..Mac (Transmit, Yojimbo...)
4) Use Activity Monitor to quit Sync Services
5) Delete the contents of ~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/

Optionally: if you want to replace all data in the system Address book and
iCal with Entourage data, delete all iCal & Address Book Data Files:
~/Application Support/iCal/*~/Application Support/AddressBook/*
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iCal/*
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/*

6) Open the .Mac System preferences and make sure .Mac synching is enabled
(At this time I would skip this step)

7) Restart all applications that sync to .Mac (Safari, Address Book, iCal,
etc.... and Entourage).

8) Turn ON Sync Services in Entourage preferences.

If no one can answer, does someone know if there's an Office for Mac forum
with more participation? I tried asking a similar question on the Apple forum,
but the graybeards there don't like anyone asking questions about third-party
Mac apps....

More participation???? We can hardly keep up with messages as it is.
Everyone here is a peer. This is not a Microsoft forum contrary to the
appearance that it is because of the interface they provide.

It's much easier to use the Entourage newsreader to view this newsgroup. The
Mactopia web interface is just one way to access. If you can do an email,
then you can use the Entourage newsreader.

Another benefit is messages downloaded are searchable by Entourage's
Spotlight search. By clicking on the "more" button you can get older
messages to search for help.

How to subscribe to the Microsoft Entourage newsgroup

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/support_options/subnews.html>

 

[Phil.Uithoven]

How do I reset sync services and start fresh? (Warning this erases data!!!)

1) Turn OFF all sync services in Entourage preferences
2) Quit ALL Office applications (including Daemon - How to quit daemon)
3) Quit Safari, Address Book & iCal and all applications synching through
.Mac (Transmit, Yojimbo...)
4) Use Activity Monitor to quit Sync Services
5) Delete the contents of ~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/

Optionally: if you want to replace all data in the system Address book and
iCal with Entourage data, delete all iCal & Address Book Data Files:
~/Application Support/iCal/*~/Application Support/AddressBook/*
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iCal/*
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/*

6) Open the .Mac System preferences and make sure .Mac synching is enabled
(At this time I would skip this step)

7) Restart all applications that sync to .Mac (Safari, Address Book, iCal,
etc.... and Entourage).

8) Turn ON Sync Services in Entourage preferences.

I did all that and am still having duplicate contacts generated.
Seems to be each time sync services runs a sync session. In fact, I
can make it happen by manually starting a sync. I have 12.0.1
installed.

 

[Diane Ross]

I did all that and am still having duplicate contacts generated.
Seems to be each time sync services runs a sync session. In fact, I
can make it happen by manually starting a sync. I have 12.0.1
installed.

Try syncing to one other application at a time to see if you can see what is
causing the problem.

 

[Eric_Westby]

A reinstall is not going to fix your problem. It's possible the duplicates

are just being rewritten from the Truth database.

I would get all of your data into one source. Delete all other data. Then
turn sync back on.

Understanding how Entourage syncs might help in finding a solution.
Basically, all applications sync to a file called the "truth." See the
diagram in Bill's blog article:

Thanks so much for your reply. I tried your fix, ending up with a single canonical copy of my contacts in the Address Book and no contacts at all in Entourage. Turned on syncing and the contacts were dutifully copied into Entourage ...

.... and then at the next device sync, they were duplicated, as happened before. After a second duplication, I turned off syncing again.

I'm led to the inexorable conclusion that there's still a bug lurking in Entourage's sync implementation, even in 12.0.1.

 

[Diane Ross]

... and then at the next device sync, they were duplicated, as happened
before. After a second duplication, I turned off syncing again.


I'm led to the inexorable conclusion that there's still a bug lurking in
Entourage's sync implementation, even in 12.0.1.

What version Mac OS X are you running?

10.5.2 fixed some of the sync problems.

Are you using any middle names in your contacts? Having a middle name in an
Address Book contact will cause the contact to be duplicated when it is
synced to Entourage.

 

[John Harrison]

I am having serious duplication errors that are not going away.

I have my contacts backed up in Apple Address book in apple address book
format so that I do not lose the URL line and notes under each contact.


I then use Entourage sync services to get those contacts and calendar items.
I then use Entourage to sync to my Company Exchange server.

Over time the entourage and exchange server creates multiple duplicates
turning my 2080
contacts into 8,000 contacts!!!!

What is also strange is that the Apple Address book does not get effected.

Even after I wiped everything ­ black berry server all computers etc and
reset
the truth from the steps below I get the same issue again it took 3 days
for it to re-occur
this time. This is definitely an issue with Microsoft as Apple Address book
seems to work
fine. And a middle name is not an issue.

How do I fix this ASAP it is a real serious issue.

 

[webmaestro]

I too am having the duplicate contacts (multiply contacts?) issue. However, in my case I do *not* have Sync Services enabled. I never have.

I too am incensed that this issue was released into the 'PRODUCTION' release of Entourage 2008. I have used every version of Microsoft Office since version 1.0 (my favorite was MS Word 5.1).

I work for a company with ~7000 users, a significant portion of which use Mac OS X. I have recommended that none of my colleagues upgrade to Office 2008 until this issue has been resolved, if ever.

Unfortunately, I'm the 'guinea pig' and see my contacts database grow with each sync..

Here's some background:
- Entourage 12.0.1 (update didn't help)
- Maac OS X 10.5.2
- Sync Services off
- connected via Outlook Web Access
(haven't figured out how to use direct
Exchange Server connection)
- RIM Blackberry 8830 (Curve) user
(I'd rather have an iPhone, which is much faster!)

I believe this problem is caused by Entourage 2008 interacting with the Outlook Web Access.

 

[webmaestro]

BTW, I should add that I do *not* appear to have duplicating calendar entries. However, I do have 20757 items when I click on the Contacts module.

 

[Diane Ross]

I too am incensed that this issue was released into the 'PRODUCTION' release
of Entourage 2008. I have used every version of Microsoft Office since version
1.0 (my favorite was MS Word 5.1).

First, please keep in mind that these newsgroups are peer-to-peer. There
isn't much we can do. The best way is to send any feedback to Microsoft .

When working in Office, you can use the ³Send Feedback² option under the
Help menu in all of the Office applications.

 

[John Harrison]

Diane, do you have no better answer to suggest other then feedback to
Microsoft that
is the best answer we have for this very serious issue?

 

[William Smith]

Diane, do you have no better answer to suggest other then feedback to
Microsoft that is the best answer we have for this very serious
issue?

Hi John!

I sincerely understand your frustration. But you and I and everyone else
here as end-users of Entourage can not fix Microsoft's products for
them. If we could then the hundreds of messages about this one problem
would have revealed the solution or at least a viable workaround.

Over and over we encourage feedback because it's the only direct means
of telling Microsoft your needs and frustrations. These newsgroups are
not Microsoft-owned (regardless of the name starting with "Microsoft")
and while some Microsoft folks do respond here they aren't here
regularly. They've only been here lately because of the recent release
of Office 2008. Their appearances here will most likely dwindle after time.

It royally sucks that we have no idea when this problem will be fixed
but after all the attention it has gotten in this newsgroup it would be
a shame if no one complained through their "official" channel for
feedback. That's their only means of quantifying and measuring the
opinions of their customers. They can't do that with this newsgroup.

In a couple of weeks several of us who are MVPs will be at Microsoft
visiting with the Office 2008 developers in person. I guarantee you
we'll make this a top talking point when discussing Entourage. If you
haven't already, do send feedback so that the product managers have
something to back up what we're telling them in person.

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[Eric_Westby]

On 3/26/08 3:35 11PM, in article (e-mail address removed)9absDaxw,

Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP wrote:
What version Mac OS X are you running?

10.5.2 fixed some of the sync problems.

Are you using any middle names in your contacts? Having a middle name in an
Address Book contact will cause the contact to be duplicated when it is
synced to Entourage.

I'm running 10.5.2 and have been since it was introduced.

Some of my contacts have middle names, but my *entire* contact list is duplicated repeatedly when Sync Services is on, not just a subset thereof.

I'll send feedback to the Product Managers as suggested. As a former PM at a huge multinational software company myself, I'm also hoping that one or two of *them* are seeing the duplication issue. There's nothing like personal experience when fighting to get something on a buglist....