lost Entourage e-mail & settings during 10.4.11 patch update

[Kooler_King]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC
Email Client: pop

I recently performed minor update from OSX 10.4.8 to 10.4.11, along with Quicktime & iTunes update (to work with my new iPod).

Previous to this, Entourage worked fine. After this minor OS update to 10.4.11, Entourage opened as if for the first time with all my settings, IDs, contacts, and e-mails gone. It still has my registered name, and my other MS Office 2004 applications seem to be otherwise OK.

Entourage seems to be unable to restore itself as "import" does not seem to find anything. Does Entourage require an update to work with OS 10.4.11 (vs. 10.4.8)?

I have a disk image of my entire drive at OS 10.4.8 (before the OS patch) ... Entourage should be OK on that disk image. The "import" command seems to be lost when I manually browse to the MS application folder on that disk image. Are the pertinent settings hidden elsewhere? How do I go about importing or manually moving correct files to get all my Entourage stuff back? Thanks for any ideas.

 

[William Smith]

Previous to this, Entourage worked fine. After this minor OS update
to 10.4.11, Entourage opened as if for the first time with all my
settings, IDs, contacts, and e-mails gone. It still has my registered
name, and my other MS Office 2004 applications seem to be otherwise
OK.

Your data is probably fine. Entourage has most likely lost the path to
your current data.

It's looking for your old identity in a very specific place in your home
folder ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004 Identities/ and is
probably named "Main Identity". (You may have changed this name at some
point in the past but probably not.) Check that you have an identity
folder there with a Database file larger than 25MB.

You can reselect this identity by launching Entourage and selecting
Switch Identity... from the Entourage menu.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

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

 

[Kooler_King]

Bill,

Thanks for ideas, but they don't seem to lead me anywhere. I only had default settings, and no ID changes or folder changes were made during OS upgrade (by me at least).

The identity stuff is still in the same place, same folder names as before the upgrade, and there seems to be no method to verify or change what identity source it is using. The data base is 40mb on both the new and old drives, so it should contain valid data. However, there seems to be no way to force Entourage to use this database.

I can create new IDs and change back and forth, but there seems to be no way to get at the database as the "import" feature will only look for older versions of Entourage to import ... it will not recognize a 2004 Entourage database as an import option.

Also, since my last post, I found that my Word 2004 dictionary is gone. Is there some system level prefs file that MS Office is looking for? Back in the OS9 days, it wasn't too bad to pick and move prefs to fix these kind of issues.

Since this was an issue created by an apple OS update, do I need an MS Office update? Will such an update fix this issue or make it worse to fix (should I need to manually fumble through this)?

Is there a repair utility from MS to fix this apparently common problem with Office losing user ID data (all kinds of posts in Apple discussion forums, but no good solutions)? Thanks for any further insight. Best regards, KK

 

[William Smith]

The identity stuff is still in the same place, same folder names as
before the upgrade, and there seems to be no method to verify or
change what identity source it is using. The data base is 40mb on
both the new and old drives, so it should contain valid data.
However, there seems to be no way to force Entourage to use this
database.

Very odd. You specifically *do* have this folder path and Entourage does
not recognize the Main Identity with a Database file located inside
after selecting Entourage menu --> Switch Identity...?

~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004 Identities/Main Identity

I can create new IDs and change back and forth, but there seems to be
no way to get at the database as the "import" feature will only look
for older versions of Entourage to import ... it will not recognize a
2004 Entourage database as an import option.

Entourage 2004 can not import an Entourage 2004 Database. It can only
rebuild it. You might try doing that. Hold the Option key as you launch
Entourage.

Also, since my last post, I found that my Word 2004 dictionary is
gone. Is there some system level prefs file that MS Office is looking
for? Back in the OS9 days, it wasn't too bad to pick and move prefs
to fix these kind of issues.

Nothing about Office 2004 settings is system level. All preferences are
unique to the user account in Mac OS X and stored in the Microsoft User
Data folder or in ~/Library/Preferences.

Since this was an issue created by an apple OS update, do I need an
MS Office update? Will such an update fix this issue or make it worse
to fix (should I need to manually fumble through this)?

If you haven't already, you might look into some disk repair tools. See
if Disk Utility finds any problems by verifying your drive.

Is there a repair utility from MS to fix this apparently common
problem with Office losing user ID data (all kinds of posts in Apple
discussion forums, but no good solutions)? Thanks for any further
insight. Best regards, KK

This may seem like a common problem but the number one cause is folks
moving their MUD folder without realizing its significance. No utility
will be able to determine what folks choose to do with their MUD (move
it, rename it, delete it).

Beyond these ideas I'm at a loss.

--

bill

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

 

[Diane Ross]

Since this was an issue created by an apple OS update, do I need an MS Office
update?

It wouldn't hurt to run the Apple combo updater.

Mac OS X 10.5.2 Combo Update

I recently performed minor update from OSX 10.4.8 to 10.4.11, along with
Quicktime & iTunes update (to work with my new iPod).

This won't fix your current problem, but for future updates....

We've discussed using SuperDuper!(backup software) before, but this is an
excellent time to remind users about a feature it has that protects you from
system updates that so bad.

One of the options in SuperDuper! is to create what the author calls a
"Sandbox". It's used to revert to pre-update state of your OS. Here's a
description of how this option works:

A Sandbox is a bootable copy of your system, stored on another hard drive or
partition, that shares your personal documents and data with the original.
With SuperDuper!, you actually use the Sandbox as your startup volume. You
can safely install any system updates, drivers or programs in the Sandbox,
without worrying about what might happen to your system. If anything goes
wrong, you can simply start up from the original system. SuperDuper! has
preserved it in its original, pre-disaster state but all your new and
changed personal documents are totally up to date. Within minutes, you're up
and running again without having to go through a difficult and
time-consuming restore process.

SuperDuper! Is $27.95. I¹m not affiliated with the product. Just a satisfied
user. <http://www.shirt-pocket.com/>

 

[Kooler_King]

I finally figured out what happened and fixed it ...

I had renamed my documents folder when I was "cleaning up the clutter". This was not a problem with mapping to the MS database ... that is, until I performed the OS X update. This forced the creation of a new documents folder into which MS Office promptly created a new a new set of user settings and database.

When I renamed this old documents folder back to its original, my MS stuff came back, this is everything but the last 2 weeks of my e-mail which is the point at which the trouble begin ... I'm supposing my ISP's server dumped those when I was signing-on from another OS partition.

Oh well, live & learn ... thanks for ideas.