Microsoft Sync Services/Microsoft Database Utility

[Sovereign]

Version: 2004 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel I've been getting this error repeatedly while working on my Mac, "Microsoft Sync Services has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience".
When I open the Microsoft Database Utility to run, it does fine for a few minutes, then I get the message, "Some Office programs could not be closed automatically . Quit all Office programs, and then click OK", followed by "Do you want to quit Microsoft Messenger and all Microsoft Office programs so that the Database Utility can run?".
This is puzzling to me because I've never used Messenger and there are no applications running. I'm not sure how this issue originated, but I'm not computer-savvy, so this makes me nervous. Any thoughts?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I've been getting this error repeatedly while working on my Mac,
"Microsoft Sync Services has encountered a problem and needs to
close.

Does the database utility run properly after that??

This is puzzling to me because I've never used Messenger and there
are no applications running. I'm not sure how this issue originated,
but I'm not computer-savvy, so this makes me nervous. Any thoughts?

Well Messenger probably doesn't run, but if you use MyDay or the
Notification system, you have a daemon running in the background that
accesses the database, hence the message.

If the database utility doesn't find anything to fix and the problem
comes back over and over again, you might want to find and delete it's
prefernce file. It might be corrupted.

Corentin

 

[Sovereign]

I don't use MyDay. I uninstalled then reinstalled Microsoft Office 2008. Looks like this took care of the issue. I ran all the appropriate updates as well. I'll keep my fingers crossed. I'm thinking of taking my computer in for a "tune up" just to be on the safe side. Thank you for your help!

 

[Kerry]

I don't use MyDay. I uninstalled then reinstalled Microsoft Office
2008. Looks like this took care of the issue. I ran all the appropriate
updates as well. I'll keep my fingers crossed. I'm thinking of taking
my computer in for a "tune up" just to be on the safe side. Thank you
for your help!

Uninstalling your Office is not really the solution here. This is not
an uncommon problem and gets reported every so often in the forum.
Sync services has simply run into problems with Entourage.

The best thing is just to reset sync servi ces. Follow Apple's support
article TS1627 on their support website. Before running anything there
turn off all sync'g in Entourage prefs sync. The other thing you might
want to do to make sure nothing is running in background is to log out
and log back in holding the shift key down. This prevents loading of
stuff. Now follow the steps in TS1627.

Re-enable sync in Entourage. Do the following. When you re-enbable
sync it will ask you at a popup what you want to do. Choose over write
of Entourage to the Apple apps. After that has finished go back into
Ent prefs and turn off all sync. Now go back into Ent prefs sync and
just turn on one module and choose the combine command; lets say
Calendar and tasks. Try running Ent with only one sync module enabled.
It will sync almost 100% but if you have more than one module on
you'll get odd sync behaviors. When you need to sync another module
like contacts, turn off the active module, turn on say Contacts,
choose combine and after sync has completed switch to your most active
module probably Calendar and Tasks and have it running all by itself.

After these steps, you might want to ensure the Ent DB is working
alright. Lauch the DB utility by holding down the option key when you
lauch Ent. Run verify. It should come back and say you Ent DB is
working fine. If it isn't it'll have to be rebuilt and after rebuild
you might need to follow the above steps but only if you had to
rebuild.