Rules have begun to work sporadically and the Junk filter has lost efficiency

K

kevin

Within the past few weeks my Entourage rules and Junk mail filter have
begun working incorrectly. Oddly, not all rules have stopped working
but most have. The Junk mail filter (set at high setting) has gone
from 2/3 efficient to 2/3 inefficient (with about 225 junk messages
per day that is painful). I have tried turning them off and back on
but that has not helped. I am wondering if I need to reinstall
Entourage and/or the Office Suite? Any suggestions would be
appreciated. BTW, I am running Entourage version 11.3.3 and the
updater says there are no updates available.

Thanks, Kevin
 
D

Diane Ross

Within the past few weeks my Entourage rules and Junk mail filter have
begun working incorrectly. Oddly, not all rules have stopped working
but most have. The Junk mail filter (set at high setting) has gone
from 2/3 efficient to 2/3 inefficient (with about 225 junk messages
per day that is painful). I have tried turning them off and back on
but that has not helped. I am wondering if I need to reinstall
Entourage and/or the Office Suite? Any suggestions would be
appreciated. BTW, I am running Entourage version 11.3.3 and the
updater says there are no updates available.
Click to expand...

You might have a rule that is moving the message. The most likely culprit is
the Mailing List Manager (MLM). It's very easy to set up a MLM rule by
accident, when you are marking a message as 'not junk'. The wording of that
dialog is ambiguous to say the least. Check if there is an MLM entry (look
for MLM entries under the tools menu) with the local Inbox as the target
folder. You can select to use the Mailing List Manager (MLM) rule or your
custom rule. Mailing List Manager rules run before your other rules.

Re-installing does not seem warranted for these symptoms. It also doesn't
sound like database corruption.

Let me know if the rogue Mailing List Manager (MLM) rule was the problem.
--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>
 
K

kevin

You might have a rule that is moving the message. The most likely culprit is
the Mailing List Manager (MLM). It's very easy to set up a MLM rule by
accident, when you are marking a message as 'not junk'. The wording of that
dialog is ambiguous to say the least. Check if there is an MLM entry (look
for MLM entries under the tools menu) with the local Inbox as the target
folder. You can select to use the Mailing List Manager (MLM) rule or your
custom rule. Mailing List Manager rules run before your other rules.

Re-installing does not seem warranted for these symptoms. It also doesn't
sound like database corruption.

Let me know if the rogue Mailing List Manager (MLM) rule was the problem.
--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>
Click to expand...

Diane, thanks for responding. The rogue MLM thought does not seem to
be the problem, there are no MLM rules. the funny thing is, some of
the rules are still working (sending messages to the correct InBox sub-
folders) and some are not, that is problem #1.....Problem #2, and the
most annoying is the Junk filter is not catching as many Junk Messages
as it did just a few weeks ago (the filter used to CATCH about 2/3 of
all the junk mail, now it MISSES 2/3). With almost 250 SPAM and JUNK
messages a day, with 175 of them NOT getting caught by the filter, it
is getting very difficult to manage. As both these problems began
happening at about the same time I can not help but think they are
related.

Any other suggestions?

Kevin
 
R

royce2121

Delete the com.microsoft.Entourage.plist & rebuild your Entourage db.






Diane, thanks for responding. The rogue MLM thought does not seem to
be the problem, there are no MLM rules. the funny thing is, some of
the rules are still working (sending messages to the correct InBox sub-
folders) and some are not, that is problem #1.....Problem #2, and the
most annoying is the Junk filter is not catching as many Junk Messages
as it did just a few weeks ago (the filter used to CATCH about 2/3 of
all the junk mail, now it MISSES 2/3). With almost 250 SPAM and JUNK
messages a day, with 175 of them NOT getting caught by the filter, it
is getting very difficult to manage. As both these problems began
happening at about the same time I can not help but think they are
related.

Any other suggestions?

Kevin
Click to expand...
 
D

Diane Ross

Diane, thanks for responding. The rogue MLM thought does not seem to
be the problem, there are no MLM rules. the funny thing is, some of
the rules are still working (sending messages to the correct InBox sub-
folders) and some are not, that is problem #1.....Problem #2, and the
most annoying is the Junk filter is not catching as many Junk Messages
as it did just a few weeks ago (the filter used to CATCH about 2/3 of
all the junk mail, now it MISSES 2/3). With almost 250 SPAM and JUNK
messages a day, with 175 of them NOT getting caught by the filter, it
is getting very difficult to manage. As both these problems began
happening at about the same time I can not help but think they are
related.

Any other suggestions?
Click to expand...

To eliminate your database as the problem. I suggest creating a new database
and set up your accounts. Set to leave mail on the server. You'll need to
recreate your folders too. I'm not sure if duplicating your Identity and
deleting all mail would give you the clean environment you need to test.
Export your contacts as a .rge file in your current Identity and import
those into the test Identity.

Tip: use screen shots to recreate your folders in the new Identity. Works
for rules too.

Next go to the Finder view of your Microsoft User Data folder/Office 2004
Identities folder. Hold the option key to copy and drag over your Rules file
from your current Identity to the new blank Identity.

Next test downloading your mail. You should test in two scenarios:

1. using your old rules file
2. recreating your rules in the new Identity

Is the Junk Mail Filter working in this new Identity? Are the other rules
working? IF yes, then you know it's your database. You might consider at
this point to import all of your messages into the new Identity.

OK, I know this sounds like a lot of work and you could just do a rebuild of
your database to see if that will work. Caveats to rebuilding:

1. even though Entourage duplicates your Identity during rebuild, I highly
suggest you duplicate it yourself prior to the rebuild so you have a base to
work from. Sometimes during rebuild things go bad and you could loose your
current Identity that is working albeit somewhat broken.
2. Rebuilding does not fix rules that are corrupted

When you finish your test you will have a good template Identity that could
be used in the future to start with a clean database.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>
 
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