Rules stop working.

[Doug Day]

Can some one please suggest some things to try:

My Entourage mail rules have stopped working.
Haven't modified any of them.
They are enabled.
They don't do anything fancy, just move the mail to certain folders based on
the sender's name.

 

[Doug Day]

One other thing: The check box indicating whether to process other rules is
not selectable.

 

[Barry Wainwright]

That is 'as designed' for rules that move messages.

Have you tried re-selecting the destination folders in the rule?

 

[Doug Day]

Could please explain what you mean?

"moving" a message always means copy it to the specified folder and delete
it in the source folder.
These rules worked before, as they are defined. No changes, such as
reselection, should be necessary

I also discovered that if I select a message and apply all rules, nothing
happens even when that rule that should affect it is first in the list. But
if I select the same message and apply the rule that should normally affect
it, the rule has the intended effect.

I conclude that something is preventing the rules from being applied
automatically.

 

[Barry Wainwright]

Could please explain what you mean?

"moving" a message always means copy it to the specified folder and delete
it in the source folder.
These rules worked before, as they are defined. No changes, such as
reselection, should be necessary

I agree, it should not be necessary. However that does not mean that
something hasn't gone wrong, in which case reselecting them can sometimes
cure the problem. Have you tried it?

I also discovered that if I select a message and apply all rules, nothing
happens even when that rule that should affect it is first in the list. But
if I select the same message and apply the rule that should normally affect
it, the rule has the intended effect.

I conclude that something is preventing the rules from being applied
automatically.

That would imply that a rule earlier in the list is catching the message
first. Try to disable all rules before the one you want to apply to a
p[particular message, then try the 'apply all rules' trick - does that rule
now work? If so, start working your way through the list to see which is the
rule blocking the others.

 

[Doug Day]

I tried reselecting the destination folder. No difference.
Even the first rule in the list doesn't catch messages it should.

Could please explain what you mean?

"moving" a message always means copy it to the specified folder and delete
it in the source folder.
These rules worked before, as they are defined. No changes, such as
reselection, should be necessary

I agree, it should not be necessary. However that does not mean that
something hasn't gone wrong, in which case reselecting them can sometimes
cure the problem. Have you tried it?

I also discovered that if I select a message and apply all rules, nothing
happens even when that rule that should affect it is first in the list. But
if I select the same message and apply the rule that should normally affect
it, the rule has the intended effect.

I conclude that something is preventing the rules from being applied
automatically.

That would imply that a rule earlier in the list is catching the message
first. Try to disable all rules before the one you want to apply to a
p[particular message, then try the 'apply all rules' trick - does that rule
now work? If so, start working your way through the list to see which is the
rule blocking the others.

 

[Barry Wainwright]

OK, I'm starting to stumble round in the dark a bit here. Ihave seen
occasional reports elsewhere about rules not working. Here is something for
you to try...

Quit all office apps.
Locate your Identity folder in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004
Identities/
Move the 'Rules' file and the 'Mailing Lists' file to the desktop.
Log out of the system & then back in (no need to restart)
Open entourage and recreate a rule.

Does this rule work? If so, you may have to recreate all your rules & MLM
entries - something obviously got messed up. I know this can be a royal pain
(I have well over 100 rules, I'd hate to have to recreate all of those).

If this didn't fix the problems, quit entourage again, replace the files
from the desktop, log out & in again to restore things to as they were and
we'll try and think of something else.


--
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP (see http://mvp.support.microsoft.com for details)
Seen the All-New Entourage Help Pages? - Check them out:

From: Doug Day <[email protected]>
Organization: Road Runner
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 03:38:35 GMT
Subject: Re: Rules stop working.

I tried reselecting the destination folder. No difference.
Even the first rule in the list doesn't catch messages it should.

Could please explain what you mean?

"moving" a message always means copy it to the specified folder and delete
it in the source folder.
These rules worked before, as they are defined. No changes, such as
reselection, should be necessary

I agree, it should not be necessary. However that does not mean that
something hasn't gone wrong, in which case reselecting them can sometimes
cure the problem. Have you tried it?

I also discovered that if I select a message and apply all rules, nothing
happens even when that rule that should affect it is first in the list. But
if I select the same message and apply the rule that should normally affect
it, the rule has the intended effect.

I conclude that something is preventing the rules from being applied
automatically.

That would imply that a rule earlier in the list is catching the message
first. Try to disable all rules before the one you want to apply to a
p[particular message, then try the 'apply all rules' trick - does that rule
now work? If so, start working your way through the list to see which is the
rule blocking the others.

On 4/27/05 10:08 AM, in article BE955B80.51C9C%[email protected],

That is 'as designed' for rules that move messages.

Have you tried re-selecting the destination folders in the rule?

 

[Doug Day]

That seems to solve the problem. Time will tell. For sure. Thanks for
working through this with me.
I don't have that many rules so recovery isn't so painful.
Doug