[X4U] Re: Chipping message out of an Entourage database with a text editor

[poolmouse_nyc]

Linda wrote:
> Hi, Don --
> 
> Your name came up the other day as someone who has tackled the job of trying
> to recover messages out of an Entourage database. Do you have the long
> sordid sad tale archived anywhere online?
> 
> Thanks,
> Linda

hi linda,

i actually had an incident back in claris emailer days. my email database 
imploded. it was part of the reason claris folded. there was no tool to 
compress/fix the database - and i spent months using bbedit trying to manually 
extract over 10,000 messages. a unix buddy ended up scripting the whole affair.

did entourage implode on you? as a consultant, i grew tired of the spinning 
beachball in entourage so i had all my clients open tickets with 
microsoft...they troubleshooted, failed to fix the problem, and refunded the 
$250 each client paid for the support call.

entourage sucks...the whole concept of one huge database...makes it not only 
volitile, it also makes it impossible to do backups without having to backup the 
entire database (no way to do incremental backups).

fyi, somewhere along the line a patch changed entourage's behavior. now the 
in/sent/junk/calandar sync without warning...and often...causing a spinning 
beachball. most people get fed up and force quit entourage (causing corruption 
to the database each time) or worse, force their computer to reboot. microsoft 
suggests creating folders at the root of your exchange account and moving mail 
out of the boxes that sync. of course that's silly (outlook users don't have 
this problem)...so there is no solution. disregard the ideas of spotlight 
causing issues or of virus exclusion of the mail folder, etc...it's simply a 
matter of microsoft hogging up cpu cycles and taking control of the computer 
away from the user. entourage is unusable in a corporate environment (even with 
1000/full connection to the desktop.

sorry for the long email...sounds like you have a problem with your database and 
my guess is it's due to the spinning beachball and force quits/reboots.

don

-- 

poolmouse
poolmouse_nyc at mac.com
----------------------------------------------
"life is like riding a bicycle.  To keep your
balance you must keep moving" -albert einstein