Heads Up Entourage X Users

[Richard Kriss]

[----Entourage X users should read this - others can pass ---]

I had a really BAD mail experience this weekend with Entourage X.  The
application would open then quit and OSX would ask me if I wanted to send a
Crash Report to Apple saying:

-----------------------------------------------------
Date/Time:      2004-06-13 10:48:38 -0500
Exception:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes:      KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000000
> details cut out 
----------------------------------------------------

I rebooted from a backup hard drive and got the same error. I was dead in
the water with no email, access to old email files or my address book. If
you cannot open the application, you have no way to read the files.  I did
the normal steps to rebuild the database by holding down the Option key on
startup and received the same error.  Based on some inputs from the
Entourage reflector I finally managed to get the application open by
disconnecting from the network and holding down the Shift key on startup. As
soon as I would connect to the network, it would quit and OSX would issue
the same Crash Report. It was hard to believe there was anything wrong with
the network because MT-NW, the old Eudora and Apple's OSX Mail all worked. I
wasted hours talking to sbc/yahoo my DSL provider. I then searched the
Entourage FAQ for 'crash' and 'quit' and found the answer.

----------------
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/crashes.html

Check for a bad message: A malformed spam message was sent to many
people causing the Junk Mail Filter in Entourage X to fail. This is
fixed in Entourage 2004 The cause of this is a missing bracket within
the header information. The JMF cannot parse the information and fails.
Microsoft is aware of this situation. Turning off the JMF after you have
a crash situation, Re-downloading the mail, deleting the bad message,
and then re-enabling the filter is the easiest workaround. This is fixed
in Entourage 2004
----------------

The fix was simple. Disconnect from the network (very important), depress
the shift key, open Entrourage X and uncheck the Tools/Junk Mail Filter box
and quit the application.  I then connected to the network and Entourage
opened normal.  I trashed the strange looking mail and after about an hour
turned the Junk Mail Filter back on.

Hopefully, Microsoft will issue a patch to Entourage X for this NASTY
problem that has been fixed in the new Entourage 2004.  I considered
switching over to OSX Mail mail but it only imports the OS9 Entourage
contacts and will not import anything from Entourage X.

Thanks for reading this long shaggy dog story. If it helps one person it was
worth the effort to post it.

Dick