Rebuilding the Entourage Database
Background
Many of the problems experienced by Entourage users
occur because of a corrupt database. Symptoms of a corrupt database
include incorrect sorting, messages not displaying properly, and other
unexplained
behavior. Rebuilding the database should correct
these issues. However, regular rebuilds are not recommended. It is
recommended that you only
rebuild when signs of corruption arise, or if you need to reclaim
disk space (as a result of running out of disk space or nearing
the database size limit).
Avoid Serious Database Corruption (Entourage
2004)
In Entourage 2004, there is an
option to have Entourage warn you when database corruption is detected,
rather than waiting to
see symptoms arise. To enable this feature, you must launch the
Microsoft Database Utility.
1. Launch Entourage, holding down the “Option” key. Or,
launch the Database Utility separately; it is located in /Applications/Microsoft
Office
2004/Office/.
2. If you are prompted, allow the Database Utility to quit open Office applications.
3. Once the Database Utility is open, select your identity from the list at the
top.
4. Click the “Set Database Preferences" button, and click "Continue."
5. Check the option to "Perform database integrity check in background," and
click "Save."
Types of Rebuilds (Entourage
X and 2001)
In Entourage
X and Entourage 2001, there are two types of rebuilds: Typical and
Advanced. Typical solves some less serious problems like incorrect
sorting.
Typical Rebuild is also best for reducing the database size and reclaiming
disk space. If a problem persists after running a Typical Rebuild,
try an Advanced Rebuild.
Most more serious problems will require an Advanced Rebuild. An Advanced
Rebuild
clears
server
caches (Exchange,
IMAP,
and news).
Compressing the Database
Rebuilding the database is also the only way to compress
it. The database functions similarly to the hard drive on your computer.
When you delete a file, it's not actually
erased from the computer's hard drive; the space is simply marked to
be
overwritten. Therefore, no more free space is really generated, but
instead old files are overwritten when the time comes. The only way
to truly
create
free space from these deleted files is to use an
optimization/defragmentation utility.
In the case of the Entourage database,
you must rebuild
the database to reclaim disk space. In Entourage 2001 and Entourage
X, do a Typical Rebuild. In Entourage 2004, there
is an option to "Compact" in the Microsoft Database Utility.
You should rebuild the database to reclaim disk space
only after you have deleted a large amount of data. It is especially
important that you rebuild the database if you near the database size
limit. Entourage X (with
the latest updates applied) and 2004 will warn you when you near
the database size limit; Entourage 2001 will not.
Entourage 2004 has a database size limit of 16 exabytes (equal to
approximately 16 billion GB). The database does have a limit on
the number of database objects, that
being 2 million. However, some items count as multiple database objects;
for example, all messages count as two database objects. Unfortunately,
there is no way to ascertain how many database objects there are
at any given time since some objects do not correspond to a visible
record. Regardless, if you do near the database size limit, Entourage
will warn you.
Entourage X has
a database size limit of 4 GB. The original release (10.0.0), like
Entourage 2001, had a limit of only 2 GB.
Entourage 2001 has a database size limit of 2 GB.
Entourage 2004
You must launch
the Microsoft Database Utility.
1. Launch Entourage, holding down the “Option” key.
Or, launch the Database Utility separately; it
is located in /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office/.
2. If you are prompted, allow the Database Utility to quit open Office
applications.
3. Once the Database Utility is open, select your identity from
the list at the top.
4. Click the “Rebuild Database” button, and click “Continue.” (If
you are attempting to reduce database size to reclaim disk space and
are not seeing signs of corruption, choose to "Compact")
Entourage X
First go to Entourage -> Turn
Off Office Notifications. Now, quit Entourage, and then restart
Entourage holding down the
Option key. When the Rebuild dialog box comes up, choose to do
a Typical Rebuild.
If that does not fix the problem, repeat the procedure, instead
opting to do the Advanced Rebuild. Most of the serious problems
you might encounter will require an Advanced Rebuild.
NOTE: Make sure you've
applied the latest
updates, as the updates include an improved Rebuild engine.
Entourage 2001
Quit Entourage, and then restart
Entourage holding down the Option key. When the Rebuild dialog box
comes up, choose
to do a Typical Rebuild. If that does not fix the problem, repeat
the
procedure, instead opting to do the Advanced Rebuild. Most of the serious
problems you might encounter will require an Advanced Rebuild.
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