Entourage 2008 crashes with most office attachments

Question

Level 1

4 points

Entourage 2008 crashes with most office attachments

Hi,

I think this is a SL related issue, but having trouble tracking it down.

When I attach most Office documents to an Entourage email, I get the spinning beachball. I can attach older Office docs (such as created on a PC first) and PDFs. JPGs aren't working. Settings for Apple Double, not to compress files, windows file extensions. I've played with those settings to no effect. Office is updated to the latest version.

I have tried rebuilding the Entourage database. (I'm using an Exchange account.)

I have tried fixing permissions.

When I get home, I will try to reinstall Office 2008.

Anyone else seeing this issue? Mac Mail is not having this issue, but I can't switch over to that as our office is still using Exchange Server 2003.

One other oddity. Sounds that play in Entourage have a noisy (hissy) sound that lasts for about 30 seconds after the sound effect.

Thanks,

Laird

MacBook Pro (mid-2009), Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Aug 31, 2009 2:35 PM

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Answer 1

lairdo Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 31, 2009 11:02 PM in response to lairdo

Further information.

I found a work around. If you drag files into mail messages, that seems to work without an issue. However, using the attach clip in the toolbar or the "add" button next to the attachments list (if you expand the list triangle), then the hang occurs. I dragged in a file - it worked. I deleted the file from the email and then attached the same file with the Entourage dialog box and the crash occurred. Weird. At least I can function without having to use webmail to send files with attachments.

Other info:
This occurred on a MacBool Pro and a Mac Pro. Both are updated with the 10.6 and the latest versions of office. Further, I did a reinstall on the Mac Pro of Office and had the same issues. The one of the MBP is standard Entourage talking to my corporate server. The one on the Mac Pro is Web Services Edition talking to a hosted exchange server.

I have seen posts on font corruption, but I haven't investigated that angle yet.

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Answer 2

lairdo Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 31, 2009 11:27 PM in response to lairdo

Tried removing duplicate fonts, but that did not solve the issue.

Installing Rosetta on both machines seems to make things better, but 1 out of every 3 files attached from Entourage (not drag and drop) causes the hang.

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Answer 3

Sep 1, 2009 2:20 PM in response to lairdo

Thank you for posting this! I'm having the exact same issue. I'm grateful for the workaround.

I was using Office 2004 when I upgraded to SL. Rosetta installed the first time Office 2004 opened. Office 2004 was misbehaving post-SL so I "upgraded" to 2008.

So this was a clean 2008 install, post-SL, post-Rosetta, and I still had the same result.

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Answer 4

lairdo Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 1, 2009 2:41 PM in response to blankstare

Sorry to hear you are having the issue. Although it is reassuring to hear that other people are too. I haven't been able to find any other reports of this.

Let me know if the workaround works for you too.

Hopefully Apple will see this. I sent a crash message too. I don't know where to post for Microsoft.

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Answer 5

Sterno

Level 1

91 points

Sep 3, 2009 1:30 AM in response to lairdo

Many thanks, Lairdo. I had been pulling my hair out at the office because I am forced to use Entourage rather than SL Mail because of our Exchange setup. I had been trying to attach files by using the Add button and Entourage crashed every time. In fact, I had resorted to using my personal me.com account from Mail because it was impossible to send files from Entourage. I hadn't thought of dragging files in and did some googling and found your post. Dragging files in works! Many thanks....

Now if Mail could only be tweaked so that it works on our Exchange configuration so that I could dump Entourage once and for all.....

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Answer 6

Thinkbiz

Level 1

0 points

Sep 4, 2009 11:14 PM in response to Sterno

Definitely having this issue also. Its not just a fluke. Re-everythinged and im still having the issue. Hope that Microsoft and/or Apple do something about it.

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Answer 7

Sterno

Level 1

91 points

Sep 5, 2009 2:13 AM in response to Thinkbiz

Sort of on-topic, sort of not, but perhaps somewhat related:

I am having the same problem when I try to attach files from within web pages. You know, the ones that have a button that you click to select a file for uploading. After clicking the Select File button and the choosing the file, on clicking the select button there, my browser hangs (endless beachball). This has happened for me with Safari, Camino, and Firefox. It doesn't happen with all file selection pages. Fo example, gmail works, but it happens with quote a few other pages. This all started with Snow Leopard.

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Answer 8

lairdo Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 6, 2009 12:31 PM in response to Sterno

Interesting on the webpages. I have actually seen this too on the cafepress.com site (and now that I think about it, I haven't tried to upload anywhere else yet). It's sort of hit and miss on that site.

Hmm... I do wonder if they are related. Thanks for bringing this up.

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Answer 9

Sep 7, 2009 5:32 PM in response to lairdo

After following all of the debug steps without success ( http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2009/09/hottopics_using_office_for_mac_with_snowleopard.html) I became so frustrated I reinstalled everything from scratch. Fresh O/S, fresh Office. I followed the advice and rebooted in between every Office update.

I restored the documents folder from backup, but I deleted the Office 2008 folder before I opened any Office 2008 app. I opened up Entourage and was able to successfully attach several Word documents. However, any Excel, PowerPoint, or .pdf file still caused the same problem.

I created a new profile. Without using any previous data on a new profile I still had the "hang on attachment" problem.

At this point I've completely uninstalled Office 2008 and went back to Office 2004. I've lost some e-mails and the better part of a long weekend, but at least I can work again.

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Answer 10

Sep 10, 2009 5:45 AM in response to Sterno

Just to add to the record I'm seeing the same problem with both Entourage and with Firefox (was trying to get around it via Webmail). Can't attach any word document and only been occuring since the upgrade to OS X 10.6

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Answer 11

lairdo Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 11, 2009 9:56 PM in response to Cameron Neylon

10.6.1 update - unfortunately, no change. First file I try to add to an email (an xls file) crashed Entourage. Dragging into the email from the Finder still works as a way around this bug.

I should also note, you can drag both from a finder window to an email visible on screen and you can use Exposé as well (where you drag the file over the Entourage dock icon and then get the entourage windows). Hover over the email or press space to bring that email forward and then release the mouse button to attach the file.

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Answer 12

Sterno

Level 1

91 points

Sep 15, 2009 8:57 PM in response to lairdo

This is beginning to happen to me when I attempt to attach files in Mail. This is really a very serious bug, as it seems to be happening system-wide with a number of different apps, even including mail.app.

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Answer 13

Sep 21, 2009 12:34 PM in response to lairdo

I have the exact same problem -- the spinning ball when I attach files. It only works for me when I right click in Pathfinder and do a 'compress and email'. I am so sick of this stupid issue. I have not moved my Exchange to Mac Mail yet either, as it took 3 hours to figure out why Mac Mail didn't want to connect to SMTP of Roadrunner. Love my Mac, but am extremely frustrated with email issues.

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Answer 14

JLan_D90

Level 1

0 points

Sep 24, 2009 9:01 PM in response to byuhawaii

I'm having this problem also, having to drag my attachments from finder into the new email.

Also having a problem with Entourage crashing when I try to maximise the window.....:-(

Worst upgrade ever....

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Answer 15

Sep 25, 2009 4:40 PM in response to lairdo

same issue here. i upgraded to snow leapord and it messed with some of my other software, so i had to upgrade to office 2008. that fixed my other issues, but created this one. what a bummer.

i will stay tuned in hopes that someone figures something out!

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