how can I quit Microsoft Database Daemon & SyncServicesAgent so that I can update Microsoft word?

Well, it worked out for me opening the activity monitor and force quit those bugs this time, as it also did work going offline some previous time that I up dated. Going offline didn´t work this time for me, so it seems like what works today does not neccesarily work tomorrow, so on a trial and error basis a combination of all different things people said here will finally allow you to up date, at last!!!!!

thanks

Hello,

Two of us in my office are experiencing this same issue. The Office Updates cannot update becuase we cannot quite Database Daemon or Sync Services. I have tried quitting from the Activity Moniter but they but immedietly activate again. We do not have any Office applications open that I know of.

Any suggestions?

Thank you,

Anna

Restart your Mac, hold the shift key down immediately after the chime, do not start any Office application. If you have any Office utility running (my day etc) quit them as well. Quit or force quit the processes (in activity monitor).

Start Microsoft Auto Update and Update. then reboot normally.

You will find Microsoft Auto Update here. Yourstartupdrive>Library>Application Support>Microsoft>MAU2.0

Thank you worked like a charm btw did have to close in activity monitior

Sigh leave it to Microsoft o force me to reboot to update their applications.

Force-quit isn't reliable since the Microsoft services restart themselves so quickly. Instead, open a shell by launching Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal and run this command when applying Office updates:

while true; do killall -9 "Microsoft Database Daemon" "SyncServicesAgent"; done

You know the command is working if you see a stream of "No matching processes" errors. Close the terminal window when the Office update has finished installing.

hi all just finally got this "critical update" installed and wanted to share my experience as it isnt clear in this thread which one will work. So I, turned off sync services by unchecking the left hand boxes in the outlook preferences. Then I ran the office update installer to the point where it says it needs to close ms database deamon and the sync services agent. then used activity monitor to force quit the database daemon (this worked) tried the same for the syncservicesagent but this instantly restarts, however using the info in this thread I then turned off wifi - then the installer sensed a change and immediately restarted the install. The syncservices agent showed as running in the monitor and it stil couldnt be force quit (withought it restarting immediately) but the update continued to run and has instalkled fine all aps working. I did not reboot. I am running mavericks and the latest 2011 office. I dont have time to use terminal commands and search for files this is what we pay the developers to do isnt it ! good luck to all

I followed steps to quit/force quit but it still was not stopping any of the MS services.I selected Microsoft Database Daemon and then I decided to use Inspect and then clicked on the Quit button located there. That seemed to do the continuation of the install of the SP 3 for MS Office 2011.

For whatever this is worth.

Thanks vrleboss - This solution worked for me when Force Quit through Activity Monitor failed to work - thanks.

vrleboss wrote:

Or you could use the brute force:

Open Terminal,

Type:

bash

Press enter.

And copy paste:

while true; do kill $(ps -ef | grep -i SyncServices | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2} '); done

It will keep killing the syncservices (no need to go offline) and you will see your Office updates starting to install.

Do Ctrl+C in the Terminal to stop the infinite loop.

Enjoy.

Hey:

The actual answer is over in this forum, where they're asking the same question. Hint: The answer uses the "launchctl" command.

Cheers!

That trick worked like a charm. Well done.

Just wanted to add another post to say that this bug is still happening under OS 10.9.4, but none of the suggestions worked for me until I tried the Terminal solution from snsh (and maybe from others earlier).

In OS's earlier than Mavericks I always just used Activity Monitor to force them both to quit and this worked every time. Today it didn't, as others have described, because they both relaunched so quickly. Going offline made no difference.

Those of you who don't like the sound of using Terminal, its very easy, just follow what snsh says, it worked perfectly. As soon as the installer had finished I quit Terminal and noticed that both synservicesagent and the Microsoft Database Daemon both launched immediately (could see them reappear in the Activity Monitor window).

Another astonishing example of poor coding by Microsoft.

Thanks snsh

This is the best solution, thanks it worked great and was a fast fix without rebooting.

For terminal newbies: when you are done with the install press control+c. During the install you will see a lot in the terminal, this is normal.

Running Mavericks on an older iMac and had similar issues with a critical Microsoft update, with none of the solutions working and I felt there was a simpler solution than turning to the Terminal idea.

For what it's worth I managed to solve the issue by logging out, then back in again but holding down SHIFT.

I then ran a microsoft office application at random and checked updates, which came up and all worked like a charm and then I logged out and back in again.

Parkwright - and JamjarPW - I used both your posts to finally install this blinking microsoft update! Thanks to you both for posting. I don't normally post on message boards but wanted to take the time to thank both of you.

My other comment to Apple is that it's a little ridiculous to be honest that one needs to jump through all these hoops to update software.