Outlook 2011 performance on Mountain Lion

[daveevans76]

Funny you posted...yet again another problem today. Was in Outlook and the message popped up about a corrupt database and that it had to rebuild. Could not believe it! Also finding that because I have had to do his so many times now, I am missing emails. So finally after spending a minor two hours rebuilding my identity I was able to access it again. Uggggggggg, real nice product MS.

[JoelBC]

I think that one of the benefits / outcomes of this thread is that I will stick to using Outlook 2010 / 2013 in Parallels until this get sorted out as there seem to be too many problems with the OS X version...

[Black Diesel]

Originally Posted by firedept

Had to have my hdd replaced on my iMac for the recall. Before this I was having the same problems as everyone else is reporting. Well after receiving iMac back with new hdd, I had to reinstall Office for Mac back on computer. Did all updates required and all of a sudden all problems are gone. Actually runs better than it ever did including when I originally installed it. I even brought back in all my previous email boxes without a problem. Have set all preferences back to the way I want them and still no problem. So possibly my suggestion would be, do a back up of the suite, uninstall and then reinstall. And no it was not the hdd replace that solved my problem as all other apps and programs ran like a charm with the old hdd. Just Office suite, in particular Outlook that was a real problem.

Firedept, are you still using Outlook 2011 with ML problem free? Anyone else who is not having issues with Oulook 2011 and MF?

[firedept]

Originally Posted by Black Diesel

Firedept, are you still using Outlook 2011 with ML problem free? Anyone else who is not having issues with Oulook 2011 and MF?

Yeah, my darling wife uses it on our 20" iMac C2D with ML and no issue there. I occasionally watch her using it and it is pretty quick. And my dw is what I call a mail hoarder, saving most emails and receiving a few hundred a day. So large volume saved and so far so good. I also use it on my 27" iMac i7 which is the computer that had the hdd replaced and since the reinstall of MS Office Suite 2011, I am very pleased with how the whole program is running. It opens quicker, it does task quicker and has surprised me as I always thought it should have been quicker right out of the gates. I am pretty sure nothing was changed when the hdd was replaced because all my other programs and apps still run the same as the original installs I did of them. Wish I could tell you why I am having no issues. Even my 5 year old iMac which is a lot less specked than my 27 runs it real well. I upgraded to ML on my 27" first because I had read of these problems, because my wife would have shot me had I messed up her Outlook. I can always use just about any mail app so it did not matter, I would have just switched mail programs. Then did the 20" and has been good since day 1.

[monkeybagel]

Originally Posted by firedept

Yeah, my darling wife uses it on our 20" iMac C2D with ML and no issue there. I occasionally watch her using it and it is pretty quick. And my dw is what I call a mail hoarder, saving most emails and receiving a few hundred a day. So large volume saved and so far so good. I also use it on my 27" iMac i7 which is the computer that had the hdd replaced and since the reinstall of MS Office Suite 2011, I am very pleased with how the whole program is running. It opens quicker, it does task quicker and has surprised me as I always thought it should have been quicker right out of the gates. I am pretty sure nothing was changed when the hdd was replaced because all my other programs and apps still run the same as the original installs I did of them. Wish I could tell you why I am having no issues. Even my 5 year old iMac which is a lot less specked than my 27 runs it real well. I upgraded to ML on my 27" first because I had read of these problems, because my wife would have shot me had I messed up her Outlook. I can always use just about any mail app so it did not matter, I would have just switched mail programs. Then did the 20" and has been good since day 1.

Are you running against Exchange?

[firedept]

Originally Posted by monkeybagel

Are you running against Exchange?

Yes, my older iMac is running Exchange. Not my newer iMac.

[dianeoforegon]

Try using the process of elimination to find what is causing your problem(s).

1) Is it your Identity? Try testing in a new Identity.
2) Is it your User? Try testing in a new User.
3) Re-index your entire drive. Outlook uses Spotlight's index file for search and listing items.
4) Delete the duplicate fonts installed by Office. Probably doesn't cause the slowdowns but will help odd crashes. Office 2011 Duplicate Fonts to Delete
5) Make sure you have plenty of free space on your drive. 10% minimum required.
6) Delete all com.microsoft plist file, log out/in and let Outlook create new clean files.

Note: Some files have new locations, but old files were still left in original location.

Old location
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2011
New location
~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Preferences/Office 2011

7) Normal Template:

a) Track down all instances of pre-2008 Normal template on your computer, and drag them to your desktop. The file is called simply "Normal" and has no extension.

b) Find and drag the file Normal.dotm to your desktop. Unless you have moved it, it should be in

~ /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/

Re-start computer after removing files.

Never rebuild an Identity with Exchange. Delete the Exchange and any IMAP accounts before rebuilding. Once you rebuild, it's best to move to your "On My Computer" folder and other data to a new Identity THEN add back Exchange and IMAP data in the new Identity. How to move your data to a new Identity

Don't let any folder get over 2GB in size.

Identities created by importing from Entourage might have old crap. Even some preferences that existed in Entourage but not Outlook will be imported with no way to change in Outlook. Export and create a new Identity.

Identities created under SP1 in Outlook then upgraded to SP2, could have lingering issues. Export and create a new Identity.


Exchange Basics

The Inbox syncs more frequently than any other and should be kept as clean as possible. (this is the number one cause of problems with sync). Do NOT make subfolders under the Inbox.

If all else fails.....

1) Some users have reported that re-install Office fixed their issues. This is not a fix that I would normally recommend but if all else fails it's worth a shot. See this article on how to remove Office. Office for Mac 2011: Remove Office

2) If you have the room on internal or external drive, create a 20GB partition. Install Mountain Lion and update. Install Office 2011 and update. Test first without bringing over your Identity. Do you still see the same slowdowns? If no, then bring over your current Identity and test.

Obviously if you have the room make the partition large enough to bring over all your data. Do not use migration. Clone and wipe internal then clone back.

[Black Diesel]

Originally Posted by monkeybagel

Has anyone noticed that Outlook 2011 when running against an Exchange Server has dramatically slowed down when running on Mountain Lion? This is a fresh install of Mountain Lion and a new install of Office 2011 (been running for a few weeks) and it still hasn't settled down yet. Anyone else seeing this?

FYI - my Outlook was giving me the same issues (slow, unresponsive, and also crashing) but I downloaded a new update last night from MS and it updated my Outlook database. After the update it seems to be working like it should now, you people might want to try to download the updates to see if it fixes your problems. Fingers crossed.

[monkeybagel]

Originally Posted by Black Diesel

FYI - my Outlook was giving me the same issues (slow, unresponsive, and also crashing) but I downloaded a new update last night from MS and it updated my Outlook database. After the update it seems to be working like it should now, you people might want to try to download the updates to see if it fixes your problems. Fingers crossed.

Maybe that will fix it. I went out on a limb and gave it one more shot on Mountain Lion on a new machine that just arrived. It does have power to spare which may be covering up some of the issues, but I installed Office 2011 Standard with SP2 on 10.8.2 and it actually is usable and runs okay on a 12-core Mac Pro with a 512 SSD.

[Black Diesel]

Has anyone else tried the latest Outlook 2011 updates with ML? Mine seems to be working much better but I want to confirm all bugs have been fixed before I make the switch from Entourage to Outlook.

[CoMoMacUser]

Originally Posted by Black Diesel

Has anyone else tried the latest Outlook 2011 updates with ML? Mine seems to be working much better but I want to confirm all bugs have been fixed before I make the switch from Entourage to Outlook.

I'm running ML and O11 on a 2012 MBA. No problems so far.

BTW, I med the switch from E08 to 011 on two machines. O11 never crashes, unlike E08. However, E08 was superior because 1) you have the option of automatically checking spelling before a message is sent and 2) you can lock the font viewing size, which isn't an option in O11. It's really annoying to have to compose emails in an uncomfortably small font.

[Isamilis]

I have no issues using outlook 2011. ML 10.8.2. MBA 2012. I use the latest update 14..5. Not sure the mid digit

[NatsFan]

Originally Posted by greepo

For the record, I've done all the MS Office Updates, including one earlier today. Still running like a dog.

My dog runs pretty fast, and even he doesn't want anything to do with MS!

[SSSmart]

I've just started using Outlook 2011 at my new Mac Air. Issue is that none of the properties in preferences stays after quit. And each time I start Outlook I see Welcome to Outlook window.
Have you seen the same?

[millipede]

Hi Forum,

I can sadly confirm all the below problems ONLY started after upgrading to ML on my MBP late 2011 with 8 GB RAM:
- windows looses focus or cursor jumps to signature - you have to retype whole sentences at times
- very poor performance on search
- poor performance scrolling in folders

I don't understand why all of the above was working fine on Lion. The search feature was actually lightning fast - now it is frustratingly slow.

I have tried a few of the suggestions here, cleared prefs and plists, reindexed, even defragmented the hard disk. no folder has got more than 1 Gig, all folder together even less than 2 Gigs.

I am posting this it got worse over time, since the last couple of days it is literally unusable - even replying to a short email brings up the spinning wheel for a minute after every every third word so that I now have to work using webmail. It's very frustrating and I hope MS or Apple will do something about this...

(BTW all other applications run fast as usual - just office is misbehaving so badly...)


update:
two things helped
1) I removed the 'old' preferences folder completely from ~/Library/Preferences
2) I rebuilt the main identity by starting Outlook holding the ALT/Option key
now it's working fast again - not sure about the loosing focus though...



.

[EricBrian]

Originally Posted by millipede

I am posting this it got worse over time, since the last couple of days it is literally unusable - even replying to a short email brings up the spinning wheel for a minute after every every third word so that I now have to work using webmail. It's very frustrating and I hope MS or Apple will do something about this...

Same here millipede, it has become unbearable. Every few words I type the spinning ball turns and turns. Looging up a name in the TO field takes about 1/2 minute. I am thinking about using the web interface. It is tons faster.