One of the hottest topics in the Microsoft public groups since Entourage 2008’s release on Tuesday is broken sounds. Customers are reporting that after the startup chime, sounds no longer alert them to new mail, errors and other activity.
The problem has been narrowed down to Entourage 2008 running on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and is not related to the Mac’s Alert volume or Output volume settings. Clicking on the speaker icon next to each sound also fails. Three Entourage alert sounds appear to trigger the problem.
According to Doug Strauss, a Microsoft Entourage test lead at MacBU, three sounds of the six alert sounds in Entourage 2008 are causing the problem. Disabling these sounds in Entourage’s preferences allows the others to work. They are:
- Mail error sound
- No mail sound
- Sent mail sound
Entourage’s Sounds settings are located under the Entourage menu --> Preferences... --> General Preferences --> Notification. After disabling the sounds, Entourage must be restarted to re-enable the remaining sounds.
Two of three remaining sounds that continue working if the others are disabled are the New mail sound and the Reminder sound, which are probably the most critical to users.
A couple of posters in the Microsoft Entourage newsgroup report that disabling just these sounds is not enough and that they are still having this issue. In my limited testing I’m seeing no problems after disabling the sounds.
No timeframe has been announced for an update to fix this issue.
[Update: Just a few hours later]
I’ve noticed that I don’t have sounds again. Disabling sounds doesn’t seem to fix the problem permanently. :-(
Comments (20)
Posted on January 18, 2008 13:42
dan pearson:sounds like a feature to me!
seriously, who needs all these sounds?
email is meant to be asynchronous, if you need instantaneous response, use the phone, or IM.
Posted by dan pearson | January 18, 2008 1:42 PM
Posted on January 19, 2008 21:23
Jack Niedenthal:What about custom sound sets, this was such a great feature in Entourage 2004, no not working in 2008?
Posted by Jack Niedenthal | January 19, 2008 9:23 PM
Posted on January 19, 2008 21:44
tiktokman:Not only this but the soundsets that many of us 2004 users had configured to work in random mode do not show up at all! The compatible format of these soundsets must have changed! Is there a converter I wonder?
Posted by tiktokman | January 19, 2008 9:44 PM
Posted on January 19, 2008 21:52
William SmithSound sets made for Entourage 2004 are not compatible with Entourage 2008 but you can make your own in 2008. I hope to have a post up soon about how to do that. ;-)
But I suspect we'll have to wait for this problem to be fixed first.
Posted by William Smith
|
January 19, 2008 9:52 PM
Posted on January 20, 2008 14:50
Jack Niedenthal:Solved my own dilemma:
How to create and use a custom sound set for Entourage 2008 (assuming you already have a custom sound set from Entourage 2004):
I recreated my favorite sound set that is now working with Entourage 2008.
Here is what I did:
1) Play sound from sound set on Expression X (I used this to create the original custom sound set for Ent 2004)
2) Record sound on Audio Hijack Pro
3) Edit sound with Sound Studio, convert sound from mp3 to a .wav file
4) Put sound with same file name as Entourage sound file in the following folder (example, name the new sent mail sound file "mailsent.wav"): Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/EntourageCore.framework/
Versions/12/Resources/
to find this folder on your computer, just do a spotlight search using one of the files in the folder, such as "mailsent.wav"
If you want to save the original sounds from Entourage, put them in another folder before replacing them with the new sounds.
Sounds are here now in Entourage 2008:
Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/EntourageCore.framework/Versions/12/Resources/
mailsent.wav
newmail.wav
nomail.wav
welcome.wav
goodbye.wav
mailerror.wav
reminder.wav
Posted by Jack Niedenthal | January 20, 2008 2:50 PM
Posted on January 20, 2008 15:53
William SmithThanks, Jack!
Just a caveat for everyone. This method involves altering the software that shipped from Microsoft. A future update could change things back.
A different "per user" method exists for creating your own sounds sets. I'm personally having problems making this method work but when I resolve my own issues I'll post here.
Posted by William Smith
|
January 20, 2008 3:53 PM
Posted on January 20, 2008 17:26
Jack Niedenthal:Good point, Will. And for that reason you should probably keep a spare copy of the newly created sounds somewhere.
Posted by Jack Niedenthal | January 20, 2008 5:26 PM
Posted on January 24, 2008 20:08
Nathan:Maybe it's related to the sounds....my fresh install of Office 2008 does not have the desktop alerts showing. The option is selected in the prefs but no alert shows up when I get new mail...sounds are busted as well but we already know that one. Are desktop alerts broken as well?
I am running 10.5.1 on a MBP.
thx,
Posted by Nathan | January 24, 2008 8:08 PM
Posted on February 5, 2008 08:40
Fuzzy GerdesI wrote up a tutorial on creating custom sound sets for Entourage 2008 the "right" way, based on a forum post by Erik Schwiebert. (This doesn't fix the bug, on a machine that's already experiencing it, but it seemed tangentially on-topic.)
Posted by Fuzzy Gerdes
|
February 5, 2008 8:40 AM
Posted on February 12, 2008 21:20
Chris:I found a simple fix (at least for now). I went under preferences and diable all sounds. Quit Entourage. Open again, go to preferences and enable the sounds you want. All sounds now work.
Posted by Chris | February 12, 2008 9:20 PM
Posted on February 13, 2008 19:46
Allan:Thanks Chris! Your simple fix worked for me too!
Posted by Allan | February 13, 2008 7:46 PM
Posted on February 18, 2008 12:41
Joe Green:Tried Chris' suggestion and it worked -- ONCE -- and then the sounds quit again!
Looking forward to a real solution...
Posted by Joe Green | February 18, 2008 12:41 PM
Posted on February 21, 2008 12:47
eric:THIS IS NOT A LEOPARD ISSUE. It's also broken on Tiger.
Also, this is a big deal for people who need to respond quickly to email. Those people need to NOT USE 2008. They should be told ahead of time that this is an issue -- it's major, not cosmetic, it should be on the known issues list.
Posted by eric | February 21, 2008 12:47 PM
Posted on February 21, 2008 12:58
William SmithHi Eric!
I'd be curious to know which known issues list you checked. Microsoft doesn't offer one and the problem with alert sounds has been documented in many places since the first or second day of Office 2008's release.
Microsoft has acknowledged the problem publicly in the Microsoft newsgroups so you can safely assume it's on their list.
Keep a very watchful eye on the Mac Mojo blog for announcements related to fixes: http://www.officeformac.com/blog/.
Posted by William Smith
|
February 21, 2008 12:58 PM
Posted on March 11, 2008 12:50
eggie:Nice to hear the alerts again after the 12.0.1 Update!
Posted by eggie | March 11, 2008 12:50 PM
Posted on March 11, 2008 16:41
KB:Just installed 12.0.1 and the sounds don't come out of my external speakers. If I change the sound output to the internal speaker, it works fine. All other sounds, of course, come out of the external speakers and, sorry, I can't say whether it was working (out of internal speaker) under 12.0.0 b/c I never thought to check.
Posted by KB | March 11, 2008 4:41 PM
Posted on March 11, 2008 17:04
KB:Disregard my previous comment. All is working in 12.0.1 to my external speakers.
Posted by KB | March 11, 2008 5:04 PM
Posted on April 17, 2008 14:55
Cody:Was there this many problems with Office 2004? My only request was how to add more sound sets. I don't have any problems with the sound sets but have the issue on my IMAP server. Entourage keeps copying one of the same message in my Sent Items every time I send a message. I usually go into that mailbox and delete a message. Hopefully there will be updates in the future that will fix this problem. I'm wondering if it's the Leopard operating system for Mac.
Posted by Cody | April 17, 2008 2:55 PM
Posted on June 13, 2008 09:33
Bill Swersey:On the subject of alert sounds: it strikes me as surprising that there is not volume control for alert sounds in Entourage. Since I cannot control, I've disabled most alert sounds, since adjusting the system volume on my iMac caused them to be way too loud.
Many Mac apps that have audio alerts allow you to control alert volume. See Adium (super IM client) for a nice example.
Posted by Bill Swersey | June 13, 2008 9:33 AM
Posted on June 13, 2008 15:32
William M. SmithHi Bill!
If you haven't already done so, visit the Sound pane in System Preferences where you can adjust Alert volume independently of of your Output volume. This is a new implementation in Entourage 2008 whereas Entourage 2004's volume was controlled by the Output volume.
MacBU's philosophy in Office 2008 tends to lean more toward what the Mac OS X system can provide it rather than implementing their own mechanisms. Thus alert volumes are controlled by the Sounds pane, time/date formats are controlled by the International pane, time zone is controlled by the Date & Time pane, etc.
Posted by William M. Smith
|
June 13, 2008 3:32 PM