Outlook 2011 Crashes in OS X Lion
Since installing OS X Lion on a MacBook Pro at work, I’ve had a problem starting Outlook 2011. Outlook displays the splash screen for less than a second and then exits without a trace.
I did find the following error in the system logs by typing ‘tail /var/log/system.log‘ in a Terminal window.
com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[552] ([oxo-ox7a07a]).com.microsoft.Outlook[1448]) Exited with exit code: 255
I’m not sure what causes the problem but Microsoft did tell us to anticipate some issues with Outlook 2011 on OS X Lion in this article here. Fortunately this issue is easy to fix and does not seem to reoccur, but does require you to reconfigure your email accounts.
To fix the problem, you need to reset your Office Identities. There is no need to touch the plist files or create new user accounts. Simply rename ‘~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities‘ to ‘Office 2011 Identities.backup‘ (Press ‘Return‘ to rename once selected in Finder). Please note that tilde (~) is a shortcut to your home folder in OS X and other *nix based operating systems.
Outlook should now open but will require you to recreate your mail accounts. I did so with an Exchange account so all mail items and contacts, etc were still available. I’m not sure if this would be the case with POP3 / IMAP accounts but take heart because you have a backup of your old Identities folder to pull files from! See the article Your Office Identity for more information on the Identities folder.
Please let me know if this solution works for you.
Read MoreMac OSX Lion File Sharing Connection Failed
After upgrading to OS X Lion 10.7 on both my iMac and Mac Book Pro, I’m interrupted by an ambiguous ‘Connection Failed‘ error every time I attempt to list AFP shares on one system from the other in Finder. There are various hints around the web suggesting that this is a bug and that it can be solved by creating another user account, repairing disk permissions or even just switching from AFP to SMB (Windows sharing). Good news is, if your issue is identical to mine, the solution is much simpler and less obtrusive.
In my case, I had the home folder for my user accounts shared on both Macs. Simply remove the home folder file share and all is well. To do this, open the Apple menu, open System Preferences -> Sharing -> File Sharing and then select your home folder (named after your user account) and click the ‘-‘.
To gain access to the home folder from each Mac, simply click ‘Connect As‘ in Finder and enter the appropriate credentials for the user who owns the home folder on the Mac you are connecting to. The home folder (and hard disk root) is automatically available!
Although it is frustrating that this is not either reported to the end user as an issue or automatically resolved, I’d suggest that the concept is more in line with security best practice for network file sharing. Any files to be shared really should be in a public folder, not your personal home folder (says me who had my home folder shared).
For what it’s worth, I’m enjoying the $30 upgrade. Full screen apps are nice (NI Traktor finally works full screen when switching desktops), Airdrop is fool proof and the reverse scrolling is actually oddly natural.
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