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Can not open new Netscape email

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by ninet4 1 view

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User never deletes his email. He has 5900 messages in his inbox. Starting yesterday, new mail that arrives and is downloaded to his local folders do not open correctly. When the new messages are opened, it displays the contents of an old message (which doesn't even exist no less). It is as if the new messages are replaced with the body of a different email. I guess this happened in the past, before I took over, and as a work around, they created a new local folder, moved all mail out of his inbox to this new folder. After doing this, the new messages that came in to the inbox were unaffected and opened correctly. I'm not big on work arounds. Has anyone else come into this problem before? Is there a FIX for it?

10 replies

by ann777

Try compacting the folders... almost always that works to reset forward and backward pointers.

When people delete e-mail in Netscape, the e-mail is not really deleted --> only the pointer is removed; this is very much like database programs.With database programs and with e-mail, the files grow larger and larger until the deleted items are actually removed via a "pack" or "compress" etc.

If the e-mail folder is never compacted or compessed, then the results you have described above tends to happen. Best bet is to compact folders weekly or so (based on use).

by ninet4

Already tried this. When I try to compact the folders, it errors out. Says there was an error compacting folder. As soon as I try to empty the trash folder, it automatically starts compacting all folders. Errors out the same way here. Interestingly, I imported the trash folder from Netscape in to Microsoft Outlook Express 6. In Netscape, the trash folder appeared empty, however 2 files were imported into the OE6 trash folder, one of which was the phantom email.

The problem is, something is wrong with the inbox, cannot compress it, and cannot import it into OE6. Any new suggestions?

Thanks for the answer Anna777

by ann777

Have you done anything with the snm files?

Look for inbox.snm and rename it to inboxsnm.old

Then start Netscape and see if the index will rebuild itself correctly.

by ann777

Have you tried uninstalling netscape, rebooting, checking the registry, rebooting again and then reinstalling it? That's another alternative.

by ninet4

Well Anna777, it is your lucky day. You definately helped, your comments pointed me in the right direction, though I think I would have gotten there anyway. Though I didn't feel like your answer helped me enough to deserve the entire 1000 points, I did feel that you deserved something. 500 at 50% of the original 1000 seemed to cheap, so I was going to award you 750. Unfortunately you cannot lower the point value of a question once an answer has been posted, and since I felt that you deserved something, I have no choice but to give you the full 1000. Thanks for your replies, I appreciate it.

by ninet4

I think that we are on the right track. I am torn between accepting or rejecting your last response. I don't generally accept an answer unless it hits the nail right on the head. Which to date hasn't happened, if you check out my history. Thoughwhat you've told me thus far, has pointed me in the right direction.

Just before reading your response, I actually notice that the inbox.snm didn't even exist. Aparently, when I try to compact the folder and it errors out, the inbox.snm disappears. Re-indexing takes a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time, even though there are currently only 61 messages in the inbox, the inbox file is taking up 2GB. All the messags that are left in this folder are the ones that I am having problems with. I moved the restto a temp folder, which compacts nicely.

So, what I have tried for now, is moving the inbox and inbox.snm files to another location, somewhere that netscape won't read them. Then I ran "empty trash", and am currently waiting for it to finish compacting the temp folder, this is where the 5900 messages are now. Assuming that finishes ok, I think I will be golden.

by thechas

Every file and folder system has limits on the number of files, and the total size.
When you reach these limits, any number of things can happen.

Creating a new folder for the users messages is only a work-around in the sense that you are helping the user use the program beyond what was ever envisioned as the maximum number of messages that a person would keep.

Another possible part of the problem, is that the user may be running out of both real and virtual memory.
This could explain the display of the phantom message.

You really need to assist this user in archiveing his older messages.
Either use a mail back-up program, or save the messages individually to a CD.

If this user keeps so many messages, I wounder how much "trash" is on the hard drive?
A thourough cleaning of the hard drive may clean things up, or at least help.

Chas

by ninet4

While I appreciate your answer, it didn't really include any pliable information. You essentially said, "Delete stuff". While the obviuos answer to a user with 5000+ emails is simply to "delete stuff" it was not even close to the solution I was looking for. I am looking for somone who actually knows a thing or two about the specific program I am refering to and shows knowledge beyond what I know. Anna777 clearly fits in to this category and even though she didn't solve my problem, which is what I look for as an acceptable response, she did help me reach the solution, and I will therefor afford the points to her.

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