Lost folder contents

There are 10 seperate folders including the main "Inbox ".
Outlook Express has randomly chosen to delete the contents of any of these folders.Thankfully not the very important ones,yet).
It doesn't happen every time nor is there any pattern to it. Other then the past week where it has twice removed all e-mails in the "inbox" folder and acted like it's a new installation by giving me the "Welcome To Outlook Express 5" message.

Any ideas? It's driving me crazy as to what is causing this!

 

If you haven't done so already, try a repair of IE/OE. Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Internet Explorer > Add/Remove > Repair.

When done, I'd turn off compacting messages in the background. Tools > Options > Maintenance. If any e-mail scanning app is running, disable it.

 

Me too!

I'm having the same problem...

I'm running Windows 2000 Pro, OE/IE 6 and it keeps deleting all my e-mail in my inbox.

I went to Control Box to try the "repair" idea, but neither OE nor IE is there to click on.

I just checked my mail... I had 244 messages (but it does it with as few as 20) I tried to delete one of my messages, but it wouldn't. It just sat there and ignored me ...so I closed OE, and when I reopened it, all 244 messages were gone! (with the exception of the "welcome to OE" message that Victory mentioned.

So, if I can't "repair" it, does anyone have any other suggestions?? I've tried to reinstall and that didn't help either.

Thanks...

~~KMJ

 

I to am using W2000 Pro, I've unchecked everything in maintenance that could possibly effect it.

As stated by memepnp niether is listed in the programs of Add/Remove programs.

The only e-mail scanning app would be the a/v and I'm not willing to risk disabling that as of yet(unless someone can verify that it's known to interfere and how to work aroud it). My concern being that it's not a regular occurance so I'd have to probably wait a week or more to discover if the problem was solved....

 

Another direction for repair,is start, programs, access, system tools, system info, then tools, chose repair IE. I think I saw some of this symptoms at MS site searching product info.ie lost folders, mail..

 

inbox deleting msgs??? try this

Had a friend who was experiencing problems with Outlook Express recently. Everytime he shut down OE the inbox "deleted" all his msgs. After much investigation, I found that the msgs actually were not being deleted.
Open Outlook express and click on the view tab, first option is "current view" which had checked "hide read messages "!! click "show all messages"
Poof all msgs are back! Hope this helps someone else!

 

Well

Unfortunately, most of the mail being deleted has not been read yet.

And the "repairing" of OE hasn't worked either.

The problem seems to be sporatic... no particular pattern or reason for deleting the mail.

I've looked everywhere and the mail that was deleted is GONE... it's not hiding and it hasn't been sent to any other folders anywhere in my system.

I've noticed the last two times it's happened, I bring up OE and the message it's highlighted on shows "Message cannot be displayed" and I can't access any of them, and I can't delete any of them myself... then when I close OE and reopen it, all my mail is gone.

But I hadn't noticed this happening in the times before... yet another bug?!?!?!?!?!

Luckily, most of the mail I get is junk anyway, but I've lost some "real" mail too!

Any other suggestions??????

~~memepnp

 

Update

Well after crossing my fingers for a long period of time I thought we were free and clear...WRONG! It just happened again.
All precious suggestions had been or were tried prior and have failed.

It seems to have decided a preference to the default "Inbox" versus the other folders and delete totally only the contents in that folder.

I'm just stressed now.

I open the Oultlook Express and as it's checking for new mail on all the accounts it "appears" as though there is new mail in the Inbox folder. Only when I click on it, it shows as that G*& D@$% "Welcome to Outlook Express" message......I'm tempted to hit the reply and tell them what I think of their Welcome message! lol

Still waiting patiently for a miracle cure...

 

Finally found a solution!!

Actually it wasn't me that found it, but in the process of dealing with a customers e-mail problem one of the techs found this.

http://chattanooga.net/~scochran/DBXtract.htm

It finds "corrupted" e-mails for you. We lost our inbox 3 times yesterday, which wasn't too earth shattering as I'd added a few extra folders so nothing too important was directed to the main inbox anymore.

Anyhow I ran this and we got 18 e-mails back this morning.
You simply can transfer them back into you Outlook after it's "recovered" them.


Hopefully this will be helpful to someone else to. Doesn't stop the problem but at least it can get ya back what ya lost. Good luck!

 

Have you had a look in Tools\options\maintenance and the "Compact messages when there is xx% wasted space" option. (Outlook Express)
A stab in the dark and may explain why it is sporadic????