email DOESN'T retrieve from server or land in OE inbox!

Hi

starting a few days ago: OE seems to be losing incoming email.

example of problem:
When doing a receive: shows "receiving message 1 of 4 "; but less than 4 actually show up in the inbox.

Unfortunately it has been deleting all of them from the server.

problem is intermittent; I haven't found any pattern behind it yet.

Only changes made to software recently:
upgraded (?) to Windows Media Player 7
applied October's critical cumulative patch from M$ site

Windows98 not SE;
OE: 6.00.2800.1123;
IE: 6.0.2800.1106IS (customised);
Updates: SP1;Q818529;Q330994;q313829;Q822925;Q828750;
AV up to date, real time file checking on; ZoneAlarm running.

Any ideas please - this is not a good situation...

meanwhile, I am "running-in" an alternative email client (Opera) and will try to defeat OE's "delete messages from server" so that I can compare results.

best wishes, HJ.

 

Hi Steve

thanks for reply but... it's not Norton; our AV is by Computer Associates, all it does is real-time check on all file opens and closes (inc. TEMP folder stuff) - no added extras like specific checking for email; if something nasty drops in it throws up an alert like it does for any file - very light on resources.

yes I found the OE setting to leave on server (under "Delivery "), at least we aren't losing email any more.

The other thing I did was to enable the POP3 log to try to help work out what's happening.

a couple of days ago our ISP sent round a circular about recent malware - didn't apply to us (these particular nasties don't affect W98) but: we only got it on 2 accounts. We have 11 email accounts. Brought it home that something was very wrong.

Trouble is, people who've sent us stuff will think we have got it - we may have lost a lot like this. Bad situation.

I think I must reinstall - but would like to try to discover what's wrong first - else I've lost confidence in OE completely - if it can do things like this it's lethal. How can I trust it not to do it again?

best wishes, HJ

 

Having a similar problem (Home user)

Using WinXP and OE6.
Recently-- there is no "sent" email in the queue. I send the email, go into the Sent folder to find it and it's not there.

Also, it appears that my ISP (SBC DSL) is scanning for viruses and I'm not getting email attachments from friends and sometimes not even getting email in the inbox.

 

Hi Sal_gal and all...

a clue at last?

having enabled the POP3 log, I managed to catch it going wrong (got lucky for once - it's not reproducible)

2 emails at the server; OE looked as if it was retrieving them; nothing showed up in the inbox.

so I looked at the log file and it looks to me as if the correct commands were sent to the mail server. At least there was no difference from when OE retrieves and the messages do appear.
**edit: this is incorrect; now found a significant difference between the logs, see post below; sorry! - my mistake**

still can find no pattern behind when it works and when it doesn't.

will post back if and when I get anywhere towards identifying a cause or solution.

Meanwhile, any ideas/help much appreciated!

best wishes, HJ

 

Hugh, do you have any message rules set to look at the subject line for specfic words, then if found delete the message from the server without downloading it? This could cause the problem you are having.

A clue to this is when you click on the send/receive button the dialog box will monentarily show a line something like "listing messages on the server" then will proceed to delete the messages that meet the criteria of the message rule and then receiver the remainder of the messages.

 

Hi John

thanks for looking in

no mail rules, no news rules, no blocked senders; I even re-checked in case some had somehow been created for me...

I'm going to try to send myself something which should take 20 seconds or so to retrieve, and use system monitor to watch to see if the message itself is coming in. (I think it is from the POP3 log and the progress bar)
**edit: I got it wrong, the log shows OE didn't try to retrieve the message, see post below; sorry! - my mistake**

I know the list of messages is coming in OK, but the only times it's gone wrong since I've been monitoring it have been on tiny emails - I want to try something bigger to make sure...

trouble is, it doesn't go wrong every time... so it may take several attempts.

best wishes, HJ

 

at last some facts to work on

Hi again

I misinterpreted the POP3 logs earlier: now by comparison I've found that OE is not even attempting to retrieve the message

from the POP3 log...
when it works:
POP3: 23:15:02 [tx] UIDL 1
POP3: 23:15:02 [rx] +OK 1 <1031103230052.29693@mss8-win.server.ntlworld.com>
POP3: 23:15:02 [tx] UIDL
POP3: 23:15:02 [rx] +OK 1 messages
POP3: 23:15:02 [rx] 1 <1031103230052.29693@mss8-win.server.ntlworld.com>
POP3: 23:15:02 [rx] .
POP3: 23:15:02 [tx] RETR 1
POP3: 23:15:03 [rx] +OK 3726 octets
POP3: 23:15:03 [tx] QUIT

when it doesn't work:
POP3: 20:37:20 [tx] UIDL 1
POP3: 20:37:20 [rx] +OK 1 <149.1b5ff368.2cd77626@aol.com>
POP3: 20:37:20 [tx] UIDL
POP3: 20:37:20 [rx] +OK 1 messages
POP3: 20:37:20 [rx] 1 <149.1b5ff368.2cd77626@aol.com>
POP3: 20:37:20 [rx] .
POP3: 20:37:20 [tx] QUIT

so it's down to OE not sending the RETR command to the server.

But why??

I want to track this down, because from what I've found thusfar, I could reinstall everything, go to M$ for the patches, and end up exactly in the same unfortunate situation...

any hints/ideas/things I could check pls?

best wishes, HJ.

 

"Go into account setting and tell it to leave on server. "
OE settings are defaulted to save copy of Sent messages to the SENT folder. Not doing that.

I suspect that because SBC/DSL is scanning for viruses and occasionally alerts me that they caught a virus and "cleaned" it, that the AV may be wiping out the SENT mail too. Just a theory.

 

Sal_gal

do yours always not turn up in the sent folder, or is it intermittent pls?

best wishes, HJ

 

This just started happening

Been a week now.
I send an email. Go back to check it or forward it; go to the Sent folder and it's gone. not in trash folder. Not in draft folder. Just disappeared.

But when I search for it using "find" messages, it appears in the Find queu.

It has to be effected by a virus. What else could it be?

 

Sal_gal
For you sent folder problem, I wonder if the folder somehow got corrupted. Using windows explorer I'd try renaming the sent.dbx file. Do this with OE closed. Then open OE (OE will create a new sent folder) and try sending a message and see what happens.

If that doesn't work maybe you should start a new thread for this problem. Might get more help that way.

 

Sal_gal

how odd!

so when you find it using "Find messages ", which folder does it say it's in - or is the folder column blank or something?

- are you "finding" them in SENT but not actually seeing them if you look at the contents of SENT?

extraordinary!

not ruling out something to do with a virus; but I can't see how your ISP filtering emails would manage to "get at" the folders on your PC.

while I had the POP and SMTP logs running I tried sending a little test to myself to see if, to get to the SENT folder, an email had to go to the ISP and then return back to you again - but it doesn't seem to work that way... it only showed in the SMTP (to server) log, not the POP (from server back to you) log.

best wishes, HJ

 

Zander

2 good ideas! (the corrupt file and the new thread)

==

Sal

one thing I never found out - might be important - did your problems start, you say just recently - just after you applied the M$ October critical update patch?

I've got a strong feeling that's what did it to me... 24th Oct was the day I did the patch, trouble ever since.

(clock went mad on the 25th - other thread - I've just noticed the significance of the dates)

best wishes all, HJ

 

In Reply.

The messages are in the Send Folder when I search. But not in the Sent list.

As for renaming the file, where is the "Sent" folder located in Explore. What directory?

(I searched Windows folder, don't see OE folder)

 

If it's in the default location it'll be here.

C:\Documents and Settings\your user name\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\folder with a long number\Microsoft\Outlook Express.

If that doesn't get you there open OE and click tools>options>maintenance and click on the store folder button. It'll show you the path there.

 

Zander

I think my troubles may be due to corrupt mailbox files - particularly pop3uidl

the mails which OE hasn't attempted to retrieve seem to have landed there - or at least enough of them for OE to decide that it wasn't going to try to download the message

reading what you replied to Sal_gal, I'm moving all the old mailboxes someplace else - it's recreated the few it really needs; will see what happens.

best wishes, HJ.

 

HJ
Just thought of something. How large is your inbox file? I know that if the mail files in OE get to large all kinds of weird things can happen. Especially the inbox, sent and deleted items folders. Do you ever compact them? OE is a database program and it's been my experience that it doesn't handle large files very well. If you have a lot of emails in your inbox or in other folders in OE that you want to keep you'd be better off saving them via file>save as to a different location on your hard drive. Not as handy but a lot safer.

 

Zander

the size may well be involved - the mailboxes had got large; inbox itself was small but several other folders were up to 35MB.

The old folders are all out of the way now; I've let it rebuild new folders afresh; am keeping the POP3 and SMTP logs running for the time being -

I'd "shot myself in the foot" a bit by leaving copies at the server - didn't realise at the time, but doing that invoked this UIDL thing - which itself messed things up as pop3uidl was almost certainly corrupt. Not used to that command, that's why I misinterpreted the logs... ages ago I used Nettamer under DOS(!), that didn't use UIDL, but the other commands were familiar.

The mailboxes all suffered when I had the date problem at midnight after the day I applied the patch. With my luck I'd also caught the day when the clocks were going back

After I'd sorted the clock thing(!) all dbx files had invalid dates which I'd scandisked back to "unknown ". That's probably when it all started... so in a way it probably was caused by the patch, even if not directly...

so far no errors with the new dbx files. I'm keeping a careful eye on the logs.

Thanks for your help, HJ.

 

Well I hope it works out for you. I had seen your post about the date thing. I kinda thought at the time that it was odd but then again not really. In all the years I ran win95 and 98 I don't know if it ever got it right. Maybe once or twice. Only thing odd about yours was it was a day early. Mine always changed on the right day but would always set it an hour off one way or the other. A couple of days ago I booted to 98 on this puter for the first time since the time change. I was greeted with a message that windows had adjusted the time and that I should check it out. You guessed it. The time was an hour off. Thought of your post again at the time and all I could do was smile to myself.