Mail delivery getting finicky

I'm using NS 7.1. For the past few days I've noticed that sometimes I'm not notified of new mail and it doesn't arrive. When I first open NS, if there's mail waiting, I'll get it. After awhile, though, when I expect a message and it hasn't arrived, I'll push the Get Mail button and will be told "This folder is being processed. Please wait until processing is complete to get messages." What process is going on? Waiting a while doesn't help. If I shut down Navigator and Messenger, though, when I re-open them the new mail ding will sound and the message(s) will arrive eventually, but only after a lengthy "Building summary file for Inbox" operation.

All this is fairly new. The only two things that I've changed recently that might explain it are:

(1) I upgraded to ZoneAlarm 5.0, then had some difficulties and dumped it, reverting to ZA 4.5

(2) I bought a laptop for my wife and a Linksys WRT54GS router for a wireless network here at home. It was an adventure configuring everything, but all seems OK now.

The e-mail problem has come on since those two changes. Outgoing mail seems to work OK. Any ideas what's going on? Solutions?

For desktop system details, see signature below.

 

Hi BOBBO!

The "process" is the program trying to read/write the index file when you open the mail client, access a mail folder, download new messages, etc. If it's corrupt, that can be the cause of the endless "processing."

Index corruption can be caused by unexpected termination of the program
by the OS, or by disk drive failure, or by the user turning off power before the application has terminated completely, or, of course, by a power failure.

Close Netscape Mail. Access your email via the ISP Web interface, look for a message in your Inbox with "Unknown" in the sender column and nothing in the Subject column, or any other messages which are spam. Delete them, log out, then open Netscape mail and try to retrieve your messages.

If this doesn't work, try deleting the MSF files in your Mail Account folder. Don't delete the files without the MSF extension, as they contain the mail. Now open Netscape. Can you retrieve your mail now?

Post back if you continue to have problems, or have further questions.

Ramona

 

Hi, Ramona!

"Access your email via the ISP Web interface" -- How do I do that?

 

BOBBO,

You can access the SBC Yahoo! Web Portal from anywhere -- you can use it from work, home, school, or even a friend's house. Just go to http://sbc.yahoo.com and enter your SBC Yahoo! ID and password.

If you need to view your SBC Yahoo! Web Portal with a dial-up connection, simply uncheck the box next to the word "Broadband" in the upper-right corner of the portal page. You will see a slimmed-down version of your home page appropriate for slower connection speeds.

Ramona

 

Ramona:

Sorry to take so long getting back, but there have been complications. I have the old, plain SBC DSL, not SBC Yahoo DSL, so I couldn't access the Web portal you showed. I phoned SBC tech support last night, but he didn't speak English well and finally took the "Call Netscape with that problem" out. Today I tried upgrading to SBC Yahoo, but I'm not sure that succeeded. It lets me access an account page now, but to activate the switchover I'm supposed to get an e-mail from them to click a link on, and so far it hasn't come through. I did get some e-mails last night and some earlier today, but now I don't even get a test message I just sent myself.

After those efforts didn't solve the problem, I shut down NS and deleted the MSF files in my Mail folder as you suggested. Restarted NS, no joy. Shut down and restarted Windows to see if that would clear something up as it did in the past. Again, no joy.

There should be something arriving from SBC, and my test message, but they won't show up. And for the past 2 days my Inbox has said there's an unopened message waiting for me that I can't find anywhere. So there should be at least 3 messages waiting to come through if I could just figure out how to get them.

Now what?

 

UPDATE: I phoned SBC tech support again, and this time I got someone who spoke English and was really on the ball. When I upgraded from regular SBC DSL to SBC Yahoo DSL today, I should have made a couple changes NS Messenger's configuration. As soon as I did that, 12 messages came down. There's still that one unopened message in my Inbox, but maybe that will come down sometime during the next 48 hours after my old mailbox is combined with my new one. For now, I'm assuming the problem is licked. If I find out otherwise, I'll get back to you.

Thanks for your help.

 

BOBBO,

Did you compact your folders? If not do that, but first empty the Trash folder. If that one message isn't delivered, can you go to the web interface now and delete or view the message? I'll bet it is spam.

Ramona

 

Ramona: I'd emptied the Trash and compacted the folders several times recently. The message in question turned out to be, not spam, but one of over 2,000 I've saved, and it was from way back in March of 2003 and I'd overlooked it while searching.

Too bad we didn't have a big bet going.

 

Hi BOBBO,

Well shoot, I would have been out some $$ if we had bet! I'm glad that everything is back to normal.

Tell me that you don't keep 2,000 messages in your Inbox, please. If you do, you are risking the loss of all of them. Create an archive folder and move the older messages to this folder. The Inbox is not intended to archive messages, and when it gets too large, you're at risk.

Ramona

 

Ramona: "The Inbox is not intended to archive messages, and when it gets too large, you're at risk." -- An interesting point that I'd never thought of. When you say "too large," what is that a factor of, HDD space? My ISP's mailbox capacity? Netscape's internal ruggedness? Other? And by "you're at risk," at risk of what? BSD? Netscape won't load? Files will be lost? E-mail won't come in or go out? I suspect a lot of other members never realized any of that, so some elaboration would be helpful. Thanks.

 

Hi BOBBO,

You're at risk of losing all your mail. At the top of the Forum, there is a Sticky, titled:
Preventive Browser Maintenance

Another problem with a large Inbox, is that in trying to open the Inbox, the application you use may not be able to open a file that size, or it will hang when trying to open the file. The entire Inbox can become corrupt.

Ramona

 

Ramona: Good, convincing advice. I created an Archive folder and was about to get back to you for instructions on exactly how to go about copying the contents of my Inbox, but I decided to check that Sticky first. Good thing I did. It's going to take me some time to get the job done, but it seems a worthwhile thing to do. Maybe others will see all this for the first time and follow the same good suggestion. Thanks again.