Saving Abook.mab

Ramona: I read and printed your article "Corrupt, or .....NS7 Abook" at
home.att.net/~cherokee..." I backed up my Profiles and xxxxxxx.slt files
on a USB memory stick. There is a .mab in each one and each is different.
When I open NS7>window(on tool bar)>address book it is empty. My
abook for e-mail is in my mail and news group window. If I should loose the abook, how or which one should I restore? and will I get the same address
book with only names and addresses?

You say there is 25 lines of header info in the new abook.mab file. In
impab-1.mab I have approx 15 similar lines and the numbers do not match yours

If I do as you suggest, will it change my existing book in any way??
Will it put addresses in the NS7 book that is now blank.
Joe R

 

The safest way to save an address book is to Tools|Export it , while you are in the address book, as a .ldif file. The abook.mab is the file generated by that profile, i.e. the personal and the collected, while impab.mab files represent imported address books. I create additional address books. for any category I choose. If I export the .ldif file, and later import it, I will have an impab AB.
If your address book is empty, and there are files which should have it, the best fix, possibly, is to rename the file, as Ramona's solutions describes: http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/ns7manualAB.html
I have the same number of line, initially, in all my ABs. I guess you tried to open with Wordpad or Notepad. Why would you have fewer lines in the impab files? I don't know. May be the where imported from another mail client.

 

Hi joeskys,

Your Address Books, whether it is your Personal Address Book (abook.mab)
or your imported Address Books (impab.mab) should have the 25 or so lines. Why your Address Book doesn't I'm not certain. You should also see your Address Books when you click on the Address Book icon in the Component Toolbar. You should definitely not get a blank Address Book. Sounds like something is quite wrong. If you have backed up your Profile before the Address Book problem, then rename the Address Book to Xabook.mab, and replace it with your backup.

As Westside advises, always a good idea to export the AB as an ldif file, as a fail safe. You might also take a look at my Preventive Browser Maintenance guideline for more information.

Ramona

 

Thanks for the 2 replys I'm starting to feel really stupid
As I said, I'm using NS7, XP.

My address book does not have a tool bar- the address book(which is empty)
in windows does have one with both import and export. I tried to import it as
a .ldif file but it doesn't happen. Where do I give it the ldif extension. And by the way, what is a ldif file?
When I open my abook to address an e-mail The name is in the left column and the address is in the right column. That is what I'm trying to save, so if I must restore it I can.
Joe R

Ramona- Your here early! Most of your posts are at night

 

Hi Joe,

Don't ever feel stupid! If you don't ask questions, how will your learn?

When you look in Windows Explorer, what is the size of the abook.mab?

The trick is to EXPORT the AB as an ldif file, not IMPORT... See this: Screen Shot. When you click on EXport, you will have a list of options, and that is where you select ldif.

LDIF= LDAP Data Interchange Format
The directory server uses the LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) to describe a directory and directory entries in text format. LDIF is commonly used to initially build a directory database or to add large numbers of entries to the directory all at once. In addition, LDIF is also used to describe changes to directory entries. For this reason, most of the directory server's command-line utilities rely on LDIF either for input or output.

How many additional AB's do you have, other than the Personal Address Book? I would like you to identify your AB's in Windows Explorer so we can see why the AB is blank when you access it from the Component Toolbar...

Yep, I confess to being a night owl, and mornings I am busy pursuing my "real life ", if you know what I mean!

Ramona