Netscape - Unable to clean rebuild profile after loss.

Following the loss of all account settings in the profile (which may or may not be related to NAV finding & removing Trojan.ByteVerify previous day) I followed Ramona's notes (which are excellent - thanks) for restoring after Lost Mail & Newsgroups.
My problem is that I now have two profiles, neither of which canI get fully back to the previous state.
Running Netscape 7.02 on XP home SP1 I use three mail accounts on one ISP - one is the primary and the other two are aliases(secondaries) off the primary, so originally had three users in the account settings.
Using the original default profile, from which all the accounts had disappeared, I was able to add new account for the two aliases, but not the primary. I get an error "mail or newsgroup account already exists ...." when I try to add the primary user account. So I'm one critical account short.
Creating a new profile I am able to recreate all three accounts, but when it comes to sending mail from one of the aliases/secondaries I'm prompted to logon to the ISP with a user name which is the full email address of that alias - but not the user name I defined in the profile, the one recognised by the ISP, so my password isn't recognised. So I can't logon and use the accounts.
I'm at the point where I'm considering re-installing Netscape altogether. I backed up the three pop.accountname.net mail files and exported the address books before I started my attempts to fix.
My question's are; is the uninstall/re-install path the best way to go, and if so what steps are necessary to do it cleanly; is there a better way to resolve the problem?
Thanks for any further help you can offer ,
Mike
ps this is my first attempt at posting so I hope it's ok.

 

Welcome to the Forum, mike burnett!

Mike,

Uninstalling Netscape will do nothing, as your problem is with your Profile data (Mail) which is located separately from Program Files... A waste of effort for you.

Your three accounts which are listed are all with the same ISP, so when you look in Windows Explorer, do you see something similar to this:
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\profilename\*.slt\Mail\pop.ispname.net *
AND
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\profilename\*.slt\Mail\pop.ispname-1.net

* The Mail Account without the -1 should be your original Mail Account.

Open Netscape Mail
Click on Edit | Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings | Server Settings

Scroll to the bottom of the window, until you see: "Local directory "
Check the path in that field
If it doesn't point to the original Mail Account, then change the path accordingly.

Close Netscape, then reopen. Can you access your Mail now?

I assume you've done this once, but no harm in trying again. If no joy, then I suggest creating a new Profile, and manually copy your files from the old Profile. See: Creating a New Profile

Ramona

 

Ramona,
thanks for your reply, but my problem isn't getting my mail back, I can do that just fine. My problem is that I cannot build a new profile that works the same as the old one.
It all looks precisely the same with the fields, Account Name (mike99), Your Name (mrburnett), Email (mrburnett@xyz.com.au), all exactly as before but,
for some reason, when attempt to use it I get prompted to login to the ISP with the email address (mrburnett@xyz.com.au), not the account name (mike99). Since I'm only known to the ISP as mike99 my login doesn't get accepted.
Tried building a new profile twice and the same thing happens. (I've got a laptop running 7.2 which I'm using for comparison and that all works cleanly.)
I've got a feeling something has got corrupted some place so the wrong field is getting selected when logging in and I figured that if I completely remove all of Netscape (both program and profiles) from the active disk do a fresh install and then restore mail and address files that should obliterate the problem.
thanks & regards
Mike

 

Check your preferences first. Privacy|Passwords|Stored passwords.
Scroll down until you see something about your account, and delete that.
I am trying to understand what you are saying, but what you call account name can be anything, and possibly nothing. What counts is the username and the pop server. And the password should be listed in: mrburnett@pop.xyz.com.au.
That mike99 seems to me an alias, which never enters in the Server settings. Or do it? Or, I have no idea how you are set up.

 

Under Passwords/Stored Passwords there is reference to only one user, which isn't mine.
The 'account' I've problems with is this one:-
In Netscape Mail & NewsGroups select a "Name" from the list on the left of the screen, then under "Accounts ", select "View Settings for this account ". This brings up a window called "Account Settings ", which has a number of fields the first one of which is "Account Name ". This is where I first put my ISP alias name of 'mike99'.In the next window in the tree, which is "Server Settings" there are three fields, Pop server name, User name (which I also make mike99) and the Port number.
Its also the account I referred to when I mentioned below that I couldn't add an account because it already existed, though it doesn't appear in the name list.

What puzzles me is where Netscape is getting the name that it uses in the prompt when logging on to send a mail item. If I change the email address in the account definition Netscape still uses the old one as the name identification.

 

Mike,

I believe your settings, somewhere, are what is keeping you going in circles. The fact that your user name comes up as the full email adddress is what makes me suspect this is so. It is often useful to completely delete the Account, then recreate. Leave it on the HD, but delete it in Netscape Mail.

Do this:
Open Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings
Edit | Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings
Highlight the Problem Account

At the bottom of the Accounts List there are three buttons
Click on: Remove Account
Close Netscape, then restart

Now add the account again, close Netscape so it can write the changes to prefs.js, then reopen.

If you had any problems setting up, then take a look at this page for setting up Mail & Newsgroups: Mail Account Setup

HTH,

Ramona

 

thanks, been there, done that (mutiple times) and still the same. Have also tried creating new profile, deleting prefs.js from existing profile, nothing seems to help.
Have also noticed in event viewer that about the time this problem started there was an application crash in Netscape followed by a Dr Watson dump (c0000005/6E6F6320). Since then there have been 4 further Netscape hangs - none prior.
regards
mike

 

Mike,

Just went through the thread again to update myself, and noted that your email address is mrburnett@pop.xyz.com.au. Shouldn't mrburnett be used in the "User Name" field? I believe Westside already pointed this out, but in your frustration you might have missed what he said:

Ramona

 

have tried that and it makes no difference - when I attempt to send a mail item I still get the prompt to login for a user name of "mrburnett@xyz.com.au" irrespective of any field value.
Please note that I'm using field values throughout precisely as I wrote them down when I first created the config. eighteen months ago, and I'm also running a second PC which uses exactly the same values successfully, and I've done a screen by screen compare to check.

 

Mike,

At this point, I would say that you should scrap your current Profiles, after backing up. Uninstall Netscape, including the GRE folder and the Program Files Netscape Folder, then start all over again.

Don't use anything from your old Profiles other than Address Book, and Bookmarks. Recreate all Mail Accounts. It may, or may not help to uninstall Netscape, but I have gone thru my bag of tricks, and nothing seems to work.

One thing no one has asked, is if you are using any Themes or Extensions?

Ramona

 

Ramona,
thanks, now the problem is getting really weird, & no I'm not using Themes or extensions.
I've uninstalled Netscape and moved the Netscape & Profile directories to another drive. Then installed Netscape 7.02 from netscape/ca, hand built a new default profile & the problem is still there!
There are three users, A, B & C. Whichever user id (A, B or C) & its password I use for the outgoing server (SMTP) definition & in password manager A & C are able to send. When I use user id B to send I get the error even when its user id & password are defined in the outgoing server definition.
I've email'd my ISP with the problem in case there's anything odd their end in that user set-up, though it's hard to see what.
regards
Mike
PS 7.02 doesn't seem to include GRE as there was no folder before or after.

 

Mike,

To be certain that you had not had either Mozilla, or a later Version of Netscape on your system, I suggested the deletion of that folder:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\mozilla.org\GRE

This is getting weirder by weirder, and hopefully your ISP will be able to confirm that your settings are correct.

Ramona

 

Ramona,
I searched for mozilla and GRE on the 7.01 PC (the one with the problem). There is no reference to GRE and the only mozilla reference appears in Docs&Settings\Owner\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles.
They do both appear as per your note on the laptop thats running 7.1.

Which I guess leads me to two questions,
if I uninstall and remove 7.01 and then install a newer version such as 7.1 can the mail files be copied over in the same way or are they vsn. specific?
are there any other locations where the reference to the email address might get placed? I've used the XP search function and it only finds it in prefs.js and nsmail.eml in Local Settings\Temp.

However at the moment I've paused attempting to fix because I can get the PC to a point where my wife can deal with her emails as she's at a critical point in her workload, and I've got my trusty W95/Netscape4.7 to fallback to!

regards
Mike

 

The Mail files are not version specific, and in fact you can copy Communicator Mail Files without the SNM extension to Netscape 7.2, Mozilla 1.7.5, or Thunderbird 1.0.

Considering the problems you are having, I would manually copy the Mail files, i.e, copy Inbox, and let it overwrite the existing Inbox (assuming you have no Mail in a newly created profile).

The Mail subfolder located in the *.slt folder and the prefs.js file are definitely important. nsmail.eml is not a standard Netscape file. That is an email, and I wonder if you opened the file to check its contents? I'm not familiar with Local Settings\Temp, so you will have to tell me what that is, as I am still running 98SE...

There are also other Mail JS files, but the new install with a pristine Profile will give you files with no information re Mail until you create the Mail Accounts.

Does your ISP require a password for outgoing (SMTP) Mail? Normally this is not required, and after you create the Default or first Mail Account, then the existing outgoing (SMTP) username will be used. It isn't necessary to add anything else to SMTP settings for a POP account.

BTW, have you heard anything from your ISP?

As to what version to install, I would definitely forego the pleasure of Netscape 7.1 as there are some rather serious bugs in that Version. Netscape 7.2 has some security vulnerabilities which may, or may not be important to you. You can read about them in the sticky at the top of the Forum, where I post the listing for the most recent security vulnerabilities.

Mozilla 1.7.5 is an excellent browser, and the only difference between Mozilla and Netscape, is that there is no AIM/NIM, and you can't access Webmail thru Mail & Newsgroups Accounts. Otherwise it is the same, and very stable, and so many more features than you now have in Netscape 7.02.

Now, after having said that, you may also want to try Firefox 1.0, with its companion Mail Client, Thunderbird 1.0. They are excellent applications, stable, easily tweaked to your liking, and so fast!

Ramona