In Netscape 7.1, renamed folder, subfolders disappeared

I have searched the existing messages regarding lost mail, and I believe my situation is a little different. In my local mail for Netscape 7.1, I renamed a folder (itself a subfolder) and when I did that every subfolder below it displayed with question marks for the number of messages within and the overall folder size. When I selected any one of those subfolders, they appeared now to be empty. I figured that closing and reopening Netscape would solve the issue. Wrong.

So, I have read and tried the solution posted in the Mozilla bug db -- basically to go into the file system, find the corresponding .sbd folder, which will carry yet the old name, rename it to the new name, and, voila, the subfolders should again appear in the Netscape mail lineup. I tried it, without realizing that there were TWO such .sbd folders, because my renamed folder was itself a subfolder, and I got the original container folder to display again, but its subfolders (which are still there in the file system) are still not recognized by the program.

I don't want to fool around with file system files any more on my own. I think the problem now comes down to getting Netscape mail to recognize the subfolders (each of which appears in the file system twice, once with just the folder name and once with the folder name and the file extension .msf ) which are still there in the file system.

Any suggestions?

 

You said that you renamed in your Local Mail. Could you tell us where and how did you do it? I am not sure that I understand what you did.
There is a folder called Local Folders ". It is not used much, under normal conditions, unless you automatically migrated mail from NS4.x or Outlook Express, or stuff like that.

 

In my Netscape email, some of the folders are stored on the server. If I understand this correctly, I have a window onto these files in Netscape, but the data itself resides nowhere on my machine. I also have a set of folders -- considerably more, with considerably more mail -- in local mail. The root node for all the local mail is "Local Folders," which I believe is a name assigned by Netscape.

To rename one of those folders -- itself a subfolder and also containing some ten to fifteen subfolders -- I selected its node in Netscape and then used the menu command (File > Rename Folder) to rename it. As soon as I did this, the subfolders it contained now each displayed with a series of question marks both where the number of email messages and where the size of the data in the folder usually appears. I ought to have realized right then that there was a serious problem and put the folder back to its original name. Instead, thinking it a minor blip, I closed and reopened Netscape. When I did that, the subfolders no longer appeared in the lineup of local mail.

In the file system, I can see the corresponding files. The mail is still there. But I have severed Netscape's connection to it, at least in terms of how it displays messages and their folders. This is how it seems to me, at any rate. There is a known bug -- which I wish I had known about -- with regard to renaming folders in Netscape. The subfolders disappear, and to get them back you are supposed to go into the file system and change the .sbd folder, which at this point still has the old name, to the new name. But that did not work for me. I'm thinking it did not work for me because there are actually two .sbd folders associated with the folder I attempted to rename. And I followed this procedure, changing the .sbd folder to the new name, with only one.

Here's the relevant folder structure --

| -10g editing
--|- 10g style discussions
---- | - <tons of subfolders>

In the file system, there is a 10g style discussions.sbd folder directly in the mail folder (Program Files\Netscape\Users\default\Mail). There is also a 10g editing.sbd, and within it is another 10g style discussions.sbd folder. In this folder, I can see all the subfolders that no longer appear in Netscape's visual window onto these files.

I am not a technical person, and I do not want to fiddle around in either the file system or Netscape's visual interface until I know exactly what I ought to do. So far, our technical people have been no help at all.

I am hoping that someone in the online community has dealt with a problem like this one before. I see several postings regarding lost mail, but I was afraid to try the one very long procedure I saw that involved profiles until I know for certain that this fix would work for my situation as well. I really, really do not want to lose that mail.

<sigh>

 

Welcome to the Forum, Odile!

Odile,

I tried to replicate your problem using Netscape 7.2, and no matter how many folders and subfolders I renamed, I couldn't lose a single folder!

Here is the before: http://home.att.net/~cherokee68/NS7befor.jpg

Here is the after: http://home.att.net/~cherokee68/NS7aftr.jpg

You can see that I added, deleted, and renamed, and all was saved.

I would like to take a look at the bug, please, if you would furnish us with the link.

Have you tried renaming ALL subfolders to the new name? In that regard, have you tried changing the name on ALL folders/subfolders back to the original name?

You are using a very obsolete browser, and once you get your mail back, if your IT person will agree, you should definitely update either to Mozilla 1.7.12, or to Firefox 1.0.7 (standalone browser), and Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Mail Client).

 

How strange, and all I did was to delete the word "discussions" from the folder. The program was immediately puzzled.

The bug is posted here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=232668

And the text is as follows:

When renaming a folder that contains sub-folders, access to the subfolder is lost/hidden. Suppose there is a folder tree as such:

junk

|- subjunk

|- (files)


if folder "junk" is renamed to "newjunk ", it dutifully is renamed and rearranges itself in the Mail tree alphabetically, although leaving the contents of "subjunk" apparently empty. Checking for the reference files and folders within Windows, however, shows that the "junk" and "junk.msf" files are renamed correctly, however the "junk.sbd" folder (that which contains the files of interest) is not renamed to match. Renaming the folder to match the new name access to the files from within Mail.

. . . .

I'm on Windows NT, if that makes any sort of difference to the behavior.

Thank you so much for taking a look at this. I'm locked out of a certain percentage of my work right now, because so much of our discussion (with folks scattered all over the country and, indeed, in other countries) is carried out in email. The issues and our decisions are all recorded there.

 

I should add that currently both .sbd folders carry the old name (10g style discussions) and that that folder, with its original name, does appear in with the local folders. But none of its subfolder appear. All is correct in the file system, as far as I know. But somehow I severed the link from Netscape's view into the file system with respect to this container folder and its contained folders. At this point, I wouldn't know what to rename things to: all the names match.

I am mystified.

 

Well, I have just solved the problem, but I'm not sure that I can explain the fix without the discussion becoming very confusing.

To recap what I had originally tried . . . following the directions as posted in the bug db, I looked in the file system for an .sbd folder that retained the old name (10g style discussions). I found one and changed its name to the new name (10g style), not realizing that because this folder was itself the subfolder of another, another .sbd folder existed that also needed to be changed. That folder appeared another level deep in the mail hierarchy, within the parent folder (so, in this case, 10g editing.sbd). Alongside that .sbd folder, within the parent folder directory, were two more files that mapped to this one: one without a visible file extension, one with the extension .msf. When I said earlier that I saw nothing left to rename (which statement prompted me now to take another look), I realized that I had converted everything back to the former name but for these two files. I realized also that there were *both* a 10g style.sbd and a 10g style discussions.sbd now in the parent directory.

I left the .sbd folders alone, but I renamed the two corresponding files 10g style and 10g style.msf back to the original name so that everything but the one .sbd folder matched. I didn't want to touch that one, since that is the one Netscape could still see. It contained no subfolders, and that's why Netscape could not see the subfolders. Those subfolders were all in the other .sbd file that Netscape was not recognizing -- and I'm guessing that the view or the structure of the view, or something along those lines, is dependent upon these other entities which exist alongside the .sbd folders. These other entities are accompanied by a strange icon and the files (or whatever they are) seem not to be readable.

Now I reopened Netscape, and all the subfolders were back! Whewwwwww. Oddly enough, the folder which had before carried the old name, but displayed no subfolders, now carried the *new* name. In the file system, the .sbd folder with the old name had the subfolders and the .sbd folder with the new name did not. Go figure.

I then created a brand new mail folder with an entirely different name and moved each of the subfolders into it. I did this because, at this point, I had a strange interconnection between old and new name in the file system, and I did not want to continue storing mail under those circumstances. All of this in the Netscape view on mail, of course, not in the file system.

The kicker to all this is that when I closed and reopened Netscape again, the now-empty container folder displayed the old name once again. Anyway, with its mail now safely stored in a new folder, I deleted it.

Bizarre. I will never, ever rename a folder in this mail program again. If I want a new name, I'll create a new folder. I'll look into upgrading this program as well, but I do need to keep all this mail. <sigh>

Thanks for taking a look at this. I don't know why renaming worked fine for you when it choked big time on me. Jupiter aligned with Mars, perhaps.