[Can't delete messages in Outlook Express 6]

The delete will not delete my email message nor will the delete on the keyboard nor using the delete by right-clicking. I cannot move the message to the delete box or remove it by using ctrl D! Can anyone help me? I am using Windows Me if that has anything to do with it.

 

Hi Sam,

Outlook Express mailbox files (*.dbx) can become corrupted, this can cause all sorts of woes.

You could determine whether it's corrupted dbx files, or something that's actually gone wrong with Outlook Express itself - this would narrow it down usefully.

1) close Outlook Express
2) make yourself a folder, let's say C:\OEtest
3) use File Finder, look for files called *.dbx
4) select all the dbx files it finds, and choose "Cut "...
5) ...and Paste them into your C:\OEtest folder
6) open Outlook Express

(step 5 has kept your current email safe while we narrow down the problem)

(at step 6, Outlook Express won't be able to find its dbx files - this causes OE to create a fresh minimal set of dbx files, just enough to get the program to run - at least we know they will not be corrupt)

==

Now, try writing a dummy email message, and Save it (it will save into your Drafts folder); try to delete this message; does it delete OK?

If it deletes OK, then the problem was down to corrupt mailbox(es)...

...if you still can't delete, then the problem's with Outlook Express itself

let us know what happens, pls?


good luck & best wishes, HJ.

 

fixing email delete feature

Ok, the message deleted. However, everything is now deleted. When I opened Outlook, there was nothing there but your message. Can I get any of my messages back?

 

Hi

you will almost certainly be able to recover your messages - perhaps a very few might be lost (ones in the part of the file(s) which are corrupted)

I feel the next thing to do is to put your original set of mailboxes back where they came from, but this time copy the dbx files (rather than moving them) - that way we have a "safety net" left behind in C:\OEtest

- close Outlook Express
- delete all the "new" dbx files from Outlook Express' folder
- select all the files in C:\OEtest & choose "Copy "...
- ...Paste back into Outlook Express' folder

(I'm sure you could have worked that one out yourself )

==

OK. Next thing to do (while you have a safety copy) is to determine whether the delete problem affects all your Outlook Express folders, or just some of them

If the answer is "problem affects all OE folders ", then:
- close Outlook Express
- delete (only) the file folders.dbx in your OE folder
- open Outlook Express
- see what you get & let us know

(this may well solve the delete problem but is non-ideal, as you lose some "account" information. The actual messages should still be there, but some will have forgotten which "account" they belong to)

If instead the answer is that only some folders have the problem, pls describe what you have found

==

OE mailbox corruption tends to happen when
- mailboxes get large
- "compact messages in background" is enabled

It's a very good idea to disable background compacting (Tools > Options > Maintenance tab)

==

There are some "recover your OE mailbox" utilities (for recovering emails from corrupt dbx files), I've heard they work well but have no personal experience with any. However BBS has people who know of these things and will be able to advise you

==

Afterthought: when you moved the dbx files from OE folder into C:\OEtest, did you receive any alert along the lines of "Are you sure you want to move the read only file [anyname.dbx]" ?


best wishes, HJ

 

Thanks and will get back to you...

Off to work - I'll try to get on here later tonight or tomorrow. I only copied the files in the first place as was afraid to cut.

 

oh dear

this just became less straightforward!

If I'm understanding you correctly, ie you didn't actually remove the dbx files from OE's folder, it raises two questions:
1) why did the test message delete OK
2) what's happened to your messages

The only interpretation I can put on it is that the original "won't delete" problem was confined to some folder(s) only, not including your drafts folder - which is perfectly believable, just not what I was expecting

Far more worrying is that you cannot now find the messages - if you didn't remove the dbx files, where have they gone to?

Would like you to try: (with OE not running) using file finder again, searching for all dbx files - this should find the dbx files in OE's folder, and also the copies in C:\OEtest...

...could you please compare the sizes of the corresponding files - ie, is Inbox.dbx (in OE's folder) the same size as Inbox.dbx (in C:\OEtest), etc. (same for the other pairs)

would like to get a better handle on what's going on here before going too much further!


best wishes, HJ

 

May be worse

I'm sorry but I need to get to bed and have been busy. I tried to open one of the folders in my test folder - the inbox - to see if messages were still there. I got the on-screen message to choose what program to open it with and I guess I clicked on something and all the *dbx folders switched to the one that looks like wordpad with the A on it. When I try to open one now, the computer tells me "Invalid or corrupt jarfile." What the heck is that?

BTW, I can delete in Outlook, any folder message, but I still got a message today telling me that my mailbox is almost full when it says 10 messages - since last night.

Talk to you tomorrow - thanks for your time..

Sam 46

 

Hi Sam

sorry to keep you, work got busy

it's probably not as bad as it looks

dbx files don't need / shouldn't have an association (unless you have 3rd party software frinst Autocad)

(jarfile: the other program seems to consider the DBX files as Java applets?? how bizarre)

I'd like you to check the time/date of the file C:\OEtest\Inbox.dbx; try to determine whether the date shown corresponds to the time when you tried opening it with the other program, or is it prior to that

this will tell us whether the other program mangled the Inbox.dbx file

try this, if it works it will make life easier:
- copy the green lines below, paste into Notepad, save it as a batch file by calling it BBS01.BAT;
- double click BBS01.BAT to run it;
- look in the root folder of C:\ for the results file C:\4BBS01.TXT

@echo off
dir c:\*.dbx /s > C:\4BBS01.TXT
echo All done, you may close the window safely
exit

4BBS01.TXT will list all your dbx files and tell us times and sizes etc

it's just a text file, so you can copy the contents and paste into a post for BBS, might answer a lot of questions at the same time

==

you don't actually ever open DBX files with a program yourself*, Outlook Express does it for you. Manipulating the contents of these files is done by Importing and Exporting their contents while you are within Outlook Express or similar.

(*apart from when attempting to recover trashed mailboxes with a bespoke program made for the purpose)

==

pls could you clarify this a little for us

- Outlook really means Microsoft Outlook? (ie, you are running both Outlook Express and Outlook on the computer)(BTW Outlook uses PST files not DBX)
- "I still got a message today" your use of the word "still" worries me here. Is this an additional problam with the computer / was it happening before the problem with Outlook Express / occur at the same time as the OE problem
- "mailbox is almost full when it says 10 messages" mailbox as in Outlook? or at your ISP? or what?

==

am trying to lay my hands on a computer running ME to dummy run a few things

breaking the unfortunate file association won't be too hard (but as the moment is less important than trying to keep your messages safe, if we can)


best wishes, HJ

 

I guess I'm a Beginner

Good Evening,

You lost me there somewhere. What I meant by the message in Outlook was that because I couldn't delete any messages, I was getting a message from the Administrator telling me my mailbox was almost full. Then when I was able to delete following your instructions, not only did I delete the test message, I deleted everything. Then I got 10 new messages including yours, and yet I still got a message from the Admin. about my mailbox being almost full.

I saved all the folders in a new folder OE test, but can't do anything with them as they converted to the type I mentioned with the blue lines on them and the red A. All my messages including quite a few pictures sent to me were in the inbox folder which I now can't open. What program should I try opening them with?

Does this make sense?

Sorry - Sam 46

 

Hi Sam

some of it makes sense, some leaves me puzzled

mainly, I'm confused because you have mentioned Outlook as well as Outlook Express

these are different programs ! - but both can be used for email

Outlook keeps its messages in a PST file;
Outlook Express keeps its messages in DBX files

when you started the thread you described a problem with Outlook Express; but then

...which seems to mean that you are also getting problems with Outlook (as well as with Outlook Express). On the other hand, you might just have said Outlook as an abbreviation for Outlook Express - not a good idea because folks might understandably get confused. Me - I got confused *

[SIZE= "1"]( * don't worry about that, situation normal, lots of things confuse me - "par for the course ", really )[/SIZE]

If two or more programs start to malfunction at the same time, it's usually more than just coincidence - pointing to something "else" clobbering both programs.

...which is why I'm trying to establish beyond doubt whether Outlook is involved as well. If you could pls let us know for certain about this - thx.

==

please don't try to open them with any program (see my earlier post) it doesn't work like that. Rather, you use OE, or other email clients, and "import" the contents from out of a dbx file.

[SIZE= "1"]...trouble is, in your case, the import will misfire because the dbx file(s) are corrupted, so you may be forced to use a recovery utility; there are special programs to recover the contents BUT we haven't got that far yet! (anyway I know of no free ones)[/SIZE]


First things first! Far more important at this point is to get Outlook Express running OK again, which is probably quite easy - I feel it would have happened already if you had "cut" the files rather than opting to copy them.

This should give you back Outlook Express running OK for sending and receiving email.

At this stage you will not yet be able to see your older messages, but we need to get OE running again properly, stably, so that no further problems will accrue.

Then we move on to recovering your older email (by this stage we will know that we can now hang onto it OK, without further problems)

==

Outlook Express can still be expected to be misfiring at the moment, because you did the "copy" rather than a "cut" - it had to be "cut" to restore normal operation, "copy" left the problems behind with the original dbx files.

==

my next post will give instructions for breaking the unfortunate file association

meanwhile if you could clear up for certain whether Outlook is involved as well, it will help lots


best wishes, HJ.

 

removing association from filetype (95,98 particularly)

Hi Sam

edit

now I've finally had a chance to play with ME for an hour or two, I find there's a much easier way: ME allows you to just delete the file type; and, it's not even hard to find the file type - in ME the associations can be sorted by the extension or by what the file type is called.

Now that's a *real* enhancement - it's a complete pig under 95 and 98.

The winfile method (below) still works perfectly well in ME, but it's much easier to do Tools>Folder Options, find the extension you want and simply Delete it. D'oh.

==

to remove an unfortunate file association a file type

1) Start > Run, type in winfile and choose OK

[SIZE= "1"](crumbs what's that? Good Ol' File Manager, still in residence from Win3.X days)[/SIZE]

2) use the left-hand pane to select the folder C:\OEtest;
3) use the right-hand pane to select any DBX file;
4) from the File menu, choose "Associate..." (like this)
5) in the Associate dialogue, select "none" (at the top of a very tall list)
6) choose OK

==

[SIZE= "1"]Advantages of this method (over Windows Explorer Folder Options > File Types)
- it can be really tedious finding the extension you need using Folder Options > File Types. Try looking for MSI - you'll have to go all the way down to "W" for "Windows Installer Package"
- can be used to "split off" one type from a multiple association without confusing the others; and what if there are so many that the one you are looking for is invisible, off the end of the list?

Drawback:
- file extensions more than 3 char long are a bit of a hassle (frinst JPEG) [/SIZE]


best wishes, HJ

 

mending Outlook Express / recovering your original email

Hi Sam

getting back to the point of rescuing your email and fixing Outlook Express

[SIZE= "1"]The plan: removing all the DBX files from Outlook Express' folder forces OE to (re)create fresh DBX files. After this has been done, the old messages from C:\OEtest can be imported back into Outlook Express (attachments and all) (but leaving the corruption behind).

The import process leaves the files in C:\OEtest unaffected.

Your Windows Address Book and email Account settings are unaffected by all of this.

The DBX file(s) which you attempted to open with [some other program] won't have been damaged unless the [other program] saved changes to the file(s); and, the fact they may have become associated to something else shouldn't affect the import process at all - at least I don't think so, it's all done from within Outlook Express.

You might wish to make a second copy of the DBX files to, say, C:\OEtest2 before you start if you are worried that the files in C:\OEtest have been mangled

You will probably want to make a copy of your current Inbox.dbx if you have picked up more email. If you do make a copy, keep it separately from the older inbox - then you can merge the newer with the older (import both)

! If you import the same stuff twice over ... you end up with two copies of everything [/SIZE]

==

1) Close Outlook Express;
2) Remove all the files from Outlook Express own folder (select all, and either cut them and paste to C:\OEtest2, or just delete them if you reckon that the DBX files you originally copied to C:\OEtest are still OK);
3) Start Outlook Express;
4) From Outlook Express File menu choose Import > Messages;
5) select "Microsoft Outlook Express 6 " from the list;
6) choose to "Import mail from an OE6 store directory "
7) use the Browse button, and navigate yourself to C:\OEtest
8) choose "All Folders "

Most likely: all folders except one will import with no problem; the problem folder will say "not all messages could be imported ", that's down to the corruption & these messages are probably lost (though you might possibly get somewhere with a "recover my DBX file" program)

Less likely: if the import process crashes (typically: error in DIRECTDB.DLL), you will want to identify which DBX file caused the problem, and then import only the others (select which folders at step 8 above)

[SIZE= "1"]You can give yourself a "clean slate" for another shot at it by following steps 1,2,3 above - it's not as if you have to get it right first time[/SIZE]

==

If it all goes horribly wrong (frinst. import fails before anything has happened): then you most likely have a heavy problem with C:\OEtest\folders.dbx.

But it probably won't, and all that happens is that you get your email back

==

Let us know what happens, pls


best wishes, HJ.

 

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but from the way the problem is described, I'd suspect a corrupt Deleted Items.dbx file. I'd try deleting it first. First make sure there's nothing in it that you want, close OE, delete the file and then open OE and try deleting a message.

 

Hi Zander glad you've looked in

what's got me puzzled is

this rather threw me.

if Sam didn't remove the dbx files, how the heck did anything get mended at that point?? - but then a message deletes OK (post #3) immediately afterwards the only way I could make head or tail of it was that this was deleting from the Drafts folder instead of some other folder, the one which Sam was trying at first (maybe/probably inbox) * - and that the drafts folder must have been OK all along, and also (unfortunately) the inbox may well still be knackered.

that's what made me think some particular folder(s) - all rather uncertain though

deleted.dbx tends to get big, big dbx corrupt more readily


best wishes, HJ.