Mail & Newsgroup Accounts disappear

Hi Ramona:

I confronted two problems on Netscape 7 on my wife's Notebook:

1) While I was trying to write this message in BBS, the Netscape froze twice, saying it confronted some problem and has to close down.

2) The two e-mail accounts I set up and the newsgroup accounts I set up have comepletely disappeared with nothing but the free web accounting [ Netscape's] entry and the Netscape ads in the message section. I tried to open the profile manager and it would only give me a blank browser page.
I wonder what's happening.

Moorty

 

Hi Moorty,

For your disappearing Mail:
Close Netscape
Do a "Find" for Inbox.msf
Delete the file
Don't delete the Inbox file, with no extension
Open Netscape, and your Mail messages should be visible again.
You may have to delete all *.msf files, but for now try just the Inbox.msf.

If you're having this problem, you might want to start backing up your Profiles folder more frequently, or at least your Mail folder.

On your Profile Manager problem, you can't edit Profiles with Netscape open. That's why you're getting a blank page. Ensure that Netscape is closed when editing everything but the user.js file. That file is the only exception to the rule.

Ramona

 

Hi Ramona:

Thanks for your reply.

I put a search for Inbox.msf file, but it didn't find any nor any other .msf files.

Right now I uninstalled the pccillin antivirus software completely [I am putting up another software-AVG] and watching to see if it makes any difference, because it gave me trouble previously.

Moorty

 

Moorty,

No .msf files?

When you open Windows Explorer, and look in your Mail Folder, what do you see?

Ramona

 

I am sorry, but I just don't see a Mail folder either in My Documents or in Netscape or anywhere in Windows Explorer. Where exactly do I look for this Mail folder in the Windows Explorer?

 

Hi Moorty,

Look in your Profiles folder located in:

Win98
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\UserName\*.slt

Win2K/XP
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\UserName\*.slt

 

Sorry, I can't find that either. I put in *.slt and Mozilla Profiles in the search and nothing came up.

Moorty

 

Moorty,

Did you eyeball those folders in your Application Data folder?

 

Hi Ramona:

After I removed PCCillin and installed some other (AVG) antivirus, the problem seems to have been solved. For two nights in a row, the mail folders (and news folder too last night) did not disappear.

Thanks for persisting.

I couldn't find the Application Data folder on the Notebook for some reason (may be because I to restore the hard disk for some reason and start all over again), but I could on my desk top and I saw the user .slf (or whatever is the extension you mentioned) files in the mozilla mail folder. Once I found them what would I do? Just remove them? (I mean if the old problem recurs.)

Moorty

 

Hi Moorty,

Glad to hear that you solved the problem with your AV Program switch.

If your wife's laptop runs Windows XP, those files are hidden, and you would have to enable Windows to "Show All Files ", or similar terminology, within Windows Explorer.

On your Desktop, if you have problems again, then yes... delete the files in your Mail folder, with the .msf extension: Inbox.msf, Sent.msf, etc. Be sure to close Netscape first.

I have had to do this myself a couple of times lately. It seems to me that the longer you use Netscape 7.0 Mail, the more frequently your summary files (msf) have to be rebuilt. I'm also seeing this problem being reported on the NG's frequently.

Ramona