Netscape 7.1 Inbox disappeared

Just this to conclude my experience with 7.1. I found that 7.1 is completely unreliable at some websites. All one needs to do is to look at the Home Page . They give a warning to update it. I don't know if the mail issue would be solved, though.
Of course, I discussed, at the end of my previous post how to copy/paste the old files, after renaming them. Best solution is, with Netscape closed, to copy the Inbox, rename it, and then copy or cut, and place it in the new account folder.
And, Judy, what do you mean by Verizon netmail? I would think that it is webmail, or do you mean a verizon.net account? Anyway Verizon FAQs are infuriating because they never give a simple and straight answer, and do not acknowledge the existence of anything but Microsoft supported mailers.

 

This was unsuccessful.

It is webmail, yes, a verizon.net account.
Something else weird is happening: every time I look at that inbox file it grows exponentially. It's now 19+kb. So it looks like everything new that comes in is being added to it, even though there are now only 76 messages in my inbox. I must say I'm totally disheartened. I'm going to have to get another email program before this one explodes.

 

And I forgot to add, appropos of am earlier posting, I back up everything on my computer once a week. Except my email, of course.... I actually don't know how to do it, although at this point, I don't think it matters.

 

Judy,

Don't give up yet. Try this:

Close Netscape & Quick Launch
Browse to the Mail Account Folder
Delete all files with the .msf extension
They will be rebuilt on reopening Netscape

Did you try copying the backup of your prefs.js file to the *.slt folder?

Let us know if this helps...

To back up your entire Profile, including Mail & Newsgroups:
Create a folder on your HDD, and name it, e.g., C:\Backup
Browse to the ~Application Data\Mozilla folder, and copy the Profiles folder
Paste it into the C:\Backup folder.

 

I think that I start understanding what's going on. Ramona, obviously, has, also been understanding all along.
Judy, tell me if I understand what is going on, and, will give some definitions, in the process. To me, at least, webmail is mail which you get to access at the ISP website. There is no Inbox there, but only what is on the server.
If the size of the Inbox increases, you must have a corrupt .msf file. This has been happening to me, with my yahoo.com account. Every time that I logged in, I was seeing, at least two identical copies of the same account on server mail. Mail which had been downloaded, and, was no longer on server, was fine.
I don't understand the numbers, in your case, and you say that you have only 76 messages in the Inbox. How determined. Was any duplicate?
I am trying to get a handle on this, but mind what Ramona is saying.

 

At the very bottom of the inbox on the right it tells me how many unread messages there are and how many messgaes in total.
And now the inbox is 20,520kb with 78 messages (I received a half dozen in the last couple of hours that I deleted).
Another question: is it also a bad idea to have a large trash file? Mine is really huge as I rarely empty it. Is that causing a problem?

Did it twice; no result.

I never backed up that file.
I haven't mentioned another anomalie which made me uneasy but didn't really worry me: beginning about a month ago, when I launch 7.1 I get a window asking me to select my user profile, then I have to click on a button to open the program. I never had that before: I would click on the Mail and Newsgroups icon and my inbox would immediately appear.

 

Yes, in a way. The mail which you trash remains associated, in the background to the Inbox. This is done if you want to get some mail back. But, it never had any purpose. So, if you don't Compact the Inbox, its size will increase, continuously, even though you may delete all messages.
I learned this long ago, when a friend of mine had a 20 MB Inbox, and only three messages. After he compacted the Inbox (File|Compact, or right click|compact) the Inbox size dropped down to a few Kbs.
I think that this your problem. It would not help to delete the .msf file.

This is useful only if something happened to the preference file. Usually, because more than one program used the same profile.
You should not be asked to select a profile, if you have only one profile. But, if you created a new profile, even for a test, you would be asked every time.

 

I didn't create a new profile; the box asks me to select between my regular user name and "default user." Nothing had changed, this box just appeared about a month ago and is there now every time I open the mail program.

Here's what's happened since last evening: I culled some important correspondence from the Sent file and put it in a separate folder. Then this morning I decided I would perhaps empty the Trash and thin out the Sent file, which is also large. When I opened 7.1 for my mail, I had NO Trash and NO Sent files. The line at the bottom said "building the summary file..." After ten or fifteen minutes with nothing happening (and then I couldn't return to the Inbox without exiting and reopening), I looked into SeaMonkey and Thunderbird and downloaded Thunderbird. It copied all of my settings and info so I had to do nothing, which was a pleasant surprise. Then I got very anxious because when I looked in the Trash file it wasn't there, and there was the "building the summary file" line. I thought oh no, I've managed to import all of the problems from Netscape to Thunderbird. However, the Trash eventually appeared, as did the Sent, and they both (after "building" for about a half hour) eventually reappeared in the 7.1 files too. Of course, nothing that was previously lost reappeared in either inbox.
So. I am now getting used to Thunderbird. The one thing that was not imported from Netscape was my address book. I couldn't export it to Tbird so I'll have to deal with it another way. Not a big deal.
So what do I do with 7.1 now? Shall I remove it completely from my computer? When new emails come in, they still come to Netscape as well as now to TBird. And by the way, the TBird Inbox has 20,631KB. What's up with that? It was imported from Netscape, but with only 87 messages currently showing in the Inbox--same as with Netscape. If I delete NS, do I still have the problem of the corrupted TBird Inbox?

 

I think that I alluded before to the fact that if mail is trashed, and the other folders are not compacted, the mail would remain, in the Inbox or Sent, in the background. So, you may have 2000 message lurking behind the corner, but only a few are visible. I am not sure what if being imported to Thunderbird, only the good mail, or the extra baggage? My wife, who uses only one account, has the most mail. My XP reports the size of the file in MB, if over 1,000 Kb. So, her Inbox is 3.6 MB, and her Sent folder, which has some 200 e-mails, almost 7MB. The .msf, or index (summary) files, are small, 40Kb for the Inbox.msf. If deleted, they will be rebuilt, based on the equivalent file, without the .msf. How large are the .msf files?

 

Inbox 20,699KB, msf 40KB
Sent 614,365KB, msf 3652KB
Trash 677,110KB, msf 5568
I emptied the trash in Netscape but I (obviously) haven't done so yet in Thunderbird...

 

Did you read/understand the beginning of my previous e-mail? It does not seem like, if you don't say if you compacted the folders. The Inbox is ok, while the Sent and Trash are enormous.
This thread has been going on so long that I don't recall if you said that you have only one account name in your Mail, or do you have one with the -1. Ramona asked a question in message 5, I think, but I cannot find a reply.

 

Unless I misunderstood, I believe Ramona advised against compacting a large file as she said it might cause a crash.

The thing about the Inbox is it has less than 100 emails in it: most of those KBs that are showing the size of the Inbox before I lost 2000 emails. This is the crux of the whole problem.
I intend to separate out what I think I need from the Trash and Sent into subfolders and delete the rest but it's a big job and I've only just begun (and I'm now away from that computer until Sunday night).

And I do only have the one account.

 

Judy,

I did advise against trying to compact until you had moved mail out of the Inbox to subfolders. However, now that you have posted the actual size, there is certainly no problem in compacting, as Westside advises.

 

I was referring to the above from Ramona's post#5. I gave a more extensive path for your information. It may not be enough, but you should determine if you have more than one account, but on your hard drive, not in the program.
If your hard drive does not have at least two account folder, I don't have a clue what happened.
Anyway compacting may take forever, with large folder, but it is not harmful.

 

Thanks, both of you. When I return to my home computer tomorrow evening, I will look again for a different account, compact the Inbox and start weeding and deleting the Trash and Sent! I'll let you know what I find.

 

Judy,
delete the mail, and start anew with the Sent (like Olesent) folder by renaming it to any thing you want. Delete the Sent.msf file. When you reopen your program, you should have an empty Sent folder, as well as very large Olesent. You can start, later, weeding out its contents, or creating subfolders.

 

Thank you--I will!

 

Good evening.

I've now dealt with the Sent and Trash in both NS 7.1 and Thunderbird, and am no longer worried about any of that.

My remaining concern is that the Inboxes in both programs keep growing, despite the fact that I've only got about 100 emails in them. They're now up to 37,000KB. Should I take those emails, save them in a new folder and empty the Inboxes? (I've totally given up on ever seeing any of the lost 2000 again).

And if I do that, I should probably uninstall 7.1 and be done with it....

 

Judy,
if the Inbox file increases, and you see only about 100 e-mails, you are either not looking at the right Inbox file, or you did not compact that file,
or the Inbox.msf file is corrupt.
It is easy to establish the last possibility. With your program closed, go to Windows Explorer, and to the Mail, and delete the Inbox.msf file. Exit Windows Explorer, and reopen your program. Since you were seeing only 100 e-mails, there could be no obvious difference in your mail. I have seen duplicates of the same e-mails, or more than that, and fewer e-mails when I reopened the mail program.
I think that we went through the compacting routine. If a lot of those messages were not removed from the background in the Inbox, you would have a very large file. The increasing could be due to the corrupt header (.msf) file. But 37 Mb is not so much. I received a .zip file, of 6 MB, with pictures, so it is easy to have the Inbox grow.
Now, is this going on only in NS7.1? If you compacted the folder, and cleaned up the .msf file, you should not have the same problem in both NS7.1 and Thunderbird. You can cut and paste the Unbox, and save it somewhere, and delete the Inbox.msf file. Then, reopen 7.1, and you should have nothing in the Inbox. The Inbox would, now be empty in Windows Explorer.
Now, you can cut the saved Inbox file, and paste it in the original location.
Reopen your mail. You should see the 100 e-mails. Now, back in Windows Explorer, how large is the Inbox?
If you move out the Inbox, and still see 100 e-mail, you must not have the correct path. This is all I can say now.

 

Just a quickie to tell you that I haven't tried your latest fix as I've been swamped with work and am now away until next week. I'll be in touch then.

Thanks.