netscape crashes

My boss has been using Netscape Communicator 4.7 to read his email for ages, but today it suddenly started crashing on opening with a Watson for windows message: Exception: Access violation (0xc0000005), address:0X00583cc1.
When I checked his machine, his sentmail and trash snm files had been modified prior to the problem, but deleting them doesn't seem to help.
Can anyone help please?

 

Welcome to the Forum!

Hi Pam,

Close Communicator.

Delete netscape.hst:
C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\username

Delete the cache folder:
C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\username\Cache

These files willl be rebuilt.

If the problem persists, post back, and we can pursue the problem. As simple as it is, this is frequently the fix for the error your boss received.

Also, when you checked the Sent and Trash .snm files, how had they been modified?

Ramona

 

Really grateful for such a quick reply Ramona - many thanks.
I did as you said and am sorry to say that Netscape Communcator still crashes after opening with the same error message in netscape exe.
To answer your question - I don't really know how the snm files had been modified. I just ran a find file - most recently modified, to see if my boss had accidentally modified any critical files, and these 2 snm files showed up as changed at around the time of the first crash.
Incidentally, we have both re loaded netscape 4.79 from the web in an attempt to start again, but without uninstalling the old version. I'm a little nervous of losing bookmarks, old email and address book.
Any ideas what I should try next?
Pam

 

Hi Pam,

Why don't you try a couple of things before going to the trouble of reinstalling:

With Netscape closed:
Do a "Find" for nsreg.dat
Delete the file
You can back up the file before deleting, if you wish.
This is your Netscape Registry file.

Start Netscape
The Profile Manager will ask for a profile name. Give the current/same profile name. Let us know if the browser is still crashing.

As far as losing anything on a reinstall, it won't happen if you back up the Users Folder first. I also have a guideline for a "Clean" install: Performing a "Clean" Install.

I'll be happy to walk you through it.

Ramona