.sbd files and disappearing mail folders

Hi there,

I am experiencing continuous problems with Netscape 7.1 as a mail client, on both XP Professional and Windows 2000 machines.

In all cases I have copied the local mail folders/files into a new location on the hard-drive (as a result of computer migrations and new user profiles created in doing so).

When I copy and paste them into the new location and update the Local Folder path to reflect the new location the messages come up fine.

However, in 3/3 cases in doing this recently some of the mail folders and sub folders are disappearing. In windows explorer all I am left with are .sbd files. On opening these folders they are mostly empty, whereas they did have files/folders within them.

I have done the obvious and copied folders back over, deleted the .msf index files, restarted the computer/netscape but still no joy.

I have followed the help suggestions shown for Cannot Open/Delete Mail "¢â€¢ Mail Disappears
(Updated 06/24/03) but this makes no difference.
http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/ns7mailopennot.html

Can you please tell me if I am doing something obviously wrong or if this is a bug in Netscape 7.1, it is driving me crazy.


Thank you

 

Welcome to the Forum, Barry22

Hi Barry,

Try creating a new Profile. This time copy only the files without the .msf extension from the old Profile to the new Profile.

When moving the Mail files to a new location, do you mean placing them someplace on the HD other than the salted (*.slt) folder?

Disappearing Mail in Windows XP is usually attributed to a browser crash. I can't be positive about what has happened in your case, as you give no details to exactly which steps you have taken, other than copying folders, and deleting msf files. The more details you can give, the better we can help.

Thanks!

Ramona

 

Hi again, and thank you for your response.

When you say try creating a new profile, do you mean a new windows user profile or a new netscape user (e-mail) profile? If so, then I have tried this (without copying the .msf files across).

And also, your point

"When moving the Mail files to a new location, do you mean placing them someplace on the HD other than the salted (*.slt) folder? " "When moving the Mail files to a new location, do you mean placing them someplace on the HD other than the salted (*.slt) folder? "

As I am pretty sure that the files do not exist in an .slt folder (either before I made the changes and definately not now).

Comprehensive steps for what has happened to result in this problem:

- User account names changed so user has logged into computer with new user name.
- Before doing so I have taken a note of the 'Local Folder' e-mail location (in Edit/Preferences/Server Settings/Local Mail field)
- User logs into computer with new user account, and 'Local Folder' is copied from old profile and placed into an area in the newuser/documents and settings (profile).
- Open netscape and set up new e-mail account, complete all fields correctly and for the 'Local Folder' section I have entered the path for where I pasted messages to.

Could it be that I am missing a vital file/string of files?

Thank you for your help
Barry

 

Barry,

When creating a new Netscape Profile, to which I was referring, the default Profile location for Windows XP is:
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\profilename\*.slt
The default Mail folder location:
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\profilename\*.slt\Mail

Take a look at this page to see if this is how you created the new Profile, then copied the Profile data from the old to the new Profile:
Create a New Profile.

Post back with further questions...

Ramona