Inbox contents simply vanished

I just do it daily.

Wow. I just never thought of OE as being so vulnerable that this kind of
continual attention and maintenance was required to avoid disasters.

I'll certainly have to do that OE backup regularly. Someone in this thread
mentioned how to do that but I don't see it anymore.



"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
And you pretty much HAVE to remember to do it, if you don't have that
background compacting option turned on (and ever since the autocompacting
feature was removed - at least in WinXP SP2).

I just do it daily.

PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:
Sooner or later, file corruption will hit every OE user. It only makes
sense to do what you can to avoid it.

The Other E-Mail Threat: File Corruption in Outlook Express:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx

...I have an extremely active e-mail correspondence,
and that's just not realistic for me.

I send well over 100 messages a day using OE, just about every day of
the
week. If I can remember to take 2 minutes at the end of every day to
empty
Sent Items & Deleted Items folders and then compact all folders
(ALT+F+F+F),
you can, too.

If you don't value your message store, keep doing what you've been
doing...and don't bother backing-up your message store either. wink
--
~PA Bear

Larry wrote:
Thank you everyone.

I just dragged the file, XXX.dbx, back into the OE folder, launched OE,
did
a file compact on the folder XXX, and it went down from 1.24 MB to 58
KB.
So that settles that.

As far as OE's vulnerabilty to this kind of disaster is concerned, I've
been
using the same OE program for over nine years and never lost the
contents
of
a folder and never heard of that happening. About a year ago, I began
to
have computer freeze-ups when doing send-receive, and that's when PA
Baer
(I
think it was) gave me the instructions of OE maintenance, which I've
followed pretty regularly since then. But not 100 percent! Not
keeping
the
Inbox completely empty! I have an extremely active e-mail
correspondence,
and that's just not realistic for me.

"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
That reinforces what I thought. That is the file is empty, and the
size
would not reflect that there is mail in it as the size is not reduced
until
you compact.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Larry" wrote in message
...
Hi, sorry I didn't get back sooner.

I downloaded OE Reader as recommended, browsed to the Inbox.dbx file
(which
I had renamed XXX.dbx and placed on the Desktop), and opened it.
Message
said:

"File does not contain any message."

Yet the file's size is 1.24 MB.

Go figure.

Larry




"bobster" wrote in message
...
Try this. It's the successor to MiTec OE view. I use it and it
works
fine for me.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dbxviewer.html

"Larry" wrote in message
...
I haven't been following this thread but this confuses me. How
did
you
determine the size of it when it was 400KB? And when it was 1.24
MB?

By seeing the size of the Inbox.dbx file in Windows Explorer.

2. Get any of the many programs to extract messages from .dbx
files
and
run
it

I did try OE Extract and it doesn't do anything and provides no
instructions, so I guess one of the nonfreeware apps is next.


"dadiOH" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote:
Strange things going on (see below), but I think the problem may
be
solvable.

1. The Inbox, prior to the problem, would have been around 80 or
90
MB. As I said, my procedure is to let it build up for a few weeks
and then move a lot of it into a custom folder. But after the
problem occurred, the Inbox was 130 KB. After I received e-mails
since this morning, it went up to about 400 KB.

2. But here's the strange thing: just now I looked again, and
the
only Inbox.dbx in the OE folder has 1.24 MB!!! So somehow it's
returned.

I haven't been following this thread but this confuses me. How did
you
determine the size of it when it was 400KB? And when it was 1.24
MB?
________________

3. Yet the Inbox in the OE application is still just the e-mails
received since this morning.

Because it is screwed up. That is, whatever methodology used to
determine messages start/end and/or count is wrong. Like a file
that
has its EOF in the wrong place/
__________________

This is what I'd do...

1. Save a copy of Inbox.dbx somewhere

2. Get any of the many programs to extract messages from .dbx files
and
run it

3. If it is successful in getting your messages, save them as MAIL
(
i.e., *.eml - separate, discrete messages) in a folder on your
desktop.

If not successful, forget what follows.

4. Delete Inbox.dbx using Explorer

5. Open OE and display its Inbox - which should now be empty

6. Select all the recovered email messages in your temporary
desktop
folder and drag them to the OE pane where they would normally be
displayed.

7. Close OE

dadiOH

Franc Zabkar wrote:
On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:51:43 -0400, "Larry"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

I just do it daily.

No, actually I wrote the statement above (attributions apparently snipped)
But it is certainly not necessary to do that! (as I pointed out in my
response).

Wow. I just never thought of OE as being so vulnerable that this kind of
continual attention and maintenance was required to avoid disasters.

It's not "so vulnerable" as you seem to be implying. It's just good
practice.

I'll certainly have to do that OE backup regularly.

Why don't you just set up a bunch of filters so that incoming messages
are automatically sorted as to author or type and redirected into
their own respective mailboxes, eg Family / Friends / Forums /
Publications / Your_ISP / Junk / Spam?

Is this even possible in OE?

But I thought we were talking about periodically compacting the message
store, in which case that won't help much in that regard.

It's not "so vulnerable" that that is required. I just do it daily as a
matter of routine, (and because I use OE quite a lot). You certainly
don't need to do it so religiously.

Larry wrote:
I just do it daily.

Wow. I just never thought of OE as being so vulnerable that this kind of
continual attention and maintenance was required to avoid disasters.

I'll certainly have to do that OE backup regularly. Someone in this
thread
mentioned how to do that but I don't see it anymore.



"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
And you pretty much HAVE to remember to do it, if you don't have that
background compacting option turned on (and ever since the autocompacting
feature was removed - at least in WinXP SP2).

I just do it daily.

PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:
Sooner or later, file corruption will hit every OE user. It only makes
sense to do what you can to avoid it.

The Other E-Mail Threat: File Corruption in Outlook Express:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx

...I have an extremely active e-mail correspondence,
and that's just not realistic for me.

I send well over 100 messages a day using OE, just about every day of
the
week. If I can remember to take 2 minutes at the end of every day to
empty
Sent Items & Deleted Items folders and then compact all folders
(ALT+F+F+F),
you can, too.

If you don't value your message store, keep doing what you've been
doing...and don't bother backing-up your message store either. wink
--
~PA Bear

Larry wrote:
Thank you everyone.

I just dragged the file, XXX.dbx, back into the OE folder, launched OE,
did
a file compact on the folder XXX, and it went down from 1.24 MB to 58
KB.
So that settles that.

As far as OE's vulnerabilty to this kind of disaster is concerned, I've
been
using the same OE program for over nine years and never lost the
contents
of
a folder and never heard of that happening. About a year ago, I began
to
have computer freeze-ups when doing send-receive, and that's when PA
Baer
(I
think it was) gave me the instructions of OE maintenance, which I've
followed pretty regularly since then. But not 100 percent! Not
keeping
the
Inbox completely empty! I have an extremely active e-mail
correspondence,
and that's just not realistic for me.

"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
That reinforces what I thought. That is the file is empty, and the
size
would not reflect that there is mail in it as the size is not reduced
until
you compact.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Larry" wrote in message
...
Hi, sorry I didn't get back sooner.

I downloaded OE Reader as recommended, browsed to the Inbox.dbx file
(which
I had renamed XXX.dbx and placed on the Desktop), and opened it.
Message
said:

"File does not contain any message."

Yet the file's size is 1.24 MB.

Go figure.

Larry




"bobster" wrote in message
...
Try this. It's the successor to MiTec OE view. I use it and it
works
fine for me.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dbxviewer.html

"Larry" wrote in message
...
I haven't been following this thread but this confuses me. How
did
you
determine the size of it when it was 400KB? And when it was 1.24
MB?

By seeing the size of the Inbox.dbx file in Windows Explorer.

2. Get any of the many programs to extract messages from .dbx
files
and
run
it

I did try OE Extract and it doesn't do anything and provides no
instructions, so I guess one of the nonfreeware apps is next.


"dadiOH" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote:
Strange things going on (see below), but I think the problem may
be
solvable.

1. The Inbox, prior to the problem, would have been around 80 or
90
MB. As I said, my procedure is to let it build up for a few weeks
and then move a lot of it into a custom folder. But after the
problem occurred, the Inbox was 130 KB. After I received e-mails
since this morning, it went up to about 400 KB.

2. But here's the strange thing: just now I looked again, and
the
only Inbox.dbx in the OE folder has 1.24 MB!!! So somehow it's
returned.

I haven't been following this thread but this confuses me. How did
you
determine the size of it when it was 400KB? And when it was 1.24
MB?
________________

3. Yet the Inbox in the OE application is still just the e-mails
received since this morning.

Because it is screwed up. That is, whatever methodology used to
determine messages start/end and/or count is wrong. Like a file
that
has its EOF in the wrong place/
__________________

This is what I'd do...

1. Save a copy of Inbox.dbx somewhere

2. Get any of the many programs to extract messages from .dbx files
and
run it

3. If it is successful in getting your messages, save them as MAIL
(
i.e., *.eml - separate, discrete messages) in a folder on your
desktop.

If not successful, forget what follows.

4. Delete Inbox.dbx using Explorer

5. Open OE and display its Inbox - which should now be empty

6. Select all the recovered email messages in your temporary
desktop
folder and drag them to the OE pane where they would normally be
displayed.

7. Close OE

dadiOH

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:51:43 -0400, "Larry"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

I just do it daily.

Wow. I just never thought of OE as being so vulnerable that this kind of
continual attention and maintenance was required to avoid disasters.

I'll certainly have to do that OE backup regularly.

Why don't you just set up a bunch of filters so that incoming messages
are automatically sorted as to author or type and redirected into
their own respective mailboxes, eg Family / Friends / Forums /
Publications / Your_ISP / Junk / Spam?

Is this even possible in OE?

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

"Franc Zabkar" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:51:43 -0400, "Larry"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

I just do it daily.

Wow. I just never thought of OE as being so vulnerable that this kind of
continual attention and maintenance was required to avoid disasters.

I'll certainly have to do that OE backup regularly.

Why don't you just set up a bunch of filters so that incoming messages
are automatically sorted as to author or type and redirected into
their own respective mailboxes, eg Family / Friends / Forums /
Publications / Your_ISP / Junk / Spam?

Is this even possible in OE?


Yes.

--
Frank Saunders MS-MVP IE,OE/WM
www.fjsmjs.com
Do not reply with email

This freeware tool backs up everything in OE in seconds. Disregard what is
written in red. That is referring to a different program.

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB):
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Larry" wrote in message
...
I just do it daily.

Wow. I just never thought of OE as being so vulnerable that this kind of
continual attention and maintenance was required to avoid disasters.

I'll certainly have to do that OE backup regularly. Someone in this
thread
mentioned how to do that but I don't see it anymore.



"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
And you pretty much HAVE to remember to do it, if you don't have that
background compacting option turned on (and ever since the autocompacting
feature was removed - at least in WinXP SP2).

I just do it daily.

PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:
Sooner or later, file corruption will hit every OE user. It only makes
sense to do what you can to avoid it.

The Other E-Mail Threat: File Corruption in Outlook Express:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx

...I have an extremely active e-mail correspondence,
and that's just not realistic for me.

I send well over 100 messages a day using OE, just about every day of
the
week. If I can remember to take 2 minutes at the end of every day to
empty
Sent Items & Deleted Items folders and then compact all folders
(ALT+F+F+F),
you can, too.

If you don't value your message store, keep doing what you've been
doing...and don't bother backing-up your message store either. wink
--
~PA Bear

Larry wrote:
Thank you everyone.

I just dragged the file, XXX.dbx, back into the OE folder, launched
OE,
did
a file compact on the folder XXX, and it went down from 1.24 MB to 58
KB.
So that settles that.

As far as OE's vulnerabilty to this kind of disaster is concerned,
I've
been
using the same OE program for over nine years and never lost the
contents
of
a folder and never heard of that happening. About a year ago, I began
to
have computer freeze-ups when doing send-receive, and that's when PA
Baer
(I
think it was) gave me the instructions of OE maintenance, which I've
followed pretty regularly since then. But not 100 percent! Not
keeping
the
Inbox completely empty! I have an extremely active e-mail
correspondence,
and that's just not realistic for me.

"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
That reinforces what I thought. That is the file is empty, and the
size
would not reflect that there is mail in it as the size is not reduced
until
you compact.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"Larry" wrote in message
...
Hi, sorry I didn't get back sooner.

I downloaded OE Reader as recommended, browsed to the Inbox.dbx file
(which
I had renamed XXX.dbx and placed on the Desktop), and opened it.
Message
said:

"File does not contain any message."

Yet the file's size is 1.24 MB.

Go figure.

Larry




"bobster" wrote in message
...
Try this. It's the successor to MiTec OE view. I use it and it
works
fine for me.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dbxviewer.html

"Larry" wrote in message
...
I haven't been following this thread but this confuses me. How
did
you
determine the size of it when it was 400KB? And when it was 1.24
MB?

By seeing the size of the Inbox.dbx file in Windows Explorer.

2. Get any of the many programs to extract messages from .dbx
files
and
run
it

I did try OE Extract and it doesn't do anything and provides no
instructions, so I guess one of the nonfreeware apps is next.


"dadiOH" wrote in message
...
Larry wrote:
Strange things going on (see below), but I think the problem may
be
solvable.

1. The Inbox, prior to the problem, would have been around 80 or
90
MB. As I said, my procedure is to let it build up for a few
weeks
and then move a lot of it into a custom folder. But after the
problem occurred, the Inbox was 130 KB. After I received e-mails
since this morning, it went up to about 400 KB.

2. But here's the strange thing: just now I looked again, and
the
only Inbox.dbx in the OE folder has 1.24 MB!!! So somehow it's
returned.

I haven't been following this thread but this confuses me. How
did
you
determine the size of it when it was 400KB? And when it was 1.24
MB?
________________

3. Yet the Inbox in the OE application is still just the e-mails
received since this morning.

Because it is screwed up. That is, whatever methodology used to
determine messages start/end and/or count is wrong. Like a file
that
has its EOF in the wrong place/
__________________

This is what I'd do...

1. Save a copy of Inbox.dbx somewhere

2. Get any of the many programs to extract messages from .dbx
files
and
run it

3. If it is successful in getting your messages, save them as
MAIL
(
i.e., *.eml - separate, discrete messages) in a folder on your
desktop.

If not successful, forget what follows.

4. Delete Inbox.dbx using Explorer

5. Open OE and display its Inbox - which should now be empty

6. Select all the recovered email messages in your temporary
desktop
folder and drag them to the OE pane where they would normally be
displayed.

7. Close OE

dadiOH

[I note that Bill is running WinXP SP2 now, not Win98.]

While "Automatically compact messages in the background" is removed in a
fully updated OE6 running in WinXP SP2 (only), Windows will automatically
compact all OE folders every 100 times you close OE *if* you haven't done a
manual compact in the meantime. [The CompactCount in the Registry is
automatically reset to 0 (zero) when you compact manually.]

That being said:

1. IMHO, compacting every 100 closings is not frequent enough for heavy
users of OE. Such users are putting their message store at risk if and when
Automatic Compacting takes place.

2. Answering No at the Automatic Compacting prompt does *not* cancel the
operation! It only means that Window will not notify you that Automatic
Compacting is about to take place every time after that. Never try to shut
down your machine or close OE via Task Manager when an automatic or manual
compacting is taking place.

3. Despite repeated requests from MVPs, there still is no MS documentation
whatsoever of the Automatic Compacting functionality.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/


Bill in Co. wrote:
And you pretty much HAVE to remember to do it, if you don't have that
background compacting option turned on (and ever since the autocompacting
feature was removed - at least in WinXP SP2).
snip

Yes, it's possible. I prefer to read email in the Inbox and then sort rather
than presort (which means you potentially have to deal with several folders
just to read the email that came in.)

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

"Franc Zabkar" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:51:43 -0400, "Larry"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

I just do it daily.

Wow. I just never thought of OE as being so vulnerable that this kind of
continual attention and maintenance was required to avoid disasters.

I'll certainly have to do that OE backup regularly.

Why don't you just set up a bunch of filters so that incoming messages
are automatically sorted as to author or type and redirected into
their own respective mailboxes, eg Family / Friends / Forums /
Publications / Your_ISP / Junk / Spam?

Is this even possible in OE?

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:
[I note that Bill is running WinXP SP2 now, not Win98.]

Mostly now, but I still have my Win98SE up and running. More below.

While "Automatically compact messages in the background" is removed in a
fully updated OE6 running in WinXP SP2 (only), Windows will automatically
compact all OE folders every 100 times you close OE *if* you haven't done
a
manual compact in the meantime. [The CompactCount in the Registry is
automatically reset to 0 (zero) when you compact manually.]

That being said:

1. IMHO, compacting every 100 closings is not frequent enough for heavy
users of OE. Such users are putting their message store at risk if and
when
Automatic Compacting takes place.

2. Answering No at the Automatic Compacting prompt does *not* cancel the
operation! It only means that Window will not notify you that Automatic
Compacting is about to take place every time after that. Never try to
shut
down your machine or close OE via Task Manager when an automatic or manual
compacting is taking place.

3. Despite repeated requests from MVPs, there still is no MS documentation
whatsoever of the Automatic Compacting functionality.
--

I'm not sure what you mean by that. It just automatically compacts the
dbx database store (a few seconds after opening OE) and significantly
reduces its size; that's its functionality, isn't it? The automatic
feature is nice in that you don't have to think about it. The disavantage
is, as has been mentioned: if the computer crashes or hangs up while the
compaction is running (much more likely if you're multitasking and doing
other things, and not waiting for the compaction to run), it can corrupt the
database file. With the automatic feature engaged, there are more chances
for that happening.


~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/


Bill in Co. wrote:
And you pretty much HAVE to remember to do it, if you don't have that
background compacting option turned on (and ever since the autocompacting
feature was removed - at least in WinXP SP2).
snip

3. Despite repeated requests from MVPs, there still is no MS
documentation
whatsoever of the Automatic Compacting functionality.

I'm not sure what you mean by that

See if you can find any reference to Automatic Compacting in OE on any
microsoft.com page (e.g., KB article; OE-specific page).


Bill in Co. wrote:
PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:
[I note that Bill is running WinXP SP2 now, not Win98.]

Mostly now, but I still have my Win98SE up and running. More below.

While "Automatically compact messages in the background" is removed in a
fully updated OE6 running in WinXP SP2 (only), Windows will automatically
compact all OE folders every 100 times you close OE *if* you haven't done
a
manual compact in the meantime. [The CompactCount in the Registry is
automatically reset to 0 (zero) when you compact manually.]

That being said:

1. IMHO, compacting every 100 closings is not frequent enough for heavy
users of OE. Such users are putting their message store at risk if and
when
Automatic Compacting takes place.

2. Answering No at the Automatic Compacting prompt does *not* cancel the
operation! It only means that Window will not notify you that Automatic
Compacting is about to take place every time after that. Never try to
shut
down your machine or close OE via Task Manager when an automatic or
manual
compacting is taking place.

3. Despite repeated requests from MVPs, there still is no MS
documentation
whatsoever of the Automatic Compacting functionality.
--

I'm not sure what you mean by that. It just automatically compacts the
dbx database store (a few seconds after opening OE) and significantly
reduces its size; that's its functionality, isn't it? The automatic
feature is nice in that you don't have to think about it. The
disavantage
is, as has been mentioned: if the computer crashes or hangs up while the
compaction is running (much more likely if you're multitasking and doing
other things, and not waiting for the compaction to run), it can corrupt
the
database file. With the automatic feature engaged, there are more
chances
for that happening.


~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/


Bill in Co. wrote:
And you pretty much HAVE to remember to do it, if you don't have that
background compacting option turned on (and ever since the
autocompacting
feature was removed - at least in WinXP SP2).
snip