Mail Account Remove causes folder cleanup?

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

jfire7887 - 24 Sep 2006 04:00 GMT

I was going to retrieve some OE messages for my sister-in-law before she
gives her older Windows 98 PC to her brother. So, with the PC offline, I
started OE, and of course it gave me the expected error that it could not
connect. I planned to remove this mail account as part of the overall task,
so I went ahead and did that before retrieving the messages. My expectation
was that previously retrieved messages would still remain in the local OE
folder store, and that only the account connection information would be
removed. However, there are no messages, and even though I never actually
saw the messages before removing the account, there appears to be an entry
in the cleanup.log file that indicates they may have been deleted. I can
provide the details from cleanup.log if needed, but did this possibly occur,
and if so, can the messages still be restored at this point?

Reply to this Message

Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM - 24 Sep 2006 17:47 GMT

>I was going to retrieve some OE messages for my sister-in-law before she
>gives her older Windows 98 PC to her brother. So, with the PC offline, I
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>I can provide the details from cleanup.log if needed, but did this possibly
>occur, and if so, can the messages still be restored at this point?

Did you remove the account from Tools | Accounts or from File | Identities?

Signature

Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Answer in newsgroup. Don't send mail.

Reply to this Message

jfire7887 - 24 Sep 2006 19:34 GMT

Tools | Accounts. Previously, on her XP computer, when there was an account
connection issue, her ISP support had her remove and re-create the account,
yet her already downloaded messages did not disappear. This was the premise
upon which I was operating when I removed the account first on this 98
computer, but perhaps it is different on 98s. For example, the store is in
a different folder path than it is on XP.

>>I was going to retrieve some OE messages for my sister-in-law before she
>>gives her older Windows 98 PC to her brother. So, with the PC offline, I
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
> Did you remove the account from Tools | Accounts or from File |
> Identities?

Reply to this Message

Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM - 24 Sep 2006 20:11 GMT

Tools | Accounts removing an account will not remove any messages. It also
won't produce a cleanup log.

Signature

Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Answer in newsgroup. Don't send mail.

> Tools | Accounts. Previously, on her XP computer, when there was an
> account
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
>> Did you remove the account from Tools | Accounts or from File |
>> Identities?

Reply to this Message

jfire7887 - 24 Sep 2006 20:32 GMT

Well, that's what I would have thought. But why is the following
information in the cleanup.log file (last 2 sets of entries):

9/10/2006
Folders.dbx,...,records=9
Inbox.dbx,...,records=35
Sent Items.dbx,...,records=36
Deleted Items.dbx,...,records=1
Bill Paying.dbx,...,records=7
Jokes.dbx,...,records=15
Outbox.dbx,...,records=0
Pop3uidl.dbx,...,records=0
Offline.dbx,...,records=0

9/23/2006
Folders.dbx,...,records=7
no mention of the two non-regularly named folders (Jokes and Bill Paying)
all the other [foldername].dbx have records=0

> Tools | Accounts removing an account will not remove any messages. It
> also won't produce a cleanup log.
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>>> Did you remove the account from Tools | Accounts or from File |
>>> Identities?

Reply to this Message

Michael Santovec - 24 Sep 2006 22:17 GMT

If it was a POP3 account, removing the account does nothing to the Local
folders.

If it was an IMAP or HTTP (Hotmail/MSN) account, the folders for those
accounts get removed (which are independent of the Local Folders and do
not affect the local folders). But since they were a mirror of the mail
server, the messages are still on the server and adding the account
again will make then available.

Assuming it was a POP3 account and its the local folders you are
interested in, the messing messages probably have nothing to do with the
account removal.

See:
Messages in Inbox or other mail folders disappear
http://www.insideoe.com/problems/bugs.htm#mailgone
Recovering lost messages
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#4

Signature

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm

> Well, that's what I would have thought. But why is the following
> information in the cleanup.log file (last 2 sets of entries):
[quoted text clipped - 48 lines]
>>>> Did you remove the account from Tools | Accounts or from File |
>>>> Identities?

Reply to this Message

jfire7887 - 24 Sep 2006 22:37 GMT

OK, thanks to both you and Frank, as long as I can be sure I didn't cause
the disappearance of the messages, I'm not going to make myself crazy over
75 total sent and received messages, that I believe occurred over the course
of a week about a year and a half ago, when their XP computer was in for
service.

> If it was a POP3 account, removing the account does nothing to the Local
> folders.
[quoted text clipped - 64 lines]
>>>>> Did you remove the account from Tools | Accounts or from File |
>>>>> Identities?

Reply to this Message