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Common Folders disappearing
 
#1
0  
Hello,

I am having an issue with Common Folders and hope someone can suggest a solution. I am using The Bat 11.5.3

I am just starting to use Common Folders, I currently have none. Just various email accounts.
Here is the problem:

- I create a new Common Folder
- it appears in the list among my email accounts (left pane in The Bat!)
- I can use it, for example, copy emails to the Common Folder
- when I close The Bat! and reopen the program, the folder is no longer listed in the left pane
- CTRL-Alt-Shift-L does not bring it back
- the Common Folder named subdirectory is present in the maildirectory
- it has two files in it... messages.tbb and messages.tbn

I tried this several times, each time the Common Folder works perfectly when newly created, but when The Bat! is shut down and later reopened, the Common Folder is no longer listed.

What could cause this?

Thanks!
 
 
 
#2
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I don't have such a bug. Ask support about it and then tell us how they helped you.

As a possible solution to the problem: perhaps your email database itself is in a folder that requires system permissions. Try moving the database to another folder. Menu -> Options -> Preferences -> System -> Mail directory -> Browse -> Choose some new folder inside Documents folder for example (or on some non-system logical disk).  
Модератор. Не являюсь сотрудником RitLabs (I'm not an employee of Ritlabs).
https://belrus.biz/vendors/ritlabs.html — Официальный дистрибьютор The Bat! в России
 
 
 
#3
0  
Quote
George Salnik wrote:
perhaps your email database itself is in a folder that requires system permissions.

That was my first thought too, but I doubt if an account folder could have been created, like Flo wrote, with messages.tbb and messages.tbn in it. And it would likely have caused similar problems with other accounts too.

Flo Rian, I'd start by simply rebooting the PC (to exclude that another instance of The Bat is still lurking in memory, blocking access to account.flb) and then doing a CHKDSK of the drive in question to see if there are any hardware issues. Also verify that your drive has enough free space for The Bat (and other software) to work with large temporary files.

Then, verify that no files in your mail directory, in particular account.flb, are read-only, and that your user account in Windows has read/write access to them.

Then, I'd recommend that you create a backup of your entire mail directory before doing anything else.

Next, launch The Bat and create a new common folder with a new name, e.g. TEST123 (this step is essential). Then sel ect that new common folder in the account tree panel and press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-L. Next, exit and restart The Bat to see if your original common folder has been restored, and persists.

If it has, what may have happened is that you killed The Bat or shut down your PC whilst The Bat was still in its exit/maintenance procedure, cleaning up and compressing folders. If that process is interrupted, account.flb may get corrupted. This could also happen if some other process (antivirus, backup?) was locking the account.flb file. Maybe you could go to the properties of your common folder and look under Additional. If 'remove old messages' and 'compact if..' are on, turn those off as a precaution.

If this has not helped, my next steps would be these (and again, have a backup!)

Exit The Bat.
Go to the mail folder and rename ACCOUNT.FLB to ACCOUNT-FLB.BAK
Launch The Bat
Create a new common folder, e.g. TEST456
Select it in the account tree panel and press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-L.
Exit and relaunch The Bat to see if your original common folder is back, and persists.
If it is back and everything looks good, exit The Bat and copy account.flb to account-flb-good.bak for possible future use.
If it is not back, exit The Bat and restore account.flb (fr om account-flb.bak).

I hope this helps!
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#4
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Thank you for your help! Unfortunately, none of your suggestions worked.

I contacted support and after a few back-and-forth messages, I received the instructions below. That solved my problem! It also reset most of my The Bat preferences and settings, but that was easy to recreate. I assume something was corrupt in my settings.
Here are the instructions from Ritlabs support, in case anybody in the future has the same issue:

Quote
1. Close The Bat!
2. Create a new folder on the computer to keep your data. Copy over there only your account folders and address book files from your current mail folder, do not copy any other files.
3. Open the Registry editor via "Start -> Run -> regedit -> OK" and under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RIT\...\ rename the "RIT" folder (for example, into RIT2).
4. Launch The Bat! and point it to the new Mail-folder once prompted (select the "User-defined directory" option), the respective accounts will be added.
5. The address books in The Bat! have the .abd extension and are located in the root of the Mail-folder. By default, the user's address book has TheBat.ABD name. You can get them into the new Mail-folder and then in The Bat! invoke the address book and select the "File/Open address book" menu. Point the program to the needed file and it will recognize it.
6. Register the program anew with your key.
Edited: Flo Rian - 22 August 2026 02:58:01
 
 
 
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