Search  Rules  Login
TheBat English » The Bat! - Configuring the E-mail Client
Pages: 1
RSS
"Damaged folder" - after repair lost 90% of mails !!
 
#1
0  
I installed Bat on my new computer, made backup on the old, restored it on the new one, all the messages and settings were restored. But after few days I suddenly got a message that "inbox" is damaged, lost integrity etc. and "repair" was suggested. I did it - and just 200 messages of 2000 were recovered (!!). Fortunately I still had that backup, so I could restore it again. Today I suddenly got the same message for the "sent" folder. The same happened - out of 4000 messages just 500 were recovered (from the last month). That´s simply TERRIBLE. What is going on ? Seems this thing could happen now any moment and thus Bat can become very unreliable and dangerous programme ... Why does it happen ?

Now I tried to restore from the backup and a message comes "sent" folder is damaged and cannot be restored. Horrible. What to do ? Since the time of the new installation I received some new messages, so if I reinstall and restore fresh, they will not be there. And where is the guarantee, the same disaster will not happen again and again ?
 
 
 
#2
0  
The most common reason for corrupted high traffic folders (Inbox, Outbox and Sent Mail) is not compressing them on exit.
Apart from that, though TB has no problems whatsoever with folders with thousands of messages (my largest folder contains over 23000 messages and I've never experienced your problem) it's adviced to store messages that you want to keep in other folders and not Inbox and Sent mail.
Moving those messages can be done manually or automatically with filters.

I'm using TB since July 2000 and my Inbox has never gone corrupted and I've been holding on to these guidelines.
__________________________________
I'm just a user of The Bat! I don't work for Ritlabs.
 
 
 
#3
0  
But can something be done to recover the messages ?
 
 
 
#4
0  
Check whether there are any files left in the directory matching your folder. They should be readable with a text editor (unless you're using an encrypted message base) maybe you can salvage something.
__________________________________
I'm just a user of The Bat! I don't work for Ritlabs.
 
 
 
#5
0  
I still have this folder (sent) in the other computer (with all the messages). Is there any option how to save (maybe rename) and restore just a single folder ?
 
 
 
#6
0  
You can use filemanager and move files messages.tbb and messages.tbi from other Sent folder/computer to Sent folder of this account.

About recovering, You can try these utilities:

http://www.thebat.cz/stazeni/utility/tbb2mbx12.zip
http://www.thebat.cz/stazeni/utility/tbrec.zip
 
 
 
#7
0  
Thanks. Since I still had everything in the other computer (Bat), by some complicated tweaking/backups/restoring/renaming I managed to transfer everything to the new computer, restoring the lost mails to the new folders in the new computer ...

But it has somehow shaken with my confidence in Bat - seems it can happen in any moment in the future ... If I did not have everything in the other computer, the properly made backups would not help and I would lose 90% of my emails ...
Not nice. Thinking what to do now to prevent such things in the future
 
 
 
 
#8
0  
These kind of things mostly don't happen just because of nothing. As you're switching to another computer it might be the case that something on that system isn't quite stable or interfering with TB.
__________________________________
I'm just a user of The Bat! I don't work for Ritlabs.
 
 
 
#9
0  
"Windows Vista certified" ? New computer is just a fresh installation of Windows Vista Businness. Actually I have an idea - when making the last backup I selected the option "update the existing backup". Maybe it was was not the best option and could cause some corruption in the existing backup ? But in the new computer it worked for few days without a problem and suddenly two folders stopped responding.
 
 
 
#10
0  
Things that come to mind are virus scanners, firewalls, etc. There's a lot of programs nowadays interfering with other programs.
Are you using any plugins?
__________________________________
I'm just a user of The Bat! I don't work for Ritlabs.
 
 
 
#11
0  
I use AVG antivir (the same I used on the previous computer) and WIndows inbuilt firewall. I did not add any extra plugins to the programme.
 
 
 
#12
0  
It's not an isolated incident because it just lost some of my folders. I thought about 30 were lost. Turns out 60 were lost.

I've used the prgram less than a week. Had less than 20 folders in the inbox. Compress daily.

Did you ever find out what was causing it. I'm also using Windows firewall and AVG but not the AVG plugin. I have the antispam sniper plug in.

I love the program, but I have to have something I can trust to not lose folders. Hate to go back to Outlook, but that might be a better option for me, unless I can find out what is causing this.

Rick
 
 
 
#13
0  
correction - I had less than 20 MESSAGES in the inbox
 
 
 
#14
0  
antivirus apps may cause this, I had a similar problem with Symantec's AV some time ago. Since then I always add the mail folder to the virus scanner exclusions list.
 
 
 
#15
0  
If you  add the folder to the exclusion list, wouldn't that mean that your emails are not checked for viruses.?
 
 
 
#16
0  
yes, they are not checked.
But theBat is virus-safe anyway. With the default settings, it will not allow you to launch a potentially dangerous attachment -exe,bat,scr,pif,vbs etc. To run such a file you should first extract it to another(non-excluded) folder, where the AV should catch it. Indeed manually scanning it first is a good thing to do. If there is something bad just delete the message.
To improve safety, disallow direct opening of any attached Microsoft Office files (as they may contain macros, which will execute without prompt if your macro security is set to Low in Office). Do the same for .hta files.

A virus which stays encoded in the message base file is absolutely harmless.
The only risk is that your AV scanner may find it, decide that the whole .TBB file is infected, and wipe it without prompt. Although it sounds absurd, in this case antiviruses are more dangerous than viruses - so better keep them out.  
 
 
 
Pages: 1