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Folders suddenly missing, duplicated, mixed up, What happened? What can I do?
 
I've been testing The Bat for about a week, and just finished setting up several dozen folders and incoming filters. The first sign of something weird was when I opened the program a short while ago, after a normal shutdown (program & computer) and restart. What I noticed was that the "Junk nail" folder under my main account was now called "$JUNK$", and a duplicate of it now existed as a common folder.

It was more like a mirror, actually; I renamed one of them back to "Junk mail" (previously it hadn't let me rename it, but now it did), and the other one changed as well. I moved the common folder left (Ctrl-Shift-Left), but it complained that a folder with the same name already existed in that location (i.e. under my main account). So I just deleted it (and they both went to the trash). Later, when I downloaded my email again, a new "Junk" folder was created, this time without a special icon.

Not long afterwards, I deleted an account which I was no longer using (and which contained no messages folders, besides the default ones). When it asked if I wanted to delete the data, I said no.

Later during the same session, I noticed that one of the folders which had been under my main account (and which contained many subfolders) was missing. So I closed and restarted the program.

Now that folder is still missing, and what's more, the "Junk mail" filter (with the original icon) is back (and contains messages, including some from much earlier today), various subfolders appear in folders where they don't belong, at least one folder & its subfolder, as well as one virtual folder, is duplicated/mirrored in a different location (as I described above), many subfolders are missing, and quite a few folders or subfolders which used to contain messages are now empty. None of these missing messages are to be found in the Trash.

Can anyone explain or guess what the [bleep] happened, and what the [bleep] I can do to fix it? I must say, I was almost ready to buy this program, but such bizarre behavior does not inspire my confidence, to put it gently.

(Incidentally, I was just recently fantasizing about, and even began planning, to take an email sabbatical, but I wasn't expecting to start quite yet! Perhaps The Bat was just trying to give me a push? ;))
 
Ritlabs have fixed this problem in the latest beta version of The Bat! You can test it if you wish. To get the beta version, please subscribe to TBBETA mailing list. To subscribe to TBBETA, just send an e-mail to tbbeta-join@thebat.dutaint.com , then post the message to the list and ask how can you get the lastest beta. The list subscribers will reply to you.

Alternatively, you can wait until Ritlabs will release the next final version of The Bat! with this error fixed.
 
Will do, thanks. But when you say the problem is "fixed" in this beta version, do you mean the beta would allow me to recover my data, or just that it would prevent it from being corrupted (if that's the correct term) again?

Obviously, one way or another, I'd like to get back the email folders and messages I lost, since it took a lot of work to import, download, and filter those messages.
 
What Ritlabs has fixed is the code that will prevent the folder database from beihg corrupted. There were not code added that will fix the broken data. However, the data may suddenly recover as a consequence of the fix, but this is not known.
 
OK. Any suggestions on how to recover my lost data? Will I have to re-import and re-download all of it? What about the "ghost" or "duplicate" folders? Based on my experience, if I delete one copy, the other one disappears. I'm kind of at a loss for how to get from where I am back to where I was.

Has anyone else experienced this corruption problem? How did you/they deal with it?

When the folder database becomes corrupted do the messages disappear? Or do the pointers just get mixed up, so that with a little tweaking it can all be restored? I really don't know how it works.
 
Try <control><alt><shift> L

That should bring up any "lost" folders

If not then look for corrupted folders. Close the bat drag the message folders to (say) the desktop. Open The Bat. All well and good?
Close the bat
drag the account folders into the bats (newly created in the spot from where you removed it) message directory

Open the bat. Everything ok?
Close the bat and proceed with the other folders

If you just have a few then one at a time is the way to go but that could take a long time so grab a few and see what happens

If the problem comes back up you have found the corrupt folder

Once you get straightened away, use the maintenance center - often

Rick
 
Any chance of a Voyager Beta that has this fix? With Voyager 3.99.8 I still run into this problem occasionally, I learnt how to fix this partly when it happens but it is annoying as hell and takes always quite a while...
 
*bump*
Please, release a new version of Voyager (preferably one that doesn't write *anything* to the registry).
Thanks
 
*bumpedee bump*
I'd really like a new Voyager! :)
 
I'm really trying to put some weeks in between bumping... I really hope to see a new Voyager version before the V4.
I heard a version 3.99.25 is ready to get released for The Bat!, so how about a Voyager release as well?
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