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All Filters Lost or Not Showing, After Win 10 v2004 update TheBat! is starting to behave erraticly
 
#1
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After the recent Windows 10 "2004" update (x64 arc.) I started to experience more frequent "memory access violation" errors, especially when selecting a folder from the emails sidebar (selecting any folder raises a memory error, but without crashing the app).

I was attempting to create a new filter for sorting my incoming email, but after adding it and closing the "Sorting Office" dialog, I soon realized that all my previous filters were gone — or maybe no longer accessible, I'm not sure which one yet.

I've attempt to restore just the filters by restoring the global options from a recent backup, but the filters are not back as expected. Strangely, some account-specific filters are still there, apparently not affected by the problem, whereas the "common filters" are not shown (or gone).

I'm OK with having to live with the frequent "memory violation" errors and crashes (they've been in TheBat for so long that you just learn to cope with them), but loosing personal settings that were carefully developed in the course of years is another thing altogether — and I'm not OK with that.

  • Is there anything I can do to recover those filters?
  • Are they just being hidden due to a bug or some data corruption?
  • Did anyone experience similar issues?
I hope I'll be able to restore my carefully designed filters, which is what allows me to quickly sift the high volume of incoming mail.
 
 
 
#2
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OK, after a reboot I tried to tackle the problem again.

I've managed to recover all of the lost filter via the "File > Restore filters" menu in the Sorting Office. For some reason all my "common filters" became orphans.

So I've managed to manually restore my settings back to as they were — and by manually I mean that I had to manually cut and paste each filter from the "Orphan filters" folder that is created by the Restore menu. Why these filters can't be just moved up to the "Incoming mail" folder, or be selected in group instead of one by one, remains a mistery to me.

I had then to manually reactivate each filter for the accounts they apply to, and finally they seem to work.

Every time I selected an orphan filter and copied it (via Ctrl-X) I got a "memory violation access" error for "thebat.exe" (but not so if I chose to Cut via menus, or when I used Ctrl-V to paste).

Also, for some reason, if I use again the "File > Restore filters" menu, all the previously lost (and now restored) filters are shown again. It looks like TheBat is still keeping a copy of each filter, as an orphan. This smells of data-corruption to me (but with all those memory violation errors it's no wonder, really).

Could anyone help me better understand what the "Restore filters" menu does, and why some filters ended up as orphans?

It looks like there are some serious Issues in the Filters system that need to be fixed, especially those memory errors. Also, the Sorting Office window could be greatly improved by making en-masse operations on filters firendlier (i.e. allow multiple selections, and moving filters across folders boundaries via arrow keys).

Since the Sorting Office is an important part of the user customization side of TheBat, I also suggest adding a menu to allow quick back-up and restore operations affecting only filters — which would be very handy, especially when experimenting with filters, allowing one-click backup and restore of filters, without involving the general backup functionality.

As for the frequent memory violation errors, I really don't know what to say. They've always been around in TheBat, and it just isn't right. Memory violation errors are serious errors, and even when the app doesn't crash altogether (which it frequently does) chances are that memory and data corruption is around the corner, and loss of settings like what just happened to me should not come as a surprise when an application runs on dangling pointers or is having trouble handling memory allocations.

Is it just me or are also other users experiencing these frequent memory errors?

My Win 10 machine is well kept and tidy. I'm a developer and only install trusted tools which I use for work (no junk software) and I don't even use anti-virus/malware tools except Win's native security tools. I'm not experiencing memory errors with other applications, so it's not a System or drivers problem — these memory errors have been affecting TheBat specifically, edition after edition, including MAJOR version updates (which one would expect they entail fixing major bugs).
 
 
 
#3
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I have had the same issue both with my long term filters and the memory violation issues.
This morning (Monday) when all my weekend mail arrived, all my common filters (the majority of filters) simply weren't there.
To recover this, I also used the file, restore orphaned option, then selected the orphaned folder itself rather than copy paste each filter and pasted the copied orphaned tab into the incoming tab.

This restored EVERYTHING into the incoming tab.
Closed the sorting office and reopened it and all my filters were back again, even the ones I don't want which were deleted.
The other thing that I needed to do was to manually go back in and reselect individually on each filter, Share With...

Yes, it would be nice to be able to have a backup/restore option for the sorting office that is separate to the main backup process.

There was no reason why my filters ceased to exist as it was all working Friday afternoon when I shut down.
This is also a concern in itself.

With regard to the violation issue, these appear to be reduced with the current version 9.4.4 (64 - bit)
But not completely gone yet. (I also ignore them)
I also have been using the Bat for a very long time and my filters had been developed over more than 10 years.
I still prefer it over all other email clients.

Andrew
 
 
 
#4
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Don't waste your time for waiting "full" backup from email-client soft. For such a things you are need to have incremental periodical backups of all your files using soft like this - https://www.acronis.com/en-eu/products/true-image/
Модератор. Не являюсь сотрудником RitLabs (I'm not an employee of Ritlabs). https://belrus.biz/vendors/ritlabs.html
 
 
 
#5
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The files that hold your filters are named ACCOUNT.SRB (in the main mail folder for global filters, and in its subfolders for the account-specific filters).  So, if your filters should disappear, those would be the files to restore (after exiting TB).
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
#6
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Where in the menu system can I see my Global Filters? I need to edit one of them, but cannot find how to see them.

Thanks,
 
 
 
#7
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SHIFT+CTRL+S and choose account: common filters
Модератор. Не являюсь сотрудником RitLabs (I'm not an employee of Ritlabs). https://belrus.biz/vendors/ritlabs.html
 
 
 
#8
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Quote
George Salnik wrote:
SHIFT+CTRL+S and choose account: common filters
Many thanks George.
My problem is that the key combination is trapped by my screen capture program. Once I killed the screen capture I could finally get to the Filters.
I wish there was another way. - via the Menu system. C'mon RTLabs, add that.

John
 
 
 
#9
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Quote
John Griffo wrote:
I wish there was another way. - via the Menu system.

Account | Sorting Office/Filters works for me (version 8.x).

So does right-clicking on an account in the tree and picking Sorting Ofice/Filters.

(actually, with The Bat, right-clicking somewhere is probably the answer to 90% of "where do I find.." type questions.)
I volunteer as a moderator to help keep the forum tidy. I do not work for Ritlabs SRL.
 
 
 
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