Vanishing email

[bgowland]

Totally unrelated to GB-PVR but I thought I'd throw this in to the arena to see if anyone had any thoughts.

I have some friends running Windows 98SE and using Outlook Express v6 for email. A few days ago they started OE to find their Inbox was empty - this is the second time in about two months.

I've checked the machine over (twice) - they have an up to date anti-virus setup and, in general, the machine is quite stable. One thought was the Inbox.dbx file was being deleted but I checked it and the creation date is October 2006. None of the other folders are affected - they have a few which they've created themselves and they all retain the emails in them as do the Deleted Items and Sent Items folders. I also checked Deleted Items to see if the missing Inbox items were in there but that wasn't the case.

OE doesn't have an auto-archive function, and the closest thing to it (the Cleanup option) only affects the Deleted Items folder as far as I know.

I've drawn a blank on this - Google doesn't bring up anything that applies to what's happening.

In some ways it all points back to the Inbox.dbx being corrupt but OE doesn't throw any errors when accessing it and after a 'vanishing email' occurence, they can continue using it with incoming mails going into the Inbox without problem.

Any thoughts/suggestions gratefully received.

Cheers,
Brian

[fla]

Even though no malware was found that doesn't prove no malware is present. Restoring a ghost image or reinstalling windows wouldn't be a bad idea.

[bgowland]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

I'm pretty convinced that it's not finger trouble - they're pretty much 'mouse only' people and don't use keyboard shortcuts. The Deleted Items folder still contains items from over a year ago and recent items which they deliberately deleted - wherever the Inbox items are going, it's not there.

As far as malware being present but undetected - possible but I have also manually checked the registry (Run key etc.) and nothing looks out of the ordinary. It's possible that a legit exe has got an infection but I'd be surprised that it isn't detected by the AV software - there's no sign that anything has tryed to disable it. I've also read a shed load of virus definition info - most virus seem to want to keep the Inbox intact as that's where they get the addresses to resend themselves.

Very strange.

Cheers,
Brian

[mvallevand]

I've seen things similar and for some reason Windows was making new user accounts ie

User Name
User Name.000
User Name.000.000

I gave up on OE long ago and went to Thunderbird.

Martin

[Nomad101]

I came across a similar problem a few years ago (probably more than 6 years ago) and it was McAfee VirusScan that was the culprit. It was on a friends's PC and every now and then he would open OE and the inbox would be empty, however other folders below the Inbox seemed okay. I seem to recall it mainly affected Hotmail users in OE.

Have a look at this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/10/24/...k_express/

There's also some info on corruption here from MS:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/comm...ption.mspx

Don't know what AV your friends are using but maybe they're experiencing a similar problem.

Cheers
Tony

[bgowland]

Thanks for the links. I've been wondering if the emails are actually still in there but just inaccessible. I need to take a copy of the Inbox.dbx file and do some analysis I think.

Cheers,
Brian

[ailema]

hmmm yeahh theres always ways on how to access this emails

[Deusxmachina]

I gave up on OE long ago and went to Thunderbird.

Heh, for a good while back in the day I used Netscape for email as well as browsing. Took the loss of multiple databases before I learned my lesson on that one. Been using Eudora ever since for years and never a problem.

Anyone using Internet Explorer or Outlook Express is generally advised not to.

I think bg is on the right track by, if the inbox folder is still there and has size to it, just make a copy and work with it. Even if it's corrupt and OE can't open it, it might be able to be imported into another program such as Thunderbird or Eudora or whatever.

[bgowland]

I think bg is on the right track by, if the inbox folder is still there and has size to it, just make a copy and work with it. Even if it's corrupt and OE can't open it, it might be able to be imported into another program such as Thunderbird or Eudora or whatever.

I'm going to see them Saturday so I'll take a copy. I found a tool somewhere which will analyse the OE dbx files so hopefully I might be able to get some stuff back for them.

Cheers,
Brian