SillyDog701

[corevalue_uk]

Netscape 7.0 - successfully installed and imported over my 4.7 mail. Seemed to work fine for a while, then suddenly, started the browser one day, and it had lost all the profiles. No mail folders, lost all server settings, no newsgroups, "netscape" re-installed as the default home page. Bookmarks still OK though....

I managed to restore it by setting up the mail accounts from new, and copying the mail files (still there) into the new folders. Oh well, I thought, must have pressed the wrong key sometime. Clumsy like that...

Except that, it's happened again. And I'm SURE I didn't press anything flaky this time.

Anybody know what's going on? Is it timebombed? Is there a virus? Couldn't find anything referring to a 30-day license or whatever at netscape. That's about the time period- 30 days, or the - 18th of the month, when it happens.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0

[AhoBakkari]

I've had exactly the same experience twice with 7.0, en-US. My wife had it with her Japanese 7.01 version this morning. I was hoping they fixed it in the 7.01, but it doesn't look like that.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01

[Fulvio]

Netscape 7.0 - successfully installed and imported over my 4.7 mail. Seemed to work fine for a while, then suddenly, started the browser one day, and it had lost all the profiles. No mail folders, lost all server settings, no newsgroups, "netscape" re-installed as the default home page. Bookmarks still OK though....

I managed to restore it by setting up the mail accounts from new, and copying the mail files (still there) into the new folders. Oh well, I thought, must have pressed the wrong key sometime. Clumsy like that...

Except that, it's happened again. And I'm SURE I didn't press anything flaky this time.

Anybody know what's going on? Is it timebombed? Is there a virus? Couldn't find anything referring to a 30-day license or whatever at netscape. That's about the time period- 30 days, or the - 18th of the month, when it happens.

I never heard, and, definitely ever experience this one. But, if you do not see any Profiles list in the Profile Manager, and the folders are still in the right place. I suggest that you create, at least ,one profile, with exactly the same name. If you do not see anything, then go to your Mozilla folder, and right click on the Registry.dat file. If it is set as read only, uncheck that box. Then, try to create the profile again, with same name. And, you should see the profile.
I set Registry.dat ,on purpose, to read only, so that Registry.dat does not grow to ridicoulous size, but if the file is delete with all Netscapes closed, all your profile entries are wiped out, and you will need to uncheck Read Only to be able to do anything. However your description does not match what I said. But, there is no harm trying. Timebombed? I can't believe that Virus? No way.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011022 Netscape6/6.2

[corevalue_uk]

No, creating a new profile with exactly the same details doesn't help. Nothing comes back that way. When you make your new "identical" profile, Netscape seems to generate a new mail folder with the same server name, in the same /mail/ lower down folder, and then adds -1, or -2 or whatever the number of times you've done this. I guess that's why I can still find the mail files, they haven't been overwritten.

ie folders names like this:-

/mail/ispname.net -- first time?
/mail/ispname-1.net -- 2nd time?
/mail/ispname-2.net --3rd time?

Worse, Ive just discovered, that I didn't recover all the mail folders, only the top level folders. Loads of stuff has gone missing, (like all my wifes mail).

Once is bad luck, twice is absolute crap. This is a killer bug. I'm leaving Netscape and trying something else, both browser (7 is SLOW) and mail. Not micro$oft, I hasten to add though

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0

[sisyphus88]

If you are giving up on NS 7.x, try Beonex. It's really stable and fast. And I haven't had any problems with lost profiles. The current version of Beonex is based on Mozilla 1.0.1. Beonex also supports the preferences bar created by XULplanet. Beonex also has more privacy functions than NS. Check it out and I think you will not go wrong.

I suggest you make a new directory called "Beonex Users" and put your profiles in it... that way it's easy to find and it's separate from the NS 4.x and 7.x profiles.

www.beonex.com

Sisyphus

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT; en; Stable) Gecko/20020911 Beonex/0.8.1-stable

[Ramona]

Hi corevalue_uk,

This seems to be an uncommon occurrence, with no definitive cause. You might try this solution which seems to have worked for one user:

snews://secnews.netscape.com:563/atgqf5 ... tscape.com

I have lost mail once before, then again a couple of days ago. In this case, prefs.js was listed at 1K. I found I had an only slightly out-of-date copy of prefs.js. Moved it in, then updated. Only took about an hour. I'll be religious about holding on to backup.

Post back if you have more questions.

Ramona

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011022 Netscape6/6.2

[sisyphus88]

The problem mimics an uninstall with profile file deletion (perhaps limited to deleting only the profile mail folders). How can NS initiate a profile file deletion on its own? Very weird. And I've never seen W98 do such a thing without the intervention of a virus.

I don't think a corrupted prefs.js file is the cause. At worst, a corrupted prefs.js file would bring you back to the point of a new installation, with the attendant need to set your preferences. All of your other files and folders would be intact, including bookmarks, address books, cache and mail folders.

You should download the weekly DAT virus signatures for your virus checker and scan the entire hard drive.... I don't know what else it might be... As I said previously, try Beonex.....

Good luck.
Sisyphus

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT; en; Stable) Gecko/20020911 Beonex/0.8.1-stable

[Mandrake]

Hmmm.. I've experienced this "bug" before. I was using Netscape 6.2.1 - when it happened. I updated to the latest (6.2.3 at the time) and i recieved no further troubles with this problem - I had assumed that 6.2.2. or 6.2.3 had fixed this.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130

[Fulvio]

No, creating a new profile with exactly the same details doesn't help. Nothing comes back that way. When you make your new "identical" profile, Netscape seems to generate a new mail folder with the same server name, in the same /mail/ lower down folder, and then adds -1, or -2 or whatever the number of times you've done this. I guess that's why I can still find the mail files, they haven't been overwritten.

ie folders names like this:-

/mail/ispname.net -- first time?
/mail/ispname-1.net -- 2nd time?
/mail/ispname-2.net --3rd time?

Worse, Ive just discovered, that I didn't recover all the mail folders, only the top level folders. Loads of stuff has gone missing, (like all my wifes mail).

Once is bad luck, twice is absolute crap. This is a killer bug. I'm leaving Netscape and trying something else, both browser (7 is SLOW) and mail. Not micro$oft, I hasten to add though

I do not mean instances of the same account, which indicate that the account has been removed and then put back in. Once I ended up with ispname-5.net, but it was intentional. But if you do not find folders in the Profile folder, you have a bad one. In some cases the name of the profile is gone, but everything is still in Application Data/Mozilla/Profiles. And, I always people that there is a very reliable 4.7x/4.8 if you have one account, or with different profiles, as needed. And, I also use Eudora, for which I can use an AVG(antivirus program) plugin. Just stick to Standalone, you have had enough trouble.
I agree, NS6/NS7 is still flaky.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01

[corevalue_uk]

Farily sure it's not a virus - only Netscape is involved and no other app is behaving strangely. I moved from 4.7 to 7 because 4.7 was becoming very prone to lockup on some web pages, sometimes freezing and sometimes a GPF. I did a virus scan after the first occurrence, nothing found.

I really can do without fiddling with prefs.js, or renaming folders and trying to re-establish profiles. Bye-bye NS, sorry, I've stuck with you for years.

I've now installed Calypso as the mail tool, and it sure is good. Read in all my old mail and address books and seems a lot better than NS. Does an automatic back up of mail folders for you, and is easy to get back if it goes pear-shaped, I tried it. Doesnt keep connecting me to unwanted webpages on start-up. Profile and accounts management is brilliant. - never could get NS to work properly with more than 1 user.

I do need a good news reader though, I'm quite impressed with the NS reader after having tried a few others.

As for browser, I'll be trying Opera. Loth to go back to buggy 4.7, and 7.0 is so SLOW!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0