SillyDog701

[apmoc2]

NS 4.8

this email program has suddenly started to collapse every time I use it & on several PCs that are not interconnected, so it seems unlikely to be a virus.
How do I get back to using Netscape 4.8 as my email program
O'Connor in Rio

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.8 [en] (WinNT; U)

[PaulD]

Hello, O'Connor.
'collapse' is not descriptive. It is the result, not the process.
Does the Netscape program crash? Or can you not receive and/or send emails?
What occurs, or what doesn't occur?
Has your ISP either:
- changed email port numbers, security, and/or the sign-on mode; or
- dropped support for NS 4.8?

"How do I get back to using Netscape 4.8 as my email program "
Must you for some reason use Netscape?
Note that Thunderbird, a current Mozilla email-only product, supports Windows NT 4.0.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1

[profman]

Below I paste, from an E-mail from apmoc2 (and with his permission), more information about his problem.

Thank you for your reply. I know NS4.8 is old, but we
> > have used it sucessfully with MS98, 98SE, XP & Vista
> > very sucessfully until recently. Suddenly it has gone
> > unstable (at more or less the same moment) on 3
> > computers that are not connected on a network. Variously
> > PCs using XP in the office, at home in Brazil & in UK,
> > as well as on a notebook using Vista in the office.
> >
> > With XP, NS4.8 just suddenly vanishes when trying to
> > download messages, write messages or just read old
> > messages. Occasionally when just sitting there not being
> > used. With Vista it does the same, but announces it has
> > a problem & must close, rather than just vanishing.
> >
> > We are not sure if this is a virus (we think not as it
> > happened at much the same time on independant
> > computers). Has NS put in some software to pursude
> > people to stop using NS4.8 (why would they bother?). Has
> > Microsoft put in a patch to de-stabilise NS4.8? Nothing
> > makes much sense.
> > Meanwhile we had planned to eventually move to Mozilla
> > Thunderbird. So now we have done so successfully with a
> > PC using XP as it asked which files we wanted to import
> > from the old NS4.8. However Vista does not ask this.
> > Meanwhile we are unable to find the files in XP that
> > have been imported, though they are there & work
> > correctly. This causes 2 problems.:-
> >
> > -1) We can't find the files in XP to make back-up
> > copies. -2) While we have the files in NS4.8 (users), we
> > cannot import them in Vista to Thunderbird as we don't
> > know where to put them.
> >
> > Thanks for any light you might be able to shed on our
> > problems.
> > regards
> > apmoc2

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080702 Firefox/2.0.0.16

[PaulD]

1. Thank you, Profman, for posting the response.

2. Near simultaneous onset of failures. So, what occurred that would cause simultaneity?
- Virus? As you say, unlikely.
- Netscape? likewise.
- "Has Microsoft put in a patch to de-stabilise NS4.8?"
-- Doubtful that they would target NS and 4.8. But:
--- Do your systems have Microsoft 'Automatic Updates' enabled? Is it possible that some fix/patch may be triggering this behavior? The August updates are indexed here. You can find the updates for other months by manually changing the date in the URL. If you think this likely, you may wish to back out the changes, if possible, in a process of elimination.

3. For the locations of the files in the various operating systems, see here. Note that the folders are hidden, which is probably why you couldn't find them. (There are parallel articles for the other Mozilla products, if you are interested. See the top of the first paragraph.)

Edit additions to (2):
Do you use the same anti-virus program on all the computers? - Which one? - Did it change in this time frame? Is there any other anti-malicious-email application that was installed or changed at this time?

The initial post says that mail "collapse[s] every time I use it "
- So it crashes on 100% of the attempts, and for all computers?
- It is conceivable that some particular email that all computers have received or sent has been corrupted in some manner that has induced this, although I don't understand how. You might see if it helps to delete all the mail .snm files (Inbox.snm, Sent.snm, etc.). Netscape will rebuild these summary files as needed.
- Along the same line of thought: Is there any 'common email' that may have some attachment with embedded code or script or executable?

"With XP, NS4.8 just suddenly vanishes when trying to download messages, write messages or just read old messages. Occasionally when just sitting there not being used. With Vista it does the same, but announces it has a problem & must close, rather than just vanishing."
- Is Mail set automatically to "Check for new messages every xx minutes"?

Do all your computers use the same ISP? - Who? - POP or IMAP?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080702 Firefox/2.0.0.16

[geffr]

I'm using 4.79 across 2 xp machines & 1 Win 98. The Win 98 machine is the server. I get the issue you describe when NS can't connect to the mail directory on the machine I'm using as server. NS gets very unhappy when this happens. I'd suggest checking your firewalls to make sure they're not blocking NS on the machine acting as server. I also wonder if Vista is the problem.

If that isn't the issue, I'd suggest a reinstall or clean install. While 4.79 has been quite stable for me, some earlier versions had a tendency to become corrupted. I haven't used 4.8.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011913 Firefox/3.0.6