Out of many users running Eudora, I've seen only one case with this particular problem...
Failure pattern
System is Eudora 6.xx on XP Home, and
fails like this:
- user gets mail
- Eudora crashes and aborts
- when starting Eudora, prompts to fix In mailbox index
- that completes and shows
results OK, then...
- dialog reports "missing
file", name and path unspecified
- next dialog "Eudora has a
serious error", aborts
- repeat from "when starting Eudora, ..."
Attempts to fix
The following changes make no
difference:
- uninstalling Eudora 6.1.2 and installing Eudora 6.2.1
- running in Lite or Sponsored mode (client is Paid)
- clearing EudPriv (ads)
- renaming away Embedded directory and creating new one
- renaming away Attach directory and creating new one
- disabling other running apps via MSConfig
- disabling AVG 7.0's email integration
- disabling Microsoft's viewer (standard practice)
The problem cleared after renaming away the email data location, and creating a new one. Thereafter, material was copied back to the new mail data location from the old one, until the problem returned ("test to break"). All data could be copied over except the "spool" directory.
Workarounds
Further testing showed that one on several .RCV files within this spool directory could be copied back without problems. After a while, several problem .RCV were identified. Each .RCV file is a complete incoming email message, i.e. before Eudora strips out inline files to Embedded and attachments to Attach and then integrates the remaining message text into a mailbox.
Examining these .RCV files showed nothing in common that I could see - they were variable in size, often quite small; some were spam and some were wanted, and they were from different senders.
I crafted a filter to match one of the .RCV and delete it from server. This stopped the problem; the .RCV vanished from the "spool" directory without drama, and didn't appear within Eudora. I suggested this as an interim solution, demonstrating how to clear .RCV files and create filters for them, but recent reports suggest this doesn't always work.
Suspected mechanism
I suspect there's something about certain incoming email messages that prangs Eudora when it processes incoming mail (in intermediate .RCV form) after filters have indicated this should be "downloaded". Beyond that, the mechanics are obscure.
The client has access to Eudora support, and this web page will serve as a problem log in this regard. I'll follow up with further details when this is resolved!
(C) Chris Quirke, all rights reserved, April 2005