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[urgent!] ALL Mail disappeared
My computer crashed (Windows XP english 64bit / Opera 11.51 build 1087) and, after a re-start, Opera is not loading ANY mail... ALL Mail completely disappeared from Opera's interface!!!
(I'm going crazy over this)I've checked and index.ini is there (in \profile\mail\), all messages (e.g. 709160.mbs) are still there (in \profile\mail\store\), uidl_account7_ver8 is still there (in \profile\mail\pop3\), uid_account5 is still there (in \profile\mail\imap\), the HUGE lexicon.bx (1485.5 Mb) and lexicon.axx (261.2 Mb) are still there (in \profile\mail\lexicon\), all "feed_1200000123" are still there...
The only thing "odd" is the "indexer" (in \profile\mail\indexer\) folder; there's still 4 files there:
• message_id (13.75 Mb)
• indexer.bx (38.83 Mb)
• indexer.axx (0.67 Mb)
• indexer.ax (0.50 Mb)
...but I was under the impression that those files were "bigger" in size. (I might very well be wrong about that)
Anyhow, there seems to be no excuse for ANY of the mail to be gone from Opera interface (no RSS feeds, no IMAP, no POP3); All "markers" (the line in the mail panel where you click to get that specific mail or feed open in a new window) are there, but when the window opens there's NO MESSAGES whatsoever shown in the window...
Is this strange or what?
Can you help me, please?
Try this one: go to opera:config (type it on the address bar and press enter), look for "Mail Database Consistency Check" and change the value to zero. Click on save and then close Opera.
Intel I5-4430 - 8GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 4600
Originally posted by LeoCG:
Hi, LeoCG, many thanks for your reply. Any help at all is seriously appreciated!The messages are listed and you can not see/open them? Or the messages are not even listed?
Nope, they're not even listed. All the labels/indexes are there on the panel, but there's not a single indexed message in there.
Edit: Unfortunately, I just realized this too late: after the first rss message fetch, all these new incoming rss messages did appear under their correct label/feed. I'm really worried I might have overwritten (unknowingly) one (or more) very important file(s), after this rss fetch and I might not be able to recover my huge amount of very well indexed and organized previous messages.
Originally posted by LeoCG:
I'm writing this from an old copy of OperaUSB9 now, since I stumbled upon another post here that reported a "missing" (well, not missing properly, but "reset") file: omailbase.datTry this one: go to opera:config (type it on the address bar and press enter), look for "Mail Database Consistency Check" and change the value to zero. Click on save and then close Opera.
In my system the same file has been "reset" after the crash; it has now only 76.0 Kb!, against the last known size from the last backup, 3 months ago, which has several hundred Mb (452.7 Mb!).
Unfortunately there's way too many changes (important ones) between the last backup and the current version of the mail database, so reverting to the working last backup is not really an option for me.
Opera have even it's very own separate partition (D:\) just for it; I stopped all activities on it for now and I've used arecovery software (R-Studio) to try and locate the "missing" omailbase.dat. So far, I haven't been able to locate any of the previous versions of omailbase.dat, except for a "omailbase.dat-j", which is definitely not the file I'm looking for (it has only 4 Kb).
I will try your suggestion as soon as I'm done trying to recover the omailbase.dat file. I'll copy the whole Opera folder to a new partition/folder and I'll start tryin' anything that will be suggested to me. I can not loose that many years of carefully organized/labeled/indexed messages just because 1 single file went missing after a computer crash!
Honestry, if that really is my problem (a missing omailbase.dat after a simple and ordinary computer crash), and ALL my mail that went missing is unrecoverable, except by "importing" them manually and re-setting all labels/indexes again, "by hand", one by one (9 accounts + 526000 messages + 832 different label/indexes), this is totally unacceptable![/B]
If that file is so important, why Opera doesn't deal with it in a more "secure" way, e.g. don't open it for modification without making a backup that will allow it NOT to be lost FOREVER in the event of a simple crash.
26. September 2011, 00:59:31 (edited)
Originally posted by burnout426:
Thanks for your quick response, burnout!How big is omailbase.dat?
I believe I answered your question in the post above: 76.0 Kb
Edit: Are you sure the solution you gave in http://operawiki.info/ImportFromBadMailFolder is the only way to go?
What will happen if I keep my current configuration and just set-up all accounts as if they were "new" acccounts?
Will I be able to keep using the more than 800 regex rules already set-up in many different labels?
Can I possibly just move the store folder (\profile\mail\store\) to another location and later on "import" those .mbs messages (let's say, month by month, given that an average month has 30 to 50 thousand messages)?
Originally posted by auler:
I believe I answered your question in the post above: 76.0 Kb
Hmm. If it's that small, then, I'm guessing the database got trashed/lost. If so and you don't have a recent backup of the mail folder, I think you will indeed have to import (using this method for example). But, yes, it'll be a pain (Unless you use all IMAP accounts with IMAP keywords for labels. Then, you don't have to import anything and just setting up the IMAP accounts with a new mail folder will restore all your messages and labels.)
Originally posted by auler:
this is totally unacceptable!
Judging by others that have had this problem, Opera doesn't survive a computer crash very well. But, I can't saw that other clients like Thunderbird and Sylpheed for example do either.
Originally posted by burnout426:
Well, if that's the only way, then I guess there's waaaaay too much work to be done... (I'm so frustrated right now I'm about to cry)Hmm. If it's that small, then, I'm guessing the database got trashed/lost. If so and you don't have a recent backup of the mail folder, I think you will indeed have to import (using this method for example). But, yes, it'll be a pain (Unless you use all IMAP accounts with IMAP keywords for labels. Then, you don't have to import anything and just setting up the IMAP accounts with a new mail folder will restore all your messages and labels.)
Since I'll have to start from scratch the work of importing all 526,000 messages from 2005 to 2011, can I ask you 2 things?
(1) Could you consult the developers and recommend any specific filesystem (NTFS?, FAT32?, ext3?, ext4?, etc) and cluster size (512 bytes?, 1Kb?, 4Kb?, 32Kb?, 64Kb?) for my partition to better deal (in a more efficient manner) with the thousands of really small .mbs files that Opera Mail System creates?
I never undestood why not create more compact files; if you're gonna separate by year, month, and day you could at least store a single file for each day...) My computer takes exaclty 4 and a half hours! and uses more than 70% of CPU cycles (hardware interrupts) whenever coping the whole "mail folder" due to the massive number of small single files.
Originally posted by burnout426:
Yes, I would say so too... and for me this is really a big deal! You can't allow the whole messaging system of a client be corrupted so easily by one single file! Let's face it: there's nothing more important in terms of data inside any installation of Opera than the mail system! The rest of the files, including configurations, can be easily restored/reinstalled/reconstructed/imported, but the mail system apparently can't... It just can't be allowed to be so easily corrupted. This is a serious bug and should be fixed (in my opinion).Originally posted by auler:
Judging by others that have had this problem, Opera doesn't survive a computer crash very well.this is totally unacceptable!
Now that I know that this specific file (omailbase.dat) is so important, I will try to include it in the daily backup (even though it's massive in size).
(2) Is there any other important files, besides omailbase.dat, accounts.ini and index.ini that I should backup daily?
I can't backup the whole mail folder not only because it's too big but, more importantly, because it takes too long and consume too much CPU resources on my machine while the operation is being held. That's exactly why my last backup of the full mail folder is about 3 months old, unfortunately.
26. September 2011, 04:25:09 (edited)
Originally posted by auler:
Is there any other important files, besides omailbase.dat, accounts.ini and index.ini that I should backup daily?
The "indexer", "IMAP and "POP3" folders need to be backed up too. The autofilter folder needs to be backed up too if you want to back up what the spam filter and labels have learned (if they're set to learn). (The lexicon folder is just the search index and Opera will rebuild it if it's not there.
26. September 2011, 03:00:29 (edited)
Originally posted by auler:
Could you consult the developers and recommend any specific filesystem (NTFS?, FAT32?, ext3?, ext4?, etc) and cluster size (512 bytes?, 1Kb?, 4Kb?, 32Kb?, 64Kb?) for my partition to better deal (in a more efficient manner) with the thousands of really small .mbs files that Opera Mail System creates?
I've been told before that the mail database loads faster on linux with ext 3/4, but that doesn't mean it'll be significant enough for you. For cluster size, I guess you'd want to figure out the average size for *your* mbs files and choose a cluster size that average size can fit into without too much blank space overhead. But, I'm not sure how much that will improve things. And, if you have a bunch of small files elsewhere on your system, I will cause them to take up more space. Also, on NTFS at least, I think disk compression only works with a 4K cluster size. So, if you need compression, then you have to use 4K no matter what.
Originally posted by auler:
I never undestood why not create more compact files; if you're gonna separate by year, month, and day you could at least store a single file for each day...)
Default Mail Store Type might still work. You need to set it before creating your accounts.
Click the "?" to see what each value does. If that doesn't work, see "Default Mail Store Type" under <http://www.opera.com/support/usingopera/operaini/#userprefs>.
Originally posted by auler:
Well, if that's the only way, then I guess there's waaaaay too much work to be done...
There might be another way, but can't think of one personally.
Originally posted by burnout426:
That's really good to know; thanks for your quick reply!The "indexer", "IMAP and "POP3" folders need to be backed up too. (The lexicon folder is just the search index and Opera will rebuild it if it's not there.)
I don't know if I was clear enough in my previous message (my head is not really "in the right place" right now):
I meant to ask, NOT what I should incidentally backup, but what I should backup DAILY, in order to avert new disasters like the one that occurred today.
Originally posted by burnout426:
My average .mbs file is exaclty 2.97Kb (most are between 2.50Kb and 3.60Kb), so I gues the 4Kb would be the best choice?I've been told before that the mail database loads faster on linux with ext 3/4, but that doesn't mean it'll be significant enough for you. For cluster size, I guess you'd want to figure out the average size for *your* mbs files and choose a cluster size that average size can fit into without too much blank space overhead. But, I'm not sure how much that will improve things. Also, on NTFS at least, I think disk compression only works with a 4K cluster size. So, if you need compression, then you have to use 4K no matter what.
I see no problem with using ext4, if it will give me a performance advantage (should I use ext3 or ext4, does it make a difference?)
Note: I'm not really concerned about wasting disk space, I'm much more concerned about performance. The way it is right now (or was), it takes many minutes to load the full database, although once it was loaded it was very efficient. The main problem was whenever there had to be a physical operation with those mail files (moving, copying, deleting, backup, etc), then it really slows down and makes the computer almost useless by using almost all the CPU.
Originally posted by burnout426:
I loved this. Many, many thanks for pointing that out to me!Default Mail Store Type might still work. You need to set it before creating your accounts.
Click the "?" to see what each value does. If that doesn't work, see "Default Mail Store Type" under <http://www.opera.com/support/usingopera/operaini/#userprefs>.
I'm on Opera 9 right now (there's no "? " on the config), so the other link also was very useful.
Originally posted by OperaSupport:
I do understand why a simple solution like number 2 is ideal for the vast majority of users, but for me, number 1 will be the best. There's 2 quick doubts that came from it, though:0 = none: do not store messages locally, fetch from server when clicking
1 = monthly: create one big mbox file for each month of messages (Opera 7/8-style)
2 = per message: create one mbox file per message
3 = database cursor: store all messages in one big, compressed binary file
(A) it is mentioned there "(Opera 7/8-style)" for number 1 (monthly mbox file). Does that mean that this is a "legacy" support method and I'll probably have some trouble down the road if I elect to use this method? (I mean, will it probably be discontinued support for it in future versions?)
(B) When I do get the "old" messages imported (the 526,000 current ones) will they all be stored in a single file (if I do setup option 1) or a few files, depending on the date (month) of the message or will they be imported using the format they occupy now (1 mbox per message)?
Originally posted by burnout426:
Thanks for giving me at least 1 alternative. It is really bad and I will probably spend literally months trying to restore the mail system I was using before, but it's certainly better than nothing at all...There might be another way, but can't think of one personally.
Anyhow, you've been really kind to me, responding all of my doubts really quick and in a really patient manner, so I can not thank you enough for that!
I really hope whenever I finish settinp up the "new" mail system with the 1-month mbox files, it will be faster and easier to backup. So that you have an idea, this entire time we've been talking and only now the backup system is 64% on the round of CRC-test of the entire backup, after taking a really loooooong time copying it.
Originally posted by auler:
but what I should backup DAILY
Yeh, those apply to "daily" too.
Originally posted by auler:
My average .mbs file is exaclty 2.97Kb (most are between 2.50Kb and 3.60Kb), so I gues the 4Kb would be the best choice?
Sounds like it.
Originally posted by auler:
I see no problem with using ext4, if it will give me a performance advantage (should I use ext3 or ext4, does it make a difference?)
It might, but not sure. You'd have to switch to linux to use ext or find something for windows and Opera that will allow them to read the ext partition.
26. September 2011, 04:00:03 (edited)
Originally posted by auler:
I'm on Opera 9 right now (there's no "? " on the config),
You have to use Opera 11.51 to see it and I think Opera 12 for it to work correctly. Also note that Opera 9 I think is worse at handling system crashers. There have been some improvements since then.
Originally posted by auler:
(A) it is mentioned there "(Opera 7/8-style)" for number 1 (monthly mbox file). Does that mean that this is a "legacy" support method and I'll probably have some trouble down the road if I elect to use this method? (I mean, will it probably be discontinued support for it in future versions?)
Anything is possible. Don't know for sure.
Originally posted by auler:
(B) When I do get the "old" messages imported (the 526,000 current ones) will they all be stored in a single file (if I do setup option 1) or a few files, depending on the date (month) of the message or will they be imported using the format they occupy now (1 mbox per message)?
I would imagine that importing would cause them to be stored in the new format, but don't know for sure.
Originally posted by auler:
Is there any other important files, besides omailbase.dat, accounts.ini and index.ini that I should backup daily?
I think that the best thing to do is to backup the whole mail folder.
Intel I5-4430 - 8GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 4600
Originally posted by LeoCG:
I did try this option, after all (after making various backups), but I was not too confident about it.Try this one: go to opera:config (type it on the address bar and press enter), look for "Mail Database Consistency Check" and change the value to zero. Click on save and then close Opera.
Unfortunately, it did not work at all. It took more than 10 hours to proccess all mail and when it finished, it had generated a 12.1Mb long text file "recovery.log" and a lot of messages appeared under "Unread" but it was all scrambled, most message items pointed nowhere, so I had to erase it all and "start over"...
Originally posted by burnout426:
Ok, thanks!Yeh, those apply to "daily" too.
Originally posted by burnout426:
There's an Open Source extension for windows that works quite well: Ext2Fsd (Open source ext3/4 file system driver for Windows 2K/XP/VISTA/WIN7) = http://www.ext2fsd.com/It might, but not sure. You'd have to switch to linux to use ext or find something for windows and Opera that will allow them to read the ext partition.I see no problem with using ext4, if it will give me a performance advantage (should I use ext3 or ext4, does it make a difference?)
Originally posted by burnout426:
I can report that they all do get stored in the new format; I investigated it a little bit further and found out that this exact property is stored both inside operaprefs.ini (on \profile\ folder) in the [User Prefs] setion on the item "Default Mail Store Type=1" - that defines the default behaviour for the next mail account to be added - and on accounts.ini (on \profile\mail\ folder) in the [AccountN] setion at the very last item "Default Store=1" - that defines the specific behaviour for that specific mail account, so my guess is that it's possible to have different storage strategies for different accounts if one wishes to do so.I would imagine that importing would cause them to be stored in the new format, but don't know for sure.
I'm really happy to report that, thanks to you (for reporting this possibility to me), I now have imported the whole current month (September 2011) of messages (more than 40,000) and they all came into a single mbox file:
- before it allocated 201.3 Mb on disk (as single-message .mbs files) and now the very same 40,000+ messages only allocate 123.1 Mb;
- before it took me more than one hour to backup only the \store\account3\2011\09\ folder and now it takes me less than a few seconds to backup that single 2011-09.mbs file. (if that's not vast improvement, I don't know what is...)
- before it grabbed most of my CPU resources while doing it (hardware interrupts) and now I barely notice it.
The only downside to those imported messages is that they all come "mixed" together and without any processing, so I have to go through all of them, making sure to add the sender to the proper list (or, when it's me, separating that message into an alternative "Sent" Label), including each message, one by one, into all its proper labels, etc, etc.
It will take a loooooong time, but I'll probably be better off with the new system a few months from now.
If I may, i would like to ask you, if you have any kind of influence with the developers of the mail system in Opera, that they please do not take the "Default Store=1" (montly mbox files) from the options in a future version (e.g. v12 next).
Originally posted by LeoCG:
Well that wasn't feasible before, as it took too much CPU cycles from the machine and also took an incredibly long time (more than 4 hours). But now, with montly .mbs files, it will be possible again (and much more simple both to predict which file to backup next - they all follow the same rules for naming and are stored in the same path, under the same rules for path too, e.g. \store\account3\2011-08.mbs, \store\account3\2011-09.mbs, etc).I think that the best thing to do is to backup the whole mail folder.
Originally posted by auler:
If I may, i would like to ask you, if you have any kind of influence with the developers
I informed them of this thread.
Originally posted by burnout426:
Many thanks for that!I informed them of this thread.
If I may, I would like to comment further on the "Default Mail Store Type":
Originally posted by OperaSupport:
It looks to me that these options should somehow take a place somewhere on the browser interface (in config dialogs), instead of being just "buried" in the .ini files (but that's just my opinion).0 = none: do not store messages locally, fetch from server when clicking
1 = monthly: create one big mbox file for each month of messages (Opera 7/8-style)
2 = per message: create one mbox file per message
3 = database cursor: store all messages in one big, compressed binary file
For instance, users of Opera in USB sticks (portable option) could very well like the option "Default Mail Store Type=0" (none), since it won't store any messages and won't waste any space in their portable version of Opera.
What I think should really be added is the option of also storing daily mbox files. For instance, in my previous month of September 2011 (\profile\mail\store\account3\2011\09\), I had 40,797 files, each file around 3Kb in size, and they were all converted to a single 2011-09.mbs, with 123.1 Mb; Now, if they were to be converted to 25 (twenty five) "2011-09-xx.mbs" files instead, that would have been fine too, and perhaps even better than the single 123Mb file.
P.S.: The Imported Messages all go into a "new account" (Imported), and whenever I access that Inbox with all it's messages, I can apply many different labels, as I should, but whenever I try to sort those 40,000+ messages "by label" with those messages that have a label attached to them at the top of the list, in an ordered manner, the result is "mixed-up": there's some messages at the top and ordered, but there's a lot of other messages that are also labeled similarly and are displayed at various positions in the list (not at the top, ordered, as they should be).
Originally posted by Janaru:
Hi, Janaru,I not only lost all of my e-mail, I also lost the e-mail button and all the options to add it are grayed-out. I'm running Opera 11.51 on Windows XP Pro. I'm an idiot and don't understand a lot of what's above, but not so much of an idiot that I deleted all of my mail and the mail function itself.
the whole story of this thread is about losing 1 single file that is related to the mail system database (the system that allows Opera to "know" which message belongs to which account and where it's stored, which label is attached to it, etc, etc, etc).
First of all you've got to check if your "omailbase.dat" file. It is located in your Opera install folder (Like, C:\Program Files\Opera\), generally under the \profile\mail\ subdirectory (Like, C:\Program Files\Opera\profile\mail) - if you go to your "about" page in Opera ( opera:about ) you're gonna see it in "Paths", right after "Mail directory".
If your "omailbase.dat" is too small in size (a few Kb), then there's a good chance that it has been corrupted, and, unfortunately, Opera has no workaround to restore it (unless you've got a very recent backup of it, in which case you'll loose the references to all messages that arrived/were sent after the date of the backup).
If that's your case too, it's a tragedy, but you still can "import" all your previous messages into a new account, after following a series of procedures, described in this page: http://operawiki.info/ImportFromBadMailFolder.
Originally posted by Janaru:
I not only lost all of my e-mail, I also lost the e-mail button and all the options to add it are grayed-out. I'm running Opera 11.51 on Windows XP Pro. I'm an idiot and don't understand a lot of what's above, but not so much of an idiot that I deleted all of my mail and the mail function itself.
Any recent upgrade or re-install? Opera or system crash?
Intel I5-4430 - 8GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 4600
Originally posted by auler:
Originally posted by Janaru:
Hi, Janaru,I not only lost all of my e-mail, I also lost the e-mail button and all the options to add it are grayed-out. I'm running Opera 11.51 on Windows XP Pro. I'm an idiot and don't understand a lot of what's above, but not so much of an idiot that I deleted all of my mail and the mail function itself.
the whole story of this thread is about losing 1 single file that is related to the mail system database (the system that allows Opera to "know" which message belongs to which account and where it's stored, which label is attached to it, etc, etc, etc).
First of all you've got to check if your "omailbase.dat" file. It is located in your Opera install folder (Like, C:\Program Files\Opera\), generally under the \profile\mail\ subdirectory (Like, C:\Program Files\Opera\profile\mail) - if you go to your "about" page in Opera ( opera:about ) you're gonna see it in "Paths", right after "Mail directory".
If your "omailbase.dat" is too small in size (a few Kb), then there's a good chance that it has been corrupted, and, unfortunately, Opera has no workaround to restore it (unless you've got a very recent backup of it, in which case you'll loose the references to all messages that arrived/were sent after the date of the backup).
If that's your case too, it's a tragedy, but you still can "import" all your previous messages into a new account, after following a series of procedures, described in this page: http://operawiki.info/ImportFromBadMailFolder.
I have a similar problem: all my "Received" emails disappeared from the list. The strange thing is:
1. my omailbase.dat is 53.6MB
2. at the top of Mail Pannel, it says Received (6 unread, 4702 total), but yet I can only see the the 6 unread emails.
3. My Sent folder is fine, "Trash" and "Drafts" folders are fine too, with all messages listed and showing. Only the the "Received" is emptied out, except displaying the most recently received ones.
Any help appreciated!!!
-wmz505
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