Found a way to deal with ghost emails...

  • Thread starter Thread starter jwardl
  • Start date Start date
BTW, I'm not Jeff R. I didn't realize there was another person signing their
posts as JR.

I'm just plain ol' JR of the female persuasion.
 
Hello JR of the female persuasion.
You are braver than me, a 22-year veteran of working with
personal computers. Thanks for confirming my suspicion
that deleting the WindowsMail.MSMessageStore is not
without pitfalls. I have thousands of messages in dozens of
folders that I am loathe to move around.

Gary VanderMolen
 
Gary,
If you do decide to delete the WindowsMail.MSMessageStore, do a backup of
your emails beforehand. It was easy for me to import them (and a heck of a
lot more successful than trying to drag them from the Windows Mail backup).
Just remember not to import the deleted items folder. If I remember
correctly, I was able to pick and choose which folders I wanted to import.

So far my Windows Mail is running ok and the deleted items folder is
emptying nicely. I wonder if it started giving me problems because I had over
1000 emails sitting in there and I tried to delete them all at once (I belong
to several email groups and I sometimes get lazy about emptying the folder).
It was working fine until that point.

BTW, I only have 6 years of PC experience and I'm not much of a techie. I
troubleshoot here and there but most of the time I'm wary about deleting
files like that. Several people said it worked so that's why I gave it a try.
I kind of guessed it wasn't going to go smoothly. My deleted items folder had
a few hundred emails stuck in it. I don't know if it gets full or what so I
had to do something.

JR of the female persuasion
 
A little more info on my trials of deleting the WindowsMail.MSMessage Store.
I shut down for the night last night and when restarting this morning I got
an error message saying something to the effect that Windows Mail could not
open because it couldn't find a file. I had to browse through the folders and
select something for it to use. I accidently selected the backup (my trigger
happy mouse hand double clicked by accident) and it launched after saying the
a file was corrupt and Windows Mail would recover (or restore) it. However, a
few new emails that downloaded were corrupt (page cannot be displayed) when I
opened them. I don't know if those were already there before Windows Mail
opened or if they were some of the emails that downloaded after I got past
the errors. Either way, this fix has its consequences. I got rid of the ghost
emails but now it appears I have new issues to deal with. I hope this was the
last of them.

JR
 
I'm afraid this is like putting a band-aid over a deep wound.
Until the root cause is found and fixed, problems with WinMail
will keep cropping up.

Gary VanderMolen
 
I have come to seriously regret messing with the Message Store. I've had
nothing but problems ever since (far more annoying than having ghost messages
stuck in my deleted items folder). Just now I tried to open Windows Mail and
I couldn't see any of the emails in any of the folders. I closed and reopened
a few times and eventually I got error messages saying it couldn't locate the
Message Store folder. *sigh* I even restarted to see if that would help.
Things continued going downhill. I linked it to the Message Store in the
backup folder and now all the folders I created and my saved emails are gone.
I could import everything from my backup CD again but should I even bother?
Or will this happen again tomorrow when I start the computer?

I'm absolutely fed up with this. I may chuck the whole program and just read
my emails from my ISP server. This is B.S.

JR
 
Sorry to hear that, but you see now why I was reluctant to try it.
Since you have nothing to lose, you might try the approach that "Trick"
outlined, the one that Microsoft tech support gave him. See the thread
"Fixed Windows Mail Outbox Stuck Message & E-mail Not Sending".

Gary VanderMolen
 
how do delete files that will not delete. The message store file will not
allow me to delete it
 
Endtask the WinMail.exe process first.

steve

Dominick Feragola said:
how do delete files that will not delete. The message store file will not
allow me to delete it
Click to expand...
 
I have tried that but when i go back to delete the mailstore file it will not
allow to do so. then when i restart it does not rework the files correctly.
what do i get rid of the mail store file.........im not a windows guru like
some of you. i have been a windows user since version 2..........that was
long ago
 
Do a CTRL-SHIFT-ESC and then find the WinMail.exe process and endtask it.
Then you can delete or move the files.

This appears to be the latest we can come up with to handle the problem: (I
don't recommend wiping out the message store unless WinMail is crippled.)

First thing is to remove McAfee or Norton AV and antispam from the computer
if they exist. You may need to visit their website to fully uninstall the
product. Then get something less invasive. There are a number of free
antivirus programs, but with any you have to disable email scanning. See
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#3

You can also try compacting and repairing the database using my WMUtil
program (www.oehelp.com/WMUtil/).

After that, the only solution so far is to wipe out the database. So go to
Tools | Options | Advanced | Maintenance | Store Folder to find the message
store location. Then move everything under that Windows Mail directory to
another directory. Then restart WinMail and it will open fresh with nothing
in the database. You can then add your accounts and if they work correctly
then you can use File | Import | Messages and choose WinMail format and
point to the directory to which you moved the files.

steve
 
Steve:

It apears that ending the winmail.exe file has worked. I copied all the
files in the windows mail sub directory. stoped the exe file and all the
files copied to the temp file. i went back and deleted the mailstore file and
it deleted. i restarted and all the files in win mail reworked
fine.............i am running Thunderbird and will now have two email
clients. when MS comes up with a proper fix, i will resume using the Win
Mail. Thanks so much for the help. I've been frustrated with this problem.

Best to you

Dominick
 
Well, I kinda got this to fix the problem with my friends stuck mail message.
But after WinMail reconstructed the database and all the message were indeed
in the recovered folder. the next time we started winmail it started to
rebuild the database again and the previously recovered mail was missing. I
tried a few times, even recreating folders and moving the recovered ones into
them, but no joy.

Fortunately, I made a backup of the the whole WinMail folder and was able to
recover eerything back to its original state with the stuck mail still there.
Which is the way it looks like its going to have to stay untill a proper fix
can be found.

I guess this is another reason why I myself am putting off the move to Vista.
 
Steve:

has there been any fix's fot the ghost mail problem? I would like to use
winmail as my mail client but do not want to have to deal with the problem
again!

Thanks
Dominick
 
Steve:

I know it worked! Thanks for the reply!

Has MS asressed the problem with any fix's

Thanks again

Dominick
 
I just want to say Thank you so much! My husbands emal was corrupt and he
had a very important email from Delta Airlines for his job. I (the wife) was
freaking out! All is well now with your help! Thanks so much. Just goes to
show you that these listserves really work well! Denise
 
In the future, do not use the older fix that you have referenced.
It can have bad side effects.
The newer Microsoft fix is here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/941090
"Messages may be stuck in the Outbox when you use Windows Mail on a
computer that is running Windows Vista"

Although Outbox is the only folder mentioned, it will remove stuck
messages from all folders.
 

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