Multiple Downloads of Emails

[ag0044]

I just bombed my Windows installation, lost the entire C: drive and had to do a clean install.

I've installed Epyrus and had a profile backup from 10 November which I copied over to the appropriate place in Roaming.

However, I am now getting all my emails multiple times (I leave my emails on the provider's server for a couple of months, and delete a month's worth every month). It is as if Epyrus is not keeping track of what it has downloaded and what it has not. I am using POP.

In Account Settings, "Check for new messages every" is set to 10 minutes, "Automatically download new messages" is ticked, "Leave messages on server" is set to "Until I delete them".

I'm probably missing something very simple and silly, but if someone could please point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

Edit: and now it seems to happening to my RSS feeds as well.

[Bilbo47]

Unfort this is a major failing of POP generally. From long-ago memory, one way to clear it up should be - drop that account entirely from EP, probably close EP, then re-add the account. Just to make sure, I would make the new account use a different folder for [Account Settings / Server Settings / Local directory], or ensure that folder is deleted or renamed while EP is not running.

[Moonchild]

Alternatively you can clean it up "after the fact" with an extension that deletes duplicates.

[ag0044]

Bilbo47, thank you for the well-remembered suggestion. It tweaked my brain cell into recalling that sometimes deleting a certain file (popstate.dat - MozillaZine: https://kb.mozillazine.org/Repeatably_d ... e_messages) might work ... it didn't this time for me. Your suggestion, after deleting some files manually, did work.

Moonchild, thank you for your suggestion. I've tried a couple of duplicate finders in the past and none of them have worked for me. I did it all manually patiently.

[Bilbo47]

deleting some files manually did work.

Can you post which files were deleted manually? After which the problem stopped (POP duplicate message fetch)...

[ag0044]

Short version: I manually deleted the relevant sub-directory (mail.myprovider.com) under the Mail directory in the relevant profile.

Long version: I had a backup of the Profiles directory and an Export of the messages for that provider. I used Account Actions and then Remove Account, selecting both the following options so that, I thought, everything for that account would be deleted. Then I closed Epyrus.

After I re-started Epyrus, and recreated the account, it was created automatically with the same problems and all the previous messages, which was not what I expected nor wanted.

I then used Remove Account again with the same options, closed Epyrus, and went to the Mail directory in the relevant profile. The sub-directory for the account was still there, and that was what I deleted.

Started Epyrus, went to Add Account, and it went well, resulting in no email messages. Re-started Epyrus and then Imported the previous Export to import only the emails (and none of the previous settings).

Now, it's "All Good", as they say.


[edited to actually provide information.]

[Bilbo47]

I had an export of messages...
Account Actions -> Remove Account, selecting [delete <account folder>]
Close Epyrus, delete [that account's Mail directory]
Start Epyrus, re-add the account
Import the message-export

Yes thanks. That's familiar, where [Remove Account] fails to delete the mail folder, even when the relevant option is apparently selected.
So, go behind EP's back and *really* delete the folder, then start over. Congrats!

[athenian200]

Yes thanks. That's familiar, where [Remove Account] fails to delete the mail folder, even when the relevant option is apparently selected.
So, go behind EP's back and *really* delete the folder, then start over. Congrats!

Hmm... that seems like a bug? If someone removes an account, shouldn't it delete the folder?

[ag0044]

Blbo, "Congrats!" unwarranted, but accepted. Thinking back, my outlined process above is incorrect. I did not initially delete the mail directory, but renamed it - from mail.folder to WASmail.folder, for example - as an easy backup (despite already having a backup of my profiles, and an Export of my messages.

Hmm... that seems like a bug? If someone removes an account, shouldn't it delete the folder?

Athenian, when I read the text that comes up when you click on "More Info" at "Remove Account and Data", I expected that selecting both "Remove account information" and "Remove message data" would delete both settings and emails. So, in answer to your question, yes, I believe it should delete the folder. I'll leave you to decide if it is really a bug ... I think it is (but I'm often wrong about such things).

[Moonchild]

So, in answer to your question, yes, I believe it should delete the folder. I'll leave you to decide if it is really a bug

I don't think it's a bug. Mailboxes have their own names and are files, not folders. Removing the folder could incorrectly remove other mail data you want to keep.
Even in the case the folder ends up without files, it may still be in use by other accounts or locations for future storage. Deleting the folder would cause potential issues for paths suddenly no longer being available and throwing errors when trying to access.

[ag0044]

Moonchild, from my reading of the "More Info" text, if the user ticks the "Remove message data" then all messages and folders will be deleted.

The text reads:

Code: Select all

Removes all messages, folders and filters associated with this account from your local disk. This does not affect some messages which may still be kept on the server. Do not choose this if you plan to archive the local data or re-use it in Epyrus later.

[I couldn't copy-and-paste, so any errors are probably mine.]

To me, that reads that all messages and folders should, and will, be zapped. In my case that did not happen.

Mailboxes have their own names and are files, not folders.

Under my mail.myprovider.com folder, there were not only files, as you said, but also folders such as Saved Messages.sbd, which in turn had files and folders, and so on.

Or, am I missing something/s?

[Bilbo47]

Removing the folder could incorrectly remove other mail data you want to keep.

That makes no sense. The design of how it works, one mail-folder per mail-account, means - only that one account's data lives in that folder. If you want to delete the account and all of its data, then the entire folder with all contents needs to go. If you purposely subverted the design by wrongly storing anything else in there then that's on you.

Orrr, if we want the operation to do something different than what the wording says, then the wording needs to be corrected to match reality.

[Moonchild]

Well, maybe I was wrong. I'm not an expert in the inner workings of Mozilla's mail&news
Removing folders in use by running processes may not be always successful if they are locked by the filesystem, too. Maybe that's what's going on.

[ag0044]

Removing folders in use by running processes may not be always successful if they are locked by the filesystem, too. Maybe that's what's going on.

Moonchild, good point and it's definitely "Not The Best Of Ideas". I suppose that it depends on what actually happens. Do the folders and files get deleted immediately, or does that happen when the program is shut down? I think it is the former, but I have no idea why I think that. If it's the latter you'd expect - hope? - that there would be some form of warning message such as, "To complete this process, you need to close this program." I didn't see such a message.

I suppose that there would be something buried in the code of Epyrus (and its antecedents?)? I'll leave that to others who are better qualified and equipped to go burrowing into code.

[Bilbo47]

Removing folders ... may not be successful if they are locked by the filesystem

I experience this more the other way around: one cannot delete folders behind EP's back while it is running, even when it seems to be focusing on other folders/accounts. This is not a problem. In other words, the only process that is "supposed to be" locking that folder is EP itself. In that case, EP is the (only) process that needs to close its files / release its locks and delete the folder.

Okay now, this may be part of the problem. TB-style email clients before the re-write behave multi-threaded-ly; this is why they are wonderfully responsive, and quite moreso than after the re-write. It's easy to imagine a long-lived / cached previous file-access to persist as "open" until a delete-request made by [Remove Account]. If "another thread" still has a file open then the OS will not delete the folder at that time. If you close the client then sometimes the lock is released and the delayed delete proceeds, but sometimes not. In that case the folder may have some files deleted and some orphaned - either way, it's not in a normal state. When re-creating the account, you may get filename collisions or other weirdness from the leftover files. That's a major reason why manually deleting the folder after [Remove Account] is necessary.

For background, when creating an account I specifically set the mail-folder name, and discard the auto-generated folder. Yes this is inconvenient because it requires a restart, but it's worthwhile later for manual account maintenance etc.