Seeing the same emails again
in [Eudora]
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From: mm on 27 Dec 2009 17:16 It seems I am getting the smae emails I got before. Do ISPs ever have crashes, and then restore their system such that it lists emails that have been downloaded already as if they haven't been?
From: mm on 28 Dec 2009 17:02 On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:53:10 +0000, Jim Higgins <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: >On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:16:21 -0500, mm <NOPSAMmm2005(a)bigfoot.com> >wrote: > >>It seems I am getting the smae emails I got before. >> >>Do ISPs ever have crashes, and then restore their system such that it >>lists emails that have been downloaded already as if they haven't >>been? Thanks for replying. >Look at your settings under Tools => Options => Incoming Mail and tell >us whether "Leave mail on server" is checked. Yes, I keep my mail for one day. Sometimes I extend this to 2 or 3 days until I can solve a problem. >If you only check mail from one computer there is no good reason - at >least in my opinion - to have this turned on. Here's another reason. I sometimes want to read my email on the same computer but with another email program. For a variety of reasons, but yesterday the reason was that Eudora doesn't handle all alphabets. So, only Eudora is set to delete email. The other programs are always set not to. (This was easier when I had dial-up and I wasnt' always connected to the net. Now with a new program I'm testing, I have to be careful I don't dl and delete eamils before I figure out how to turn off the deleting.) >If it's turned on >:"just in case" you lose your saved mail from your computer, then I'd And that happened once too. I had just dl'd the mail and looked at one email when my computer craashed, and somehow when I restarted it, all my email was there except the several emails I had just gotten. This was with Eudora, some previous version many years ago. I don't understant how that could happen, since I was able to read one of the emails, but it did, and I don't want it to happen again. (I don't know what info I lost, and I hadn't read completely the one I started to read.) >say you're better off turning it off and instead periodically backing >up your mail database locally rather than counting on your ISP to keep >it safe just in case. I don't think that would help either of the two reasons above. But my question was too vague, I admit, or perhaps not stated at all. I'm trying to figure out how I do nothing special and still get groups of emails that I've already recevied. Do ISPs ever, or at least can they, have a crash that causes them to restore their files to a previous date (and maybe apply a "change file" that keeps track of incoming mail for the time in between the time of the backup and the current time) such that there restored file doesn't know that I have already downloaded some of the emails, and I would end up dl'ing the same mail twice. Or another thing that might account for my seeing repeat emails. Eudora has an option, Fetch all mail headers to In Mailbox -- Does everyone know about that? -- Maybe there is some accelerator key, shortcut key, that has caused me to do that when I didn't realize I was doing it???? Or a third possibility: I also have a little used account at Verizon, where I havent' deleted anything but it only holds about 50 emails over the past year. I dl the email several times a day whenever I dl from my other ISP, but that isp I have set to not delete. So once or twice I've gotten 20 to 40 emails from Verizon that I had already received before days or weeks earlier. I didnt' do anything special; they just came on one mail download. Ever hear of this problem before? Thanks. > YMMV.
From: John H Meyers on 28 Dec 2009 21:50 On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:02:47 -0600: > I'm trying to figure out how I do nothing special and still get groups > of emails that I've already received. What are the "Data" and "Application" paths in the "Help" | "About Eudora" screen? > Do ISPs ever, or at least can they, have a crash that causes them to > restore their files to a previous date (and maybe apply a "change > file" that keeps track of incoming mail for the time in between the > time of the backup and the current time) such that there restored file > doesn't know that I have already downloaded some of the emails, and I > would end up dl'ing the same mail twice? Very imaginative, but no. POP servers are completely passive, having no idea what you have done in the past, not even able to recognize whether you have ever connected before. POP servers simply obey the simple commands they receive from POP mail clients, which are responsible for managing "leave mail on server" from their own side. The only thing an ISP can do wrong is to cause arbitrary "unique message IDs" to fail to remain unchanged. This may happen, but is very infrequent, and if it occurs, it will affect any and all mail clients the same way. --
From: John H Meyers on 29 Dec 2009 00:42 Well, upon re-thinking: > Do ISPs ever, or at least can they, have a crash that causes them to > restore their files to a previous date (and maybe apply a "change > file" that keeps track of incoming mail for the time in between the > time of the backup and the current time) such that there restored file > doesn't know that I have already downloaded some of the emails, and I > would end up dl'ing the same mail twice? If a server were restored to a backup made prior to your last session with that server, then any client having a "leave mail on server" function would have deleted from its internal "remember that these are still on the server" list (LMOS.DAT) any unique IDs that it had since told the server to delete, so if any of those older IDs became "un-deleted," then they would be re-downloaded, but newer mail (since that last backup) would also be lost forever. If there were a true "journal" file, as you suggest, however, then it should bring the data completely back up to date again, deleting old items as well as appending new ones, which would make the answer "no" again :) One could always invent some system which would do otherwise, however, so this theory can always be said to be a possibility. My previous reply was meant to indicate that the server does not do the remembering of what client(s) have downloaded, but each client takes care of remembering for itself. Most "duplicate download" problems occur when the client's "remember that these are still on the server" list (LMOS.DAT) gets out of sync, or entirely lost. This has been reported to occur, in at least one case, where a user has attempted to keep "data" in the "programs" folder on Vista or Windows 7, as well as when these files are read-only, or lack permissions for the current user, or when Eudora is abnormally terminated, or the disk starts to fail, or perhaps when ghosts interfere :) --
From: mm on 29 Dec 2009 02:54
On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:42:27 -0600, "John H Meyers" <jhmeyers(a)nomail.invalid> wrote: >Well, upon re-thinking: > >> Do ISPs ever, or at least can they, have a crash that causes them to >> restore their files to a previous date (and maybe apply a "change >> file" that keeps track of incoming mail for the time in between the >> time of the backup and the current time) such that there restored file >> doesn't know that I have already downloaded some of the emails, and I >> would end up dl'ing the same mail twice? > >If a server were restored to a backup >made prior to your last session with that server, >then any client having a "leave mail on server" function >would have deleted from its internal >"remember that these are still on the server" list (LMOS.DAT) >any unique IDs that it had since told the server to delete, >so if any of those older IDs became "un-deleted," >then they would be re-downloaded, >but newer mail (since that last backup) >would also be lost forever. > >If there were a true "journal" file, as you suggest, however, >then it should bring the data completely back up to date again, >deleting old items as well as appending new ones, >which would make the answer "no" again :) > >One could always invent some system which would do otherwise, >however, so this theory can always be said to be a possibility. > >My previous reply was meant to indicate >that the server does not do the remembering of what client(s) >have downloaded, but each client takes care of remembering for itself. > >Most "duplicate download" problems occur when the client's >"remember that these are still on the server" list (LMOS.DAT) >gets out of sync, or entirely lost. > >This has been reported to occur, in at least one case, >where a user has attempted to keep "data" in the "programs" folder >on Vista or Windows 7, as well as when these files are read-only, >or lack permissions for the current user, or when Eudora is >abnormally terminated, or the disk starts to fail, >or perhaps when ghosts interfere :) I use either win98SE or winXP and keep my data for several programs and that which I create by hand in C:\data\ and for Eudora in C:\Data\Eudora7. The files have no special status, like read-only. Maybe if this happens again I can post here more promptly and with more details. In the past I've been busy trying to figure out which are new and which are old, and are old but I never saw them before, or old and repeats. And I jsut wanted to process them and get them out of my hair, and I didn't take the time to ask questions right away. Next time I'll take more time. FWIW, and it's not worth much because all the examples happened when I was running Win98SE on the C: drive. But I can run Eudora from Win98 on C: or WinXP on D: but the program file is always in C:\Programs\Eudora7 and the data files are always in C:\Data\Eudora7. Thanks and thanks to Jim for the replies. |