Closed Bug 212585 Opened 21 years ago Closed 21 years ago

After installation of the newest nightly build I lost all my mail boxes, the settings remained but that was it.

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: Installer, defect)

Product:
SeaMonkey
Component:
Installer
Platform:
x86
Windows XP
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
blocker

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 212599

People

(Reporter: maartin, Assigned: Bienvenu)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624

After installing the lastest nightly build of Mozilla (excl chatzilla) I
received a message that the install will clear out all third party software but
all else would remain.
But when I started up Mozilla and then from the component bar started the mail
side of Mozilla. The local folders and mail box including the news accounts were
listed on the lefthand side bar, but none of the 'boxes' where there. This
includes inbox, sent items etc...

After having dug around in the mail storage folders I discovered that all the
mail files (.dat and msf) where gone. All was lost luckily I made a backup
before hand and restored everything but that still did not work. I had to revert
back to Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624
and restore the files again.

Now all is working fine again.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install the nightly build
2. Start Mozilla and from the component bar start mail component
3. Mail settings remain but all mail files(.dat & .msf) are deleted.

Actual Results:  
All the .dat and .msf files where deleted from the mail storage folder under
profiles\....\mail\.... and news\....

When clicking on Get messages nothing happens due to the files that are not
there any more.

Expected Results:  
not deleted my files?
did you check if you have two sets of Mail folders now in two separate
sub-directories of your user profile directory? The only bug I know about that
can cause this is if the pref that specifies the local mail directory  gets
corrupted, so we start up and discover there are no mail folders and create new
ones. 
I did check but there were no additional mail folders, the mail client was still
pointing to the correct folder for the mail and news.

This all in the Profile Default directory.

Any other Ideas? Why was is warning about thrid party software? I did not
install any other software only the plugins such as flash and java but that was it.
did all your mail folders have .dat names? I'm just wondering why you say ".dat"
I  have no idea what happened here. I don't know much about the installer, or
why it clears out "third party software". I can try to grep through the source
and see what it does...do you have a virus checker installed? Sometimes those
think mail folders have viruses and unceremoniously delete them :-(
Yes all my mail folders and news folders have files that end with the exstension
.dat and the same for the .msf.

In deed I have a virus scanner, it is possible that it stuffed around with the
install set, but it usual warns you before it does anything. What I find funny
is that it does this only with the nightly build that I used.


is this reproducible with that same nightly build? If so, but not with other
builds, then it would be a very unfortunate problem with that build, but at
least a problem that seems to be fixed.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
This same problem happened when I installed 1.5a (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U;
Win98; en-US; rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030718) on to my system (Windows 98 4.10.1998). 

I ran the installer (mozilla-win32-1.5a-installer-sea.exe) and everything went
fine until I opened my mail. All of my settings were there, however all of my
mail folders (along with the email they contained) were gone. I did a search for
inbox*.* on c:\ and found nothing. The installer had deleted the profile
directory with all of my mail folders. I copied a backup :( 3 days old) of my
profile directory into the mozilla folder and all of my mail folders returned. I
ran the installer again (installing overtop of 1.5a) and the installer deleted
the profile directory again. 

Two more things:
1. I was upgrading from 1.3b to 1.5a.

2. Bugs 208624 and 212585 seem to be the same.
I just left mine @ ver 1.4 and I'm not touching any of the other versions 
until this bug is fixed. I can't afford to lose my mail when I upgrade to
a newer version.

The previous upgrades did not cause me any troubles but the nightly builds
are nasty for me. So until a new version is officialy relased every thing 
stays as it is.

If you do feel like experimenting and have managed to upgrade to a new version
and did not lose your mail please let me know. Also something that I feel 
might be a good idea is to have an inport util so that I can import my moz mail
instead of copying and fiddling until it works. What do you think?

Cheers,
Maartin.
If you can reproduce this, that would be very helpful in figuring out what's
going on. As far as I know, the installer doesn't touch profile directories, so
it has no business deleting them. If your profile directory was really deleted,
you would lose all your settings as well, because prefs.js contains your
settings, and is in your profile directory.

If you don't mind, could you try the following experiments? (I'm assuming you're
running on windows).

1. find the mail server sub-directory of your user profile directory - it will
be something like c:\documents and settings\application
data\mozilla\profiles\username\xxxxxxxx.slt\Mail\serverName - that directory
will have your inbox, etc.
2. run the installer - when that's done, the browser launches, correct? At that
point, is your INBOX still there? If so,
3. Launch mail - is your INBOX still there?

Also, you need to be sure that you've shut down Mozilla *completely*, including
quick launch, before running the installer. And, do you have just one profile?

thx,

- david
whoops, that should be c:\documents and settings\user name\application data ...
gtchar, the other question is - do you have a virus checker installed?
As Gcthar pointed out, this is the same as bug 208624 which I reported.  I
suggest the two bug reports be merged.
David, I have run the tests you wanted. The only virus checker I have is MS-DOS
based F-Prot which updates itself and runs periodically. 

Nothing named mozilla was running in the task manager before I started the
installer. Yes my browser launches after the installer is done.  My inbox is
gone at this point. 

I have done a little more looking and found that I have two profile directories:
c:\windows\aplication data\Mozilla\Profiles and another in C:\Program
Files\mozilla.org\Mozilla\Profiles. My inbox is in the c:\Program Files\...
folder. The installer deletes C:\Program Files\mozilla.org\Mozilla\Profiles, it
does not appear to touch the profiles directory in c:\windows\application data\...

Assuming that the C:\windows\application data\... is the default folder for the
profiles directory, I probably moved my mail folders at some point in history.
(I don't like program files spread all over my computer in different
directories, especially under c:\windows because periodically, I must delete
c:\windows and replace it with a backup :)

Also the installer has a new message that I have never seen before. It talks
about a previous version of Mozilla being detected and that all unrecognized 3rd
party stuff will be removed. Perhaps the installer is not recognizing C:\Program
Files\mozilla.org\Mozilla\Profiles and removing it even though my preferences
file says user_pref("mail.server.server2.directory", "C:\\program
files\\mozilla.org\\Mozilla\\Profiles...
The installer is definitely removing the files, from what you say. Cc'ing ssu,
who knows what the installer is doing. I'll try to figure out how it decides to
do this, but I've never looked at this code before.
Component: Mail Database → Installer
Product: MailNews → Browser
ok, the good news is that this has been fixed on 08/06 - see bug 212599. I also
think this fix will be in 1.4.1

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 212599 ***
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 21 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
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