The Inbox file
Below is a Wordpad view of the contents of an inbox file. It contains only three messages. Each message starts with the value "From -" in column one of a new line. There will also be a "From:" in the message, but this is part of the message. The start of a message will be the "From" followed by a space and a dash. The "From" followed by a colon indicates who sent the message. I have colored the starts red to make them stand out. Each message also has an "X-Mozilla-Status" and I have colored them in blue. I have been unable to find a complete list of all the status codes, but in the samples below, the status codes were "0000" when not yet read, "8001" after reading the message, and "8009" when the message was marked for delete. If this inbox were opened in Messenger, it would indicate "Total messages: 2" and "Unread messages: 1". The first message was read and deleted so it is not reflected in these values. The second message had been read but not deleted, so it shows up in the total. The third message was received but not read. It will be reflected in the 'Total" and "Unread" values. The first message was deleted, but obviouly, it is still there taking up space, but it is not accessible in Messenger. Little more happened with the delete than for the status code to be changed to "8009", and its status updated in the inbox.snm file. I have also inserted a purple dashed line between messages to separate them. These will not appear in the actual Inbox
The Inbox.snm file
This Inbox.snm file is a summary/index of the contents of the Inbox
file. It is a binary file and cannot be viewed. It is reasonable to assume
that this much smaller file is what is displayed in the header section
of Messenger. In addition to what is displayed in the header section, it
must also have the "X-Mozilla status" code recorded in it . This permits
it to display the headers in bold if unread, in normal font if read, and
not at all if marked for delete. It must also contain the location of each
message within the Inbox. Otherwise, messenger would have to search thru
a large file to find the message it is looking for. Since the SNM file
is accessed and re-written so often, it is possible for it to be re-written
incorrectly resulting in a corrupted file, due to some glitch, or even
an error by the RAM. If the SNM file is corrupted, Netscape will likely
die when messenger is accessed. The fix for this problem is to delete
the SNM file. When messenger is accessed, it looks for the SNM file and
uses it if it exists. If it is bad, then Netscapes could abort. If messenger
does not find the SNM file, it will parse the Inbox, and create a new SNM
file based on what it finds in the Inbox. Deleting the SNM file when Netscape
is not running and letting it create a new one when started will solve
the problem if the problem was the SNM file. If the problem is in the Inbox
itself, then deleting the SNM file may not fix the problem.
| From - Sun Oct 24 04:32:05 1999
Return-Path: <cdsops@mindspring.com> Received: from smtp10.atl.mindspring.net ([207.69.200.246]) by ngquotad00.atl.mindspring.net (Mindspring Mail Service) with ESMTP id s15hd1.3g4.37kb01n for <cdsops@mindspring.com>; Sun, 24 Oct 1999 04:38:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mindspring.com (user-37kas3u.dialup.mindspring.com [207.69.112.126]) by smtp10.atl.mindspring.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id EAA11319 for <cdsops@mindspring.com>; Sun, 24 Oct 1999 04:38:56 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <3812C3BA.72FB0DE8@mindspring.com> Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 04:30:50 -0400 From: Joe <cdsops@mindspring.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Joe <cdsops@mindspring.com> Subject: Message 1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mozilla-Status: 8009 This is the first message. It was read, and then deleted. The X-Mozilla
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
This message was sent with a 1K JPG attached. The image will be
/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEBLAEsAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSEw8UHRof
This message has been received, but not read. The X-Mozilla-Status
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