OE’s Most Common Problem

The one thing that OE suffers from more than anything else is the failure of the DBX files.

The most common symptoms include:

Loss of mail
Inability to delete or move messages
Messages remaining in the Outbox

Loss of mail is usually the result of a total failure of the DBX file and a recovery program will need to be run on the file to extract any messages. Click HERE for more info on that.

The other 2 symptoms are usually caused by mild corruption of the DBX files or simple overloading of the files (DBX’s have a size limit). Both situations can be remedied by selective deletion of the file(s) in question.

In the case of inability to delete or move messages (usually the Inbox), create a new folder in OE. Move all the messages from the Inbox (or the folder with the problem) into the new folder. Open the OE Message Store folder. See HERE for a script to do that. Be sure to close OE before proceeding. In the Message Store folder, find and delete the Inbox.dbx (or the DBX of the problem folder). At this time, I also usually delete the Deleted Items.dbx. If there are messages in the Deleted folder you wish to keep (of course if you wanted them, you probably wouldn’t have deleted them), move them to a new folder before deleting the Deleted Items.dbx.

In the case of messages remaining in the Outbox, often the cause is a full or corrupt Sent Items.dbx. In OE, move all messages from the Sent Items folder to a new folder. Open the OE Message Store folder and delete the Sent Items.dbx. While in the Store folder, you should delete the Outbox.dbx as well.

When OE is reopened, the deleted DBX files will automatically be replaced with fresh files and hopefully your problem will be solved.