We know this behaviour that Pmail (as other programs) seems to be minimized and only visible on the task bar. Do you use an additional monitor for one of the notebooks? And maybe you've moved your Pmail window out of your first desktop to the second monitor? Then it would be "out of visibla range" in case your disconnect the additional monitor again.

In such case you could click on the taskbar Pmail area/icon as much as you want. But Pmail is maximizing outside of your desktop (where your additional monitor was).
Solution: Shift + Right click on Pmail taskbar symbol. Then choose "move". Then use your keyboard arrow buttons and move your Pmail window back into your main desktop. Depenging where your monitor was arranged, you have to move to the left or to the right to view the window again at your desktop.

Windows 7, 32 bit

Pegasus 4.72.572

Very pleased Pegasus user since the mid-1990s.  

This problem happened many months ago, but only on 2 laptops (yes, on both, in turn.) I haven't done anything about it since I have Pegasus on my desktop and that serves my purposes most of the time. I'd like to get this fixed, so I can have Pegasus when I travel. To the best of my memory, here's what happened.

I was reading email using Pegasus on one of my laptops when I opened a new email and got the message from Windows that "Pegasus Mail Has Stopped Working." When I tried to restart Pegasus I got the intro splash screen up to the point of where it says "opening new mail" which lasted only about 1-2 seconds. Then the splash screen closed but Pegasus did not appear. Checking task manager I find that winpm-32.exe is running, but I can't see anything. I can kill it with Task Manager and get the same result any time I retry this. Rebooting doesn't change anything.

A few days later, the same thing happened on my identical, backup laptop. I don't remember for sure, since this happened so long ago, but I suspect the second failure was caused by the same "bad" email. By bad, I mean most likely an HTML message that the HTML interpreter can't handle

I have tried reinstalling Pegasus on top of this installation, just in case there was a problem with the program files. This didn't change anything. 

I've read the general suggestions about dealing with crashes, but I have a number of identities and I'd hate to mess them up. Is there a way to find the bad email? Can I simply delete, or move, the latest dated .cnm files from the mail directory? There's one odd thing that I see when I look at the dates on my .cnm files: There are files there with dates as late as Feb '18, while I'm pretty sure this problem dates well back into 2017.

If I have to delete all the .cnm files from the mail folder, as well as the .ini file, can I replace the .ini file with the one from my working desktop Pegasus installation (Windows 10, 64 bit, same latest version of Pegasus)? 

thanks, 

The fact the Pegasus Mail show ups in task manager makes my wonder if Pegasus Mail is opening offscreen.  It's unlikely that would happen on two different machines though.

To rule out or confirm a bad message file move all of the .cnm files out of the new mail directory then startup Pegasus Mail.  Then it starts up fine then you know it's a message file, likely one that was downloaded just prior to the problem.  Look for a zero byte one first.  If none, then all you can do is move a few back at a time until the problem occurs and then narrow it down from there.

If moving the .cnm files doesn't solve the startup problem the right click on the toolbar and select the cascade window option to see if the Pegasus Mail window them becomes visible.  Actually, you might want try this first since it's such an easy check.

Thanks, 

I have removed all the .cnm files to no avail.

 I liked the window cascade idea, but I'm afraid that didn't work either.

Any other thoughts? 

 If I delete this ini file, can I replace it with the one from my desktop (Win 10/64 bit, same version of Pegasus)

Is it opening minimized to the notification area with its icon hidden?

[quote user="Brian Fluet"]Is it opening minimized to the notification area with its icon hidden?
[/quote]

Well, it IS minimized to the Task bar, and the Pegasus icon there is normal and in view, but clicking the task bar icon doesn't bring the program into view. But, when I hover the mouse over the task bar icon, the larger Pegasus "preview" (that's the usual Windows preview, not the Pegasus preview arrangement) appears, and when I move my cursor up onto that preview, the red X appears on the upper right hand corner of the preview. If I click on that X I can kill the program. That's all normal Windows behavior. I only discovered this last night; it's much easier than bringing up Task Manager to kill the program, but the fact that the preview looks like my usual normal seems to tell me that Windows knows what Pegasus should look like.

Right now I'm thinking that I should just uninstall Pegases from these laptops and delete any files that remain, do a fresh install of the latest version, and then try to do a Pmail.ini transplant from my desktop to get all my identities back. I might have to edit Pmail.ini to get all the path names correct (I generally have Pegasus move my mailbox to a different location) but that seems like it should be simple. Does anyone see a problem with that?

thanks,

[quote user="Jim Adney"]Right now I'm thinking that I should just uninstall Pegases from these laptops and delete any files that remain, do a fresh install of the latest version, and then try to do a Pmail.ini transplant from my desktop to get all my identities back. I might have to edit Pmail.ini to get all the path names correct (I generally have Pegasus move my mailbox to a different location) but that seems like it should be simple. Does anyone see a problem with that?[/quote]

No need for a reinstall.  With Pegasus Mail closed, find the STATE.PMJ file in the home mailbox directory and rename it to something like STATE_PMJ.BAD.  Start Pegasus Mail.  The main Pegasus Mail window should now be visible.  All child window sizes and locations will be at default setting.

Hmmm... I'm now wondering if this is a Windows problem because I just experienced a similar occurrance except with Firefox.  I started my laptop to find Firefox running, visible in the taskbar, but I could not open its window.  I finally closed its window to kill it.  When I next started it, it opened in a very small window positioned top left.  I was able to stretch it but the whole behavior was very strange.  I thought perhaps I'd been updated 1803 and this was a side affect but that's not it.  I'm still on 1709. 

It's possible that last nights shutdown was done with FF open so I'm going to try that and see if I can duplicate the issue.  I'll be back with an edit...

...couldn't duplicate.  An oddity that I didn't mention earlier is that the web page FF was on was a Windows 10 Help page.  History shows it as the first site accessed today; not knowingly by me though. 

Just call me dazed and confused.

[quote user="Brian Fluet"]]

No need for a reinstall.  With Pegasus Mail closed, find the STATE.PMJ file in the home mailbox directory and rename it to something like STATE_PMJ.BAD.  Start Pegasus Mail.  The main Pegasus Mail window should now be visible.  All child window sizes and locations will be at default setting.

[/quote]

I just tried it and it didn't make any difference, except for the fact that now when I hover over the Pegasus icon on the Task Bar the preview now shows Pegasus with no subwindows within its window.

When I check the STATE.PMJ I see that a new one has been generated:

[Mailbox_IDs]

DEFAULT=0,0,0,0,"33DE5943:My mailbox"

[General]

Browse=0,0,0,0,"0"

[FOLDER]

New mail=5,5,500,38,"120,180,94,0,34,0"

With Pegasus closed, I deleted that new file and restored the original one, When I bring Pegasus back up, the preview now shows Pegasus with most of the internal frames that I'm used to seeing.

At this point I think the most useful thing I could learn would be whether Pegasus will tolderate a Pmail.ini transplant.

Unless anyone has a better idea. Thanks.

I think this is a Windoze issue.  Try the suggestions here:

https://www.urtech.ca/2017/03/solved-program-appears-task-bar-not-screen

As for reusing the old pmail.ini in a new install, if you do the new install to the same path as the existing install (programs & mailboxes) then no problems, otherwise it's a crap shoot.

Keep in mind that most problems with Pegasus Mail are associated with a configuration so a new install using existing configuration files rarely is of benefit but it's worth a try if you get to the end of your rope.

[quote user="Brian Fluet"]

I think this is a Windoze issue.  Try the suggestions here:

https://www.urtech.ca/2017/03/solved-program-appears-task-bar-not-screen

[/quote]

Okay, that did it. I've now restored Pegasus on both laptops. The actual restore process went slightly differently on the 2 laptops, but it was clear that Pegasus was "there" but just not displayed.

Any idea of what causes windows behavior like this?

thanks for all your help! 

[quote user="Brian Fluet"]

I think this is a Windoze issue.  Try the suggestions here:

https://www.urtech.ca/2017/03/solved-program-appears-task-bar-not-screen

[/quote]

Well, here we are 2 years later, and it did it again. Same problem, same OS (Win 7), same laptop, and the same solution. I don't know why this happens, but it only happens on my laptop, so I suspect that I must do something odd with my fingers as I sweep across the pad.

 The key to the solution is to realize that the context sensitive menu is different for the taskbar icon and for the preview that opens above the taskbar when you hover over the taskbar icon.

Thanks again Brian!   ;-)