I'm currently unable to start my beloved Pegasus. A few days ago, it crashed, warning me about a problematic folder. I replaced it with a backup copy, to no avail: The banner now immediately shows "Preparing folder management layer" for a second and then disappears. It has created a lock file, but hasn't changed anything else in the New mail (= Home) directory.

Any idea what the problem might be? I'm running 4.80, which was installed in multi-user mode, I believe (there's a PMAIL.USR file).

I'd appreciate any suggestions! I feel helpless without my flying horse!

Thanks,
Craig

When there is a problem with a folder, Pegasus Mail displays a notice about it but it doesn't normally crash at that point. Did Pegasus Mail close abruptly without giving you the opportunity to attempt to repair the folder?

A folder is made up of two files, a .PMM file and a corresponding .PMI file. Did you replace the existing ones with ones from a backup?

Did you keep a copy of the existing ones?

Do you use trays in your Pegasus Mail folder structure?

Hi, Brian --

No, it didn't crash immediately. It popped up a message telling me of the problem and telling me to exit immediately, which I did. Then I replaced the 2 folder files.

I did keep copies of everything.

I do use trays; the problem folder was in a tray. It disappeared from the folder list shortly before I got the warning. It was a new (created that day) folder, but it's not terribly important. If it can't be recovered, no sweat. The problem is getting Pegasus back up and running!

Does the "Preparing folder management layer" message give you any clue of what it was doing when it dies?

The folder list in Pegasus Mail is maintained in a file named HIERARCH.PM. Each time Pegasus Mail starts up it validates the entries in HIERARCH.PM. I suspect that the replacement of the folder files is causing a problem with that validation.

If that folder is not important I would first try removing the two files that were restored from the backup and then try starting Pegasus Mail.

If that doesn't work, replace the restored files with the originals and then try starting it If it starts up, delete that problem folder and create a new one.

I've tried all combinations of including and excluding the older and the presumably corrupt versions of the folder, both with and without the HIERARCH file, to no avail. I was hoping that in the absence of a HIERARCH file, Pegasus would just put everything at the same level. But no go. Always the same message and crash.

There's obviously some corrupt file or file combination that it can't cope with.

So I'm wondering about the obvious Plan B: Do a fresh install of Pegasus, with different locations for the program, the Home directory, and the New mail directory; and then copy FOL*.PM? files from the old to the new installation. Would that work? I'd have to recreate the tray/folder structure manually, but that would be doable.

(Or would the current HIERARCH file provide a partially correct structure? But maybe it's HIERARCH's incompatibility with the folders that causes the current non-starting, so that might not work at all. Could try it with and without HIERARCH.)

This approach would rely on the assumption that the current startup problem is not caused by the folder files themselves, but by the other files -- I'll call them "state files", generically -- that would be fixed by a clean install.

What do you think?

Put your HIERARCH.PM file back in place.

Move all .CNM files dated newer than the last time Pegasus Mail started successfully out of your mailbox directory to a temporary location.

Now see if Pegasus Mail will start.

If it doesn't, you have ruled out a corrupted newly downloaded message file as the cause. You can put them back in place.

If it does, one of those .CNM files is corrupted. If there are just a few you can look at each one with a text editor identify any that appear of value and then move those back to the mailbox directory and test Pegasus Mail start. If it doesn't, one of those files is corrupted. Moving them out and then moving back one at a time, testing startup after each move may be the only way to isolate.

There haven't been any CNM files in the mailbox directory at any time in this whole saga, so they're definitely not the problem.

Earlier you suggested doing a new install with different home and new mailbox directories. If the current installation has different home and new mailbox directories then any .CNM files would be in the new mailbox directory which is not where the folder files are.

Regarding doing a clean install, if you choose to attempt that I suggest renaming the existing directorie(s) and then installing to the original path. IMHO, this just saves having to remember or lookup where the new installation is while preserving your original installation and files. One of my installations in e \PMAIL. When I do a clean install or test a beta I rename \PMAIL to \Pmail_vXXXX and then do clean install to \PMAIL.

You would then configure the new installation and copy all folder files to the new mailbox. You could also copy address book files, distribution list files, and the user word dictionary file if you wanted them.

Be advised that if you are downloading mail via POP3 and not deleting messages on the server, all messages on the server will be downloaded. I believe this can be mitigated so post back if this is a concern.

Recall an issue long ago, and turned out that the index file for a folder somehow existed with 0 byte size. If a folder is empty, the index file can be 0 byte size, but not if the PMM file has data.

Recall the solution was just to delete the 0 byte PMI, and Pegasus will see that it is missing, and will create a new one, but all messages will be marked as unread, and any messages that were deleted, but space not recovered will reappear as messages.

Might not apply in the case, but might be worth checking on.

I am baffled by the reference to "Preparing folder management layer". I have never seen it. It is my conjecture that "folder management" indicates something to do with the folder structure. I suppose a startup test will all .PMM, .PMI, and the HIERARCH.PM file removed would confirm that but I would only do it in offline mode using a copy of the installation because it may result in the creation of new default folders (junk, copies to self).

I'm back to working on the problem, after getting called away for other tasks, and have made progress.

Thank you, msetzerii, for the suggestion. I did have some empty PMI files, but their PMM files were empty, too.

And it looks like I won't have to do a reinstall, the suggestions for which I appreciate.

It finally dawned on me that I could use Dropbox to "rewind" the entire Mail folder (which serves in both the Home and New mail roles) to a time just before Pegasus detected a problem and told me to shut down. I had never done such an en masse restoration, but it seemed like a good idea. So I did that, and then disconnected from the Internet so as not to confuse things with new messages until everything looks OK, and ...

...Voilá! Pegasus opens, with the messages, folders, and folder structure apparently intact!

Some things have changed, apparently resulting in its deciding that I'm a new user: it shows Single-user mode, offers to help me configure Internet interfaces, uses preview mode. So there's probably something going on with Pmail.ini, I'm guessing. Well, I can deal with that, by just reconfiguring things.

So I think things are under control, and I'll reconnect to the world and proceed with the cleanup. I thank you for your help! I'm impressed with this Community (which I hadn't looked at before, in my previous 15 years of Pegasus use). I'll definitely keep on using it for bug reports and suggestions, and will add more to this message chain if there are additional problems or if I somehow learn what happened.

Thanks again!
Craig