Thanks for clarifying that Greenman,

It is true, that I must accept some blame in this, vis a vis carrying out the upgrade, and not devoting time to configuring.
YET.....I do know that even if I had configured it - that configuration would not have prevented the loss of the data.....this is the worrying issue.

At most (prior to this event), I might have switched off the 'delete after 30 days' - but this would not have saved the 2 files it deleted immediately, because it was never supposed to delete any files - it was supposed to move them to quarantine.

Of course you do raise an interesting point on the potential to 'fail to boot' after file movement to quarantine, but that opens up a whole different can of worms that raises major questions of risk-benefit of AV use.

However, for my feedback to AVG I think I need to concentrate on the primary issue of 'file deletion' outside the programs own setup config. ie. AVG8 clearly has an unforseen glitch...
...and the secondary issue of my suggestion that 'any found threats' after a scan, should cause a warning dialogue box to appear, that demands specific action (such as viewing the virus vault).

This feedback, I will attempt to transmit.........though after taking on board the advice from other experienced contributers to this forum, it seems that the best route thereafter will be to instigate my own scans, and therefore be fully aware of the task, and the possible consequences. ie. switch off scheduled scans.

Ace

PM 4.41

After reading a new email it would transfer to the folder 'A - Mail Read' as defined in - options - basic settings - default mail folder.

Periodically I would move messages to a hierarchy of folders - a system that has worked faultlessly since the upgrade to 4.41 (ages ago). 

This 'A - Mail Read' folder disappeared, so checked help - it talked about  "Solution: run Pegasus Mail, and press <^L> to select a folder; choose "Check tray list"from the Folders menu. This instructs Pegasus Mail to look for any folders which might be missing from your hierarchy and add them to it."

I presumed that the hotkey was shiftL cos it extended the folders menu but "check tray list" wasn't an option, so turned to this forum, searching on "lost folder", and tried the BAK and deletion of hierarch.pm but the folder never returned.

I then copied all the files from the mail/admin dir to a temp dir, and began opening recent files in wordpad, whereby I ultimately located the file that is most likely to be the A-Mail Read folder - the last code lines representing what I believe to be my last read messages:

Only that in wordpad it doesn't look like that cos each &#0 above is displayed as a square.

 This file is called FOL0077F.PMI

Does that sound about right?

If so, I guess it can be retrieved back into the display sys, and I presume (hope) that the messages aren't lost.

The big question is - how?

I suppose it's kind of pleasing (in a painful way) that nobody has come up with an answer to my problem as yet ie. at least its a decent problem.
Anyway - self-help always goes a long way, and here is the next clue I've unearthed:

The file mentioned above (FOL0077F.PMI) is referenced in my HIERARCH.PM file - here is the line:

Oh dear - the more I look the worse it seems to get:

First off - I tried deleting the Name_Unavailable element
0,0,"I11BSX20:26AC:FOL0077F","1CC25143:My mailbox",Name_Unavailable

Replacing it with
0,0,"I11BSX20:26AC:FOL0077F","1CC25143:My mailbox","A - Mail Read"

When I reloaded PM the line of text merely returned to its original: Name_Unavailable.

So I deleted a few folders, thinking that maybe PM had reached a folder limit, then repeated the above, but no joy.

I then happened to notice that the Name_Unavailable element appeared in other lines of code.
Yes, these folders had also disappeared.

I did a search on Name_Unavailable (this forum) - people talk about simply deleting these lines of code.
But I'm concerned about where the actual messages are that were in these folders.

Are they gone, erased from the hard disk?

I had thought about running PM and re-creating the folders from the folder menu and then editing the Name_Unavailable element.
The thinking being that the folder name would be properly registered, and therefore the messages could be pointed to appear in the new folders.

However, I'm very concerned about really screwing the system up.

So the primary questions now are:

1. Is it likely that my messages are still there?
2. How can I get them to be listed in a folder (any folder would do)?

 Has anybody got any experience in this area, cos I'm beginning to flounder

Hi Ace

 I am experiencing the same problem. I wish, though, that I could figure out what was causing it, as I am also afraid of losing mail. Some of my folders contain years of posting from lists, etc.

What I did notice, and may help you, is this:

The hierarch.pm is built/checked when pmail opens. So changing it doesn't help.

But for each mail folder, two files exists. In your case, FOL0077F.PMM and FOL0077F.PMI. It seems to me that the .pmi file tells pegasus what this mail folder is, and the .pmm is the actual folder. Now in my case, it seems that I have lost a number of .pmm files (very worrying). When I copied those .pmm files back from an earlier backup, the hierarch.pm file fixed itself, and my mail folder reappeared.

What is troubling is that I don't have a lot of those .pmm files in my backup (where did they go?) and in some cases, the .pmi is also missing.

I can't even tell which folders I have lost, because I can't get the .pmm or .pmi files.

So this might help you, but the issue is still not resolved, and I also need help.

ciao

Thanks ciao,

Any feedback at this point helps maintain morale - even if it's from someone who is also struggling.

I'm gonna follow up on your info, and I'll get back to you.

But you know, to a large extent, who cares about the folder as such, as it is just a convenient sorting tool - as long as the messages still exist.

Either way let's get to the bottom of this.

Ace

ciao,

Here's what Hans has to say:

"These file pairs reference actual mail folders, where messages are stored in a more compressed form. The former indexes the position of the message in the latter file. The *.PMM file is a normal ASCII file containing all messages, separated by a CTRL-Z. Although this are ASCII files, any editing can mess up the folder content, making it impossible to access any individual messages."

 Ie. it looks like the PMM file is the one with the messages.........of course it's the PMM file that is missing.

The question still therefore remains - are the messages gone?

I would have thought that for anybody out there who truly understands PM - this should be a straightforward question to answer.

Anybody?

Ace

If the .PMM file is gone then so are your messages.

Hi Ace

 Heh, heh, just for the record, "ciao" is a form of greeting (see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ciao). My nom de plume here is JacquesR, but just Jacques will do nicely.

Now, if I may quote my own previous message:

>But for each mail folder, two files exists. In your case, FOL0077F.PMM and FOL0077F.PMI. It seems to me that the .pmi file tells pegasus what this mail >folder is, and the .pmm is the actual folder. Now in my case, it seems that I have lost a number of .pmm files (very worrying).

This is why I was so worried--because the .pmm is the folder containing the messages. 

<snip to further down> 

>What is troubling is that I don't have a lot of those .pmm files in my backup (where did they go?) and in some cases, the .pmi is also missing.

>I can't even tell which folders I have lost, because I can't get the .pmm or .pmi files.

I did manage to find one of those, and found that it was a folder I had deleted. But I am still not certain about the other missing folders. More to the point, why, if I delete the folder, does the entry in the hierarch.pm not get removed? If this is not done by Pegasus, we could start getting hierarch.pm files cluttered with outdated junk--a recipe for disaster.

<snip here:>

>When I copied those .pmm files back from an earlier backup, the hierarch.pm file fixed itself, and my mail folder reappeared.

Hmm. All seemed well, until... Pegasus again (!) lost one of those folders. I still have the backup, but the messages I moved into that folder (some important ones too!) are lost. WHY is Pegasus repeatedly deleting my .pmm file, and how can I stop it? What about the folders I did not even notice are gone? What else has been deleted, never to be recovered?

 Any guesses (actually, some hard facts would be better...)?

What is your setup and what anti-virus are you running?

Have you checked the quarantine folder for missing files?

Spot on Paul! There the files are in my virus Vault. Probably as a result of me having upgraded to AVG 8.

Now the problem is to find the offending e-mails in those folders...

Hope that helps Ace as well.

JacquesR

Thanks for that, and thanks to PaulW and Dilberts left nut - damn me - I also just recently upgraded to AVG8.

I'm gonna look now, but anyway watch out - it may be an issue of a glitch in the new release of AVG8 - lets hope not.

I'll report back

Ace

Yes - me too.

AVG8 found Crack.S in my adobe creative folder plus:

 I-worm/Netsky and I-worm/Netsky.D

Now it found this in an old email, cos it was also in an old backup ie. it must have been one of those emails that never got moved into a folder.

Strange that AVG7 had never found these so called viruses, as it was regulary updated.

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.netsky.q@mm.html

explains that this family of threats are basically email senders.

Now the problem is how to separate off all the emails - maybe create say 4 folders, to each contain 25% of the emails, and then scan them, then repeat with the infected folder until the specific email message is found.

 But either way - well done PaulW - I was beginning to think that me and Jacques were on our own.

Cheers mate!

Ok, so here's the bummer,

The two pmm folders are not required - one of which was the folder for undelivered messages - maybe they were auto sent, and refused because of infections.

The two folders I wanted are not there, so I checked AVG8 history log, and it states it found 18 infected files, yet it only quarantined 5 - the others are not listed individually and appear to be gone.

 I just checked the AVG8 advanced settings and found it set to delete vault files older than 30 days - I've just unchecked this option obviously.

I'm now going to delete the partner pmi files and delete their partner lines of code in hierarch.pm - does everybody agree that this is the right course of action to take?
Ie. get rid of everything associated with the two folders containing the virus.

So the moral of the story is: watch out for any automated unattended processes running on your PC.

 Other than that, I think that we are pretty close to marking this topic-question as being answered - Ha!..........and it wasn't the fault of Pegasus Mail - which is great news I think you'll all agree.

Ace

[quote user="JacquesR"]There the files are in my virus Vault. Probably as a result of me having upgraded to AVG 8.[/quote]

This is the third time I've heard of this happening with AVG8 - it must be scanning much deeper than previous versions.  It may be better that the Pegasus Mail directories (or at the very least the mail folders) are excluded from scanning.

I've spent more time fixing broken AV installs (and recovering files removed by functioning AV installs) than I ever have with actual virus problems.

Having a virus in your email is not a problem until you execute the payload ("Don't click the f****n attachment!")

My advice would be to NOT let AVG scan your email folders (or anything else you value [:)]).

My advice would be to NOT let AVG scan your email folders (or anything else you value.

Absolutely agree.  At the very minimum you should set your A-V software to never delete/move/do anything automatically!  It's AVG this week that's deleting peoples folders, it was Norton a couple of months back that deleted program files.  If you tell the A-V software to work automatically you will lose  important data in due course.

As you said, the A-V programs cause more problems than they ever solve.

So there we have it - the question resolved, and an understanding of how to prevent the problem from re-ocurring.

But I have to comment (I can't stop myself) - how can it be that the AV producers (who fully understand the risks of deleting files) send out their 'point & click' software, with defaults set to delete?

It's not as if we are now struggling for disk space.
It can't increase their fan base.
There is additional cost to them

What's more - they are very quick to insert repeating pop-up screens to remind you to upgrade, until youve done it.

Why not a repeating pop-up screen to remind you to examine the virus vault, after files have been moved there.
I didn't even know AVG8 had found any suspected threats.

This problem, quite literally just had to happen at some point, and therefore must be happening to people all over the world.

The AV guys surely must know this; but I guess a complaint such as this can only be acceptable if I provide AVG with the feedback, and request a fix in their next upgrade.

Other people affected should do the same.

Thanks again to everybody who has contributed to this discussion.

Ace

[quote user="Ace"]The AV guys surely must know this; but I guess a complaint such as this can only be acceptable if I provide AVG with the feedback, and request a fix in their next upgrade.[/quote]

I'm not sure what fix they can provide.   The scanner found a virus in a file, and it moved that file to the quarantine folder.  I don't know AVG that well, but I would have thought it's working as designed.

What seems to have caught people out, is that it's finding viruses that the previous version didn't.  Probably a good thing.  ;)

What seems to have caught people out, is that it's finding viruses that the previous version didn't.  Probably a good thing.  ;)

Huh?  Automatically deleting a 5 MByte file containing a presumed virus that is causing no problems at all is a "good thing". At the very least the a-v program should issue a warning when it cannot move a file to the quarantine directory to allow the user to override the a-v program.