[quote user="David_himself"]

@Greenman Early problems 2014-15 were serious Windows and/or hardware things: frequent major crashes needing hard shutdown and restart, or ethernet adaptor suddenly not being recognised, etc. Most have been sorted out by software and firmware updates. The current "crashes" I referred to in this thread are usually - touch wood - minor failures of one program or app (most often Pegasus or Skype), fixed in a couple of seconds by simply restarting the problem software. As a PC the SP3 is faster and better than any tower or desktop I've ever owned, and it's lighter than any laptop I've had. I don't think I use it "unreasonably", except that it's on much of the time. But sure, I wish everything worked perfectly. Maybe one day I'll get it checked it out.

@irelam Martin, I stumbled over Reliability Monitor, which as you say doesn't seem to be listed in either the Control Panel or the Settings panel (Win 10 has both!). I get it by starting to type R-e-l-i-a- ... in the startup panel. (You're probably expected to voice-activate it by talking to whatever the MS robot voice assistant is called, but I don't use her.) I guess it's a slightly more user-friendly version of event viewer in Admin. Tools.

Thanks, both, for your interest and advice.

D 

[/quote]

What you are experiencing is usually solved through the installation of up to date drivers and firmware and examination and correction, if required, of OS configuration settings. If problems persist beyond that it is a hardware fault. If a hardware fault, your IT people will fix it because the device will not be fit for purpose. Things like this should be fixed asap. If they are not, the problems simply get worse and worse. My job is IT - if your device does not work as it should you need to inform your IT people about it. They will either fix the device so that it works as expected, or they will replace it with a reliable model. It is their job to ensure you can work with the minimum of interruptions.

My first thought is that Pegasus Mail is unable to do its normal process of updating configuration during shutdown.  Do you have read/write access to the Pegasus Mail program directory?

Another thought is that anti-malware software is interfering with the above mentioned configuration file updating.  Exclude the Pegasus Mail program directory from active scanning if it isn't.

Thanks, Brian. I have full R/W access to all the PMail folders, but maybe the anti-virus is causing the problem. The Sophos installation is "tamper-proof" and gives no config access to either of my admin users, so will have to get some techie help for that.

It's not just your access to the Pegasus Mail folders, but the process's access to those folders. There is a recommendation that Pegasus Mail should not be installed under Program Files or Program Files x86. It should be installed off the root of your drive - C:\PMail or whatever you prefer.

Regarding Sophos - do you have admin rights on your machine? If so, you just need to add the user accounts registered on your device to the relevant Sophos security group. You have Power Users and Administrators - depends which level of access they require. However, if Sophos is managed via the Enterprise Console or other remote means ask your IT staff to add an AV exclusion to the Pegasus Mail folder. That way, you won't need to worry about it again whichever device you use.

[= reply posted on another thread] 

My antivirus no longer actively scans the C:\PMail\Mail folder, but the crashes and restarts persist. I gather from Michael in der Wiesche that Pegasus version 4 has various problems with IMAP. Nothing to do but avoid IMAP, start using DavMail again, or wait for Pegasus vsn 5. I'm too busy at the moment to start playing with DavMail again, so I'll struggle along with this annoyance and hope that PMail 5 comes along before too many months or years.

David 

If you are using Virscan to invoke your Sophos AV, could I suggest that you temporarily disable Virscan (rename virsvcn32.fff to something else, ie virscn32ffx), and restart Pegasus Mail.  If that makes things better, it could be that the shutdown process is having problems closing down temporary files and/or extensions.

Martin

Martin, I confess I haven't been running Virscan since 2012, so it isn't that.

At that time I seemed to have to run Pegasus as an administrator to get Virscan to work in Windows 7, and that messed up my two-screen arrangement.(Don't ask. Well, that's what my notes say, anyway.)

Replaced the machine in 2014, upgraded to Win 10 in 2015, and updated PMail as new versions come out. Trying Virscan again is actually on my to-do list now that I've regained control of my antivirus ... 

best

David

One other idea for now. I would suggest you disable scanning of *.PM$ and Wpm*.* files in your Temp directory. As you may have several Temp directories on your machines, it would be best to see what Pegasus Mail is using, by checking the Pegasus Mail menu Help/About Pegasus Mail,, and then click on Info button. I have this lerking suspicion that Microsoft may be trying to force use of their ICloud (equiv).

On my Windows 10 64-bit machine in System\Environmental Variables I have Temp and Tmp defined in System for c:\Windows\temp\ and c:\windows\tmp\, as well as c:\Temp\ and c:\Tmp\ (my private definitions). I was amazed at how much stuff is in the c:\windows\temp

Martin

Thanks, Martin: nice try but no cigar. In Sophos configuration for on-access scanning I excluded from the temp directory that Pegasus uses

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp\*.PM$

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp\WPM*.*

plus for good measure

C:\Windows\Temp\*.PM$

C:\Windows\Temp\WPM*.*

Once Pegasus restarted after closing. Another time I got runtime error 216 on close - interestingly, the latter after sending a file, which another forum poster has noted as significant here. So no fix yet.

best
David

Have you ensured your system is functioning properly?

If you use a university managed device ask your IT people to perform a health-check on it. If it is yours, you can check it using these instructions:

http://www.windowscentral.com/how-use-sfc-command-utility-fix-system-files-windows-10

Error 216 is due to either a malware infection or a poor system. As you appear to be using Sophos we can probably assume that the system is clean.

Thanks for the suggestion. You've prompted me to run SFC ("Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.") and to run a full scan with Malwarebytes (no threats detected). I'm not a Windows 10 hater - in fact I quite like it - but it's Microsoft and so my expectations aren't that high. Its Reliability Monitor shows almost daily crashes (typically between 1 and 3 components failing), most often of Pegasus, Skype, Windows Explorer or Windows itself. No idea whether that's worse than I should expect, nor what I could do about it.

best
David 

David,  I am curious whether you are running Win10 1607 (anniversary edition).  I assume not since you are running Professional but it appears to be a personal Surface Pro which would indicate that it is not connected to a domain.  If that's the case, maybe it has been updated to 1607.   If it has, do you think the problem started with it?

None of this will help me help you but I am curious because of the varied experiences with 1607 I am hearing and reading about.

Hi Brian. Yes, it's fully updated Win 10 Pro version 1607. Machine is a Surface Pro 3 in a grey area between University and personal ownership. In practice it's both my main home machine and goes with me on research trips. It does not have the University's "managed" Windows image (which in any case is still Win 7).

I don't know if any of the Pegasus problems can be traced to the Win 10 1607/anniversary update, though I think they got worse sometime around then. But the frequent long hangs on IMAP with an Exchange server go back way before then, as do crashes on exit when a folder window is open (even in 2014 on Win 7).

best

David

[quote user="David_himself"]

Thanks for the suggestion. You've prompted me to run SFC ("Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.") and to run a full scan with Malwarebytes (no threats detected). I'm not a Windows 10 hater - in fact I quite like it - but it's Microsoft and so my expectations aren't that high. Its Reliability Monitor shows almost daily crashes (typically between 1 and 3 components failing), most often of Pegasus, Skype, Windows Explorer or Windows itself. No idea whether that's worse than I should expect, nor what I could do about it.

best
David 

[/quote]

It seems fairly clear that this is a Windows issue. Never used a Surface Pro - are you using it within the limits of its capabilities? If you are experiencing crashes every day there is either something seriously wrong with the installation, or you need to ensure your use of it is reasonable. I would hand it over to your IT people and ask them to check it out.

Just a side issue.  What is "Reliability monitor", I can't find any reference to it in Control panel. Is it some kind of analysis of Event reporting ?

Martin

@Greenman Early problems 2014-15 were serious Windows and/or hardware things: frequent major crashes needing hard shutdown and restart, or ethernet adaptor suddenly not being recognised, etc. Most have been sorted out by software and firmware updates. The current "crashes" I referred to in this thread are usually - touch wood - minor failures of one program or app (most often Pegasus or Skype), fixed in a couple of seconds by simply restarting the problem software. As a PC the SP3 is faster and better than any tower or desktop I've ever owned, and it's lighter than any laptop I've had. I don't think I use it "unreasonably", except that it's on much of the time. But sure, I wish everything worked perfectly. Maybe one day I'll get it checked it out.

@irelam Martin, I stumbled over Reliability Monitor, which as you say doesn't seem to be listed in either the Control Panel or the Settings panel (Win 10 has both!). I get it by starting to type R-e-l-i-a- ... in the startup panel. (You're probably expected to voice-activate it by talking to whatever the MS robot voice assistant is called, but I don't use her.) I guess it's a slightly more user-friendly version of event viewer in Admin. Tools.

Thanks, both, for your interest and advice.

D