One of my Pmail files has a recurring problem with one folder: "Data error encountered

re-indexing doesn't help and if the error recurs too often (as in a search that references this folder often) Pegasus crashes. There are several hundred messages with data I need to keep -- suggestions welcome!

First of all: Create a backup of your mailbox directory, if you don't know how to locate it (or them depending on your setup) open Pegasus Mail's Help menu for accessing its "About Pegasus Mail ..." item and click the Info button below the Pegasus picture for looking up the mailbox directories.

While being there also copy the "WINPMAIL.EXE directory" and paste its path into a Windows File Explorer address line to open the respective directory where you'll find a file named "mbxmaint_ui.exe": Double clicking it will offer you various ways for dealing with folder issues including reindexing, all to be done while Pegasus Mail is closed, of course.

Give it a try with the above shown file ...

I agree with Michael that using mbxmaint_ui.exe to repair that folder file is the first thing to try. I like to do a check first just to confirm a problem before doing a repair. Should that repair fail, you can replace the faulty folder with a new one by creating a new folder and then copying all of the messages from the faulty folder to the new one (copy not move so as to maintain the original). The new folder should have a unique name either by assigning one at creation or by renaming the old one so that you use that name for the new one. You can delete the faulty folder once you confirm that all of the messages are in the new folder and that it works as expected.

Be aware that if you replace the faulty folder you will need fix any filters associated with that folder so that they apply to the new one. This means that you MUST edit any copy or move filters for which this folder was a destination, selecting the new folder as the destination folder even though the new folder name may be the same. Also, consider whether any general rule sets were assigned to the faulty folder as on-open or on-close filters, and whether an identity was assigned to the faulty folder. These will need to be set for the new folder.

Just one other thing you might try. If rebuilting the index for the folder doesn't work. Might be because of bad corruption. Sometimes you can remove the folders PMI file completely with Pegasus closed. Then open Pegasus an go to the folder, and then rather than trying to rebuild the damaged index file it will rebuild a completely new index file based on what it finds in the PMM file. You would need to right click on folder to find exactly which PMM/PMI pair it is, and then rename the PMI file to a different name, so you would be able to restore it if it doesn't work.

The index file does contain information on mesages that are read/unread and deleted message that are still in PMM file will be restored.

Worth a shot.
Good Luck.

Thanks, all.

I don't know what came over the e-waves or how, but my corrupted file problem mysteriously disappeared a few days after your suggestions (I saved them all!) appeared here.