Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 03:07 PM

Okay, okay, okay. It finally sank into my aging alleged brain.

It's a Sherlock reference to "the case of the" etc. I'm slow, I guess.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 03:05 PM

I Googled "the Holmes page", and got a mySpace thing about names. I assume that is not what Mr. Red is talking about.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 02:21 PM

Ask the newsboy standing outside of 221B Baker Street.

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 01:29 PM

Okay, Mr. Red, I'll bite:

What, who, why, how, or where is "the Holmes page"?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 01:12 PM

The Case of the Missing e-mail

check the Holmes page!

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: Peace
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 04:57 PM

Old but new.

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: GUEST,Bert on Kelly's machine.
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 03:50 PM

I find that my email sometimes gets out of sync. I don't know whether it's the ISP or the browser that is causing it. For any email that is important, I move it to a separate folder and check to make sure that it went where it was told before I delete any other email.

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 03:25 PM

Could you have meant to delete one e-mail only to accidentally click the tick box for the email next to it? The one you wanted?

There's no "tick box" involved. That's a big reason I use SeaMonkey or FireFox rather than IE, to avoid IE's miserable email interface. In SeaMonkey, in FireFox, and in Netscape, you highlight the subject line (or enter into the message) and DELETE, and it's gone to TRASH. But then it would be in TRASH, which does not empty for a long time, if ever. Even though the oldest TRASH messages are eliminated automatically, the missing messages were discovered to be missing within minutes to a day after last use, and the errant email would still be in TRASH, which they certainly seem not to be.

Similarly with declared spam messages. Click on the appropriate dot, and it's gone to JUNK, where it will be for a longish time, like maybe 60 days. The same is true with messages the antispam program declares as spam. Even if you DELETE a message in the JUNK folder, it merely goes to TRASH, and is maintained there according to the TRASH rules referred to above.

The missing messages (unless my wife and I are both blind) are not in my INBOX, nor in TRASH, nor in JUNK, nor in DRAFTS, nor in SENT, nor in UNSENT.

In order for us to entirely delete a recent email, we'd have to delete it from the TRASH directory. Then it would be gone entirely, and for good. Sure, in theory this could happen, but I seldom or never do that, and I'd bet heavy money that my Beautiful Wife has never done so.

Weirder and weirder!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 01:24 PM

Emails are not read directly on the ISP, but downloaded to our hard disk for handling

One of the problems with html mail is that it usually is difficult to "download to your hard disk" for permanent storage. I don't see any indication (after only a brief look) that SeaMonkey has this capability.

HTML mail is downloaded to your machine for you to read, but ordinarily is stored only in your Temporary Internet Files folder, just like any other web page. The Temp Int folder is easily, and often automatically, erased, usually either when you close the browser and/or when you reboot.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 12:43 PM

Good suggestions from Susan!

Could be that the fickle finger of fate has played it's hand? Could you have meant to delete one e-mail only to accidentally click the tick box for the email next to it? The one you wanted?

Of course, if it was in the bulk folder, then that empties itself regularly anyway.

Did you move it to a folder and put it in the wrong one? Have you tried a search for it within Yahoo?

So many questions..so little time...I guess you've thought of all these anyway!


Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 11:37 AM

One or both of you is a malicious and/or confused sleepwalker? You could always set up a video camera.

Leaving any cats alone with ther keyboard? You could turn the keyboard over when you leave the room.

Hansi having a new game? I bet he'd be happy to tell you if you ask him.

Cable guy sneaking in through the walls by osmosis? Tinfoil helmet for the puder.

Owe a techie for a bill, and they're sucking emails away to make you crazy? Pay the bill AND get the tinfoil helmet out.


Naw....

The butler did it, silly!

~Susan

Subject: Tech: The Case of the Disappearing Email
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 11:31 AM

I have a problem, and my Beautiful Wife has the same, in that in our separate email accounts we find downloaded emails disappearing. Not all the time, but occasionally for each of us.

We're on XP Pro, on DSL, connecting to Yahoo! as our ISP. We use SeaMonkey normally to access the web, and occasionally FireFox when a website wants a more modern set of capabilities than SeaMonkey can supply. Actually, my BW uses SeaMonkey exclusively.

Emails are not read directly on the ISP, but downloaded to our hard disk for handling.

When I first noticed a missing email, I initially thought it had been misclassified by Yahoo's antispam program. No, the missing message was not to be found in the JUNK subdirectory.

Nor is the answer a mere mistaken deletion of a message. The missing email is in these cases not in TRASH either. Nor in SENT, UNSENT, DRAFTS, or STORAGE.

It's not a problem of "Oh, I thought there was an email" when there really wasn't. The other day I was relieved to find I had a hard-copy printout of the current missing message (along with my memory of the message), which saved my bacon.

Oh, for whatever it may be worth, we run an up-to-date version of Norton Internet Security.

Does anyone have any ideas?