[Info-vax] need help with corrupt MAIL.MAI file

[JF Mezei]

Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote:
> Please read through to the end before replying.

Too late, I started to reply before reading through the end ! Oh ! No !

>    %MAIL-E-READERR, error reading DISK$USER:[HELBIG.MAIL.MAIL]MAIL.MAI
>    -RMS-F-CHK, bucket format check failed for VBN = 27201

This is an indexed file problem (RMS). It has nothing to do with your
disks (shadowed or not).

It is far more likely to have been caused by poor software such as the
POP and IMAP servers that come with TCPIP Services.


ANA/RMS MAIL.MAI may give you more information on the extent of the
damage. There is also ANA/RMS/INTERACTIVE which lets you "walk" though
the indexed file structure.

If you:

TYPE MAIL.MAI/OUTPUT=MAIL.NEW

does it also generate the error message ? You might be able to recreate
it this way, and then CONVERT MAIL.NEW MAIL.MAI/FDL=MAIL.FDL

Another possibility would be to use DCL to read (sequentially) your
MAIL.MAI file using an alternate key, write to a sequential output file
and use CONVERT to get it back to indexed format.

In my case, MAIL.MAI didn't get corrupt, but the IMAP server screw up
message listings which the client kept trying to reload. Only solution
was to move the whole mailbox to another location and start from
scratch, and use DECW$MAIL to access older mail messafges from older
location. That is one of the main reasons I am moving away from VMS.



Lastly, you could ana/RMS/FDL/OUTPUT=MAIL.FDL MAIL.MAI
then CONVERT/FDL=MAIL.FDL MAIL.MAI MAIL.NEW

If this works, you could just put MAIL.NEW as MAIL.MAI and your problem
would be solved.