missing emails in sent folder

[painterskip]

Hi

Just installed Avast! 2 days ago after trashing Norton2004. It found a trojan and a virus that the previous program did not.....

However, I seem to be having some email problems. Most noticable is that all the emails in my 'sent' folder in Outlook Express are gone in both my account and my wifes account.

So how to get them back?
Why are they missing?

The other problems I think I can deal with.....I was having a time sending email from one of my accounts yet my spouses account has no problems...

Running with Win98se and latest versions of Explorer and Outlook Express as well as some spyware blocking stuff...

I WAS a little disapointed in that Avast! seems to slow things down almost as much as Norton 2004:-(

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.....

[Lisandro]

All the emails in my 'sent' folder in Outlook Express are gone in both my account and my wifes account. So how to get them back? Why are they missing?

What do you mean with 'gone'?
Sent but not received?

I was having a time sending email from one of my accounts yet my spouses account has no problems.

Please, configure both avast and OE timeouts to the maximum value allowed.

I WAS a little disapointed in that Avast! seems to slow things down almost as much as Norton 2004:-(

You said was because, of course, like a lot of us you discovered that avast is faster and safer than NAV...  

[painterskip]

Thanks for the quick reply......

When I mentioned that the messages in my sent mail folder being 'gone', I mean t hat I could not access them, even though the messages, all 5k of them, are there. When I click on the folder, it's empty and I get a message that the messages can't be shown because either I don't have enough memory or enough disc space...LOL  Very strange.....

Skip

[S.Z.Craftec]

When I mentioned that the messages in my sent mail folder being 'gone', I mean t hat I could not access them, even though the messages, all 5k of them, are there. When I click on the folder, it's empty and I get a message that the messages can't be shown because either I don't have enough memory or enough disc space...LOL  Very strange.....

I've lost you there pal... first you said all 5k of your messages from SENT folder are there, and very next thing you say is when you click folder (SENT, I guess) it's empty... how come ? Is it possible that all your messages in sent folder were infected with that virus or trojan you mentioned in your first post ?

Norton AV is nothing in comparision to avast! That system resources hog is nothing but useless crap these days... everybody knows that. If avast! slows down your computer so much, you should take care of some settings then... search these forums how to set your avast! ON-Access Scanner (Standard Shield), turn off P2P shield if you don't use that kind of programs, also you may turn off Instant Messaging provider if you don't use those chat programs alot... Next thing to do is set your VRDB generating when computer is idle or when screen-saver is running, or even you can disable it if you feel safe...

avast! on my system is just like breath of fresh air. Something unbeatable, something fresh...

[painterskip]

I'll try this one more time......

If you right click on any folder in Outlook express, it will tell you how many messages are there and how many were read......
Mine said I had over 5k messages and all were read (of course since they were messages that were already sent)

However, with Avast! installed, those message could not be accessed at all, even though the folder said there were still my original 5k messages there. It would not allow access, would not allow me to see or review them.

Not too difficult to understand....

To move on.....I found Avast! to be as much a resource hog as Norton in it's default mode. And I don't like the way it handles email, changing the ip address.  It really screwed up my email for awhile.

So I removed Avast! and tried another product which works just fine so far.

My opinion is that there are NO really good virus protection programs out there that aren't resource hogs....I'm not a programmer but I don't believe that these programs should use 20% of a CPU's resources at all times. It just doesn't seem right.....

Skip

[igor]

I would like to know what process took 20% of CPU and what were your settings of the resident protection. Maybe the VRDB was being generated right after you installed avast?
In any case, it seems to be too late to ask now.

[painterskip]

I would like to know what process took 20% of CPU and what were your settings of the resident protection. Maybe the VRDB was being generated right after you installed avast?
In any case, it seems to be too late to ask now.

I don't think the VRDB was running at the time as I checked my resources several times over the course of 2 or 3 days and it was always down around 56% to 63% with nothing much running. No program was actually opened.  And with the program actually removed, my resources were back to 82% . This holds true for the three virus checking programs I've tried so far.

And it's not too late. I'm very impressed with the extremely quick replies on this board, something not found elsewhere. So I like to keep my options open. As I mentioned originally, Avast! immediatly found a virus and a trojan that Norton missed. So that was impressive. I'm still not comfortable with this email thing....especially the ip change and missing messages in my sent folder. I find all of that odd. Still, you all seem quite passionate about this program and that means something......

Thanks for the replies and I'll keep check back here....

Skip

[S.Z.Craftec]

Stay here please, and don't give up just like that... Are you surrender ? You like to give up on things ? NO, so stay and we'll find solution...

First of all, changing IP in your incoming and outgoing mail servers in Outlook Express is neccessary... it wouldn't be possible to check your incoming and outgoing e-mails if avast! doesn't take over of your Outlook... mails SHOULD be checked with avast! first and then with your Outlook... of course, you can always disable internet mail provider in avast! On-Access Scanner, but that's not very clever...

Second thing... changing IP addresses in outgoing and incoming mail servers has nothing to do with missing SENT items in any way...

Waiting for some extended answers from Alwil experts...

Take care and stick around my friend... you'll see, there is always some answer somewhere out there... just wait and you'll see...

Regards !

[igor]

Ah, I didn't know what "resources" were we talking about. Honestly, this Windows 9x "resources" are something very hard to define (graphics objects, memory, ...) - but it certainly doesn't have anything do to with CPU (thus, it doesn't have any effect on speed of the computer).
For CPU consumption, I would rather suggest a decent tool like Process Explorer.

I am not saying avast! doesn't eat some of the "resources" - it does and I don't think we can lower this value. Just that it doesn't concern CPU usage... and shouldn't affect the speed.

As for the missing e-mails... that's strange. avast! e-mail protection doesn't handle the Outlook Express files directly - it acts as a proxy. So, the only possible problem that comes to my mind may occur in the situation if you had a very high sensitivity of the Standard Shield (scanning all opened files, or maybe scanning all the modified files as well - which is certainly not a default value) and the Outlook Express file was infected... then the resident protection may deny access to it (but in that case, it should show the "Virus Found" dialog).
Otherwise, I don't see how avast! could interfere with Outlook Express this way...

[DavidR]

My thoughts on the empty Sent Items folder.

Some how this dbx file has become corrupt (it happens from time to time in OE).

The sent items folder (like inbox, etc.) is a special folder, in that if it becomes corrupt, OE creates a new one when it next starts, that woudl/could account for an empty sent items folder. It doesn't however, account for the empty sent items folder in your wifes sent items, that is just too much of a coincidence.

Do a windows explorer search for 'sent item*.dbx' (without the quotes) and if there is more than one (like, sent items[2].dbx), this would indicate a corrupt OE folder that has been recreated.

If that's the case there are some tools out there that suposedly can recover data from corrupt OE *.dbx files. You will have to do a search on google unless someone here knows of one.

HTH David

[Lisandro]

Unless someone here knows of one.

Maybe start searching here:
http://www.mvps.org/inetexplorer/outlook_express.htm
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/