Many thanks for the detailed response. Sadly, I'm out of luck..., my backup is a little old (a month or so), and the other files aren't right.
Thanks again, I'll try to make backup more often. On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 2:00 AM, Uday Reddy <[email protected]> wrote: > Jonathan writes: > > > Hi everyone. > > I'm currently using VM version 8.1.0 with emacs 23.2.1 (the one shipped > with > > debian squeeze), and I had a crash the other day, and I had to kill (-9) > my > > emacs session. After that, I tried restoring the inbox folder > > (vm-recover-folder) and it couldn't restore them. > > > > Now, when I open VM, it only shows my new mails, but not the old ones. > When I > > check the folder, I can see the mails, but VM doesn't recognize them (no > > labels, or anything like that?). I tried googling, but haven't found > anything > > useful yet. Any clues on what might be happening? > > You haven't said what kind of mail folders you are using. I will assume you > are using local folders on disk, and they are the only copies of your mail. > > I think you are in a critical situation here. So, please calm down and > take > every step slowly so that you don't lose whatever mail you still have left. > > 1. Do you have a file backup? If so, how old is it? You may need to go > back to it in the worst case. > > 2. The first thing to do would be to make a copy of all your mail folders > right away, using Unix 'cp'. > > 3. Make sure that you understand all the failsafe mechanisms of Emacs and > VM, in particular what the INBOX, INBOX~ and #INBOX# files are. > > 4. Write down all the steps you take, so that you are clear what you are > doing. Also write down what messages you get from VM. (For instance, I > wasn't clear what you meant by "it couldn't restore them".) > > If the problems you mentioned are with the recovered folder, i.e., #INBOX# > file, it is probably damaged, and you should rename it to something else, > and go back to using INBOX. That file will have *all* your email, except > that the changes you have made in crashed session won't be in it. Small > price to pay. If INBOX is also damaged, then you can go back to the INBOX~ > file. If that is also damaged, then you are out of luck. > > Cheers, > Uday > >
