Import wizard messed everything up :-(

[Eudora-Paul]

Hello,

I'm really glad that I discovered this forum because help and information concerning Eudora in the Mozilla/Thunderbird/Penelope... whatever it is called- version is very sparse.

I'm using it because I've always been using Eudora, starting on MacOS and now, I must admit, on XP. I changed from Qualcomm's Eudora 7.1 to Eudora 8 (or Eudora 3 Beta 2- even the naming is a riddle...) because the open source version is said to have acceptable IMAP- capabilities (anyhow, I didn't check it yet).

Now the problem:
Beside the Eudora 8- Mailfolders I have the old Eudora 7.1 ones on my PC. In spite of having a bad gut feeling I used the import wizard to import the old mails, addresses, etc.

Well, so far the wizard worked: I have my old mails (I don' know if they are complete), even folders that I created under Eudora 7.1
BUT: A lot of my newer mails (received with Eudora 8) are missing!!!
I have no clue where they are gone. The last one is from January 2009- and now we have November 2009! :-O
I did use the date column to sort the mails by date so I can be sure that I. didn''t oversee anything. This is really strange... :-/

Does anybody now what happened? Are there any known bugs with that import wizard?
What can I do? Any ideas where the missing mails could be?


Thanks a lot in advance!


Regards

Paul

[jhmeyers]

Are you saying that you "switched" from E7 to E8 in January 2009,
and have since been using only E8 to receive new mail,
and now have lost all mail between January 2009 and November 2009?

Or are you saying that you have been using E7 until now,
and have just imported E7 mail into E8,
and that the entire above time period didn't get imported?

Or "none of the above"?

It's not clear (to me) when various events occurred, and in what order.

At any rate, since E7 and E8 are completely independent,
you can receive incoming mail using BOTH of them,
by telling each one to "Leave mail on server for xx days,"
and making sure to do incoming mail checking with each one,
at least as often as every xx days.

E8 is very clearly noted as being in "beta" stage,
which is another expression for "caveat emptor,"
especially at a price of zero.

If you continue receiving mail using E7,
there is always a possibility that E8's importer
will improve over time, in which case it might pay
to consider E8 only experimental, for now,
because that's its actual state, after all.

You said that you were using IMAP, however?
With IMAP, mail is retained on the server,
and Eudora's copy is only cached for viewing,
in which case, what need is there for any "importing"?

All one needs for IMAP, I would think,
is not to cause the server to delete mail that you want to keep.

[Eudora-Paul]

Hello jhmeyers,

thank you for your answer!

Originally Posted by jhmeyers

Or are you saying that you have been using E7 until now,
and have just imported E7 mail into E8,
and that the entire above time period didn't get imported?

Well, almost- I switched to E8 a few months ago. E8 has been working well until I decided to use that import wizard to import mails from the E7 folders, which are on my hard drive as well. After doing this I realized that the newest mails in my Inbox were dating from January 2009. It was no problem to fetch new mails from the POP3-Server, they were all accurately stored in the E8 Inbox. So the situation is that I have a gap starting in January 2009 which ends in November 2009 (the recently fetched mails).

Originally Posted by jhmeyers

At any rate, since E7 and E8 are completely independent,
you can receive incoming mail using BOTH of them,
by telling each one to "Leave mail on server for xx days,"
and making sure to do incoming mail checking with each one,
at least as often as every xx days.

Yes, I know this option. I didn't used it yet, maybe I should do it now for the sake of more safety.

Originally Posted by jhmeyers

E8 is very clearly noted as being in "beta" stage,
which is another expression for "caveat emptor,"
especially at a price of zero.

Well... yes... of course you are right- but at one point one needs to invest some confidence in a product. And the every day use of E8 was satisfying so far.

Originally Posted by jhmeyers

If you continue receiving mail using E7,
there is always a possibility that E8's importer
will improve over time, in which case it might pay
to consider E8 only experimental, for now,
because that's its actual state, after all.

How far do you know E7 and especially E8 in depth? Are you one of the E8 developers? I'm asking because I would like to ask you for advice on how to proceed. I'm completely used to Eudora, which still is a great email client to me. But this experience with E8 left some questions.

Would you rather recommend to switch back to E7? Or should I use a completely different client? I tried Pegasus (newest version) for a while but it was to confusing. Or Thunderbird, which is, as far as I understand, the ''engine' of E8?

Originally Posted by jhmeyers

You said that you were using IMAP, however?
With IMAP, mail is retained on the server,
and Eudora's copy is only cached for viewing,
in which case, what need is there for any "importing"?

No, I didn't use it yet. I said:

Originally Posted by myself

I changed from Qualcomm's Eudora 7.1 to Eudora 8 (or Eudora 3 Beta 2- even the naming is a riddle...) because the open source version is said to have acceptable IMAP- capabilities (anyhow, I didn't check it yet).

But I want to use it in the future. But using which mail client for that?


Regards

Paul

[jhmeyers]

Are you saying, then, that the E7 -> E8 importer
replaced your E8 "Inbox," which already had a lot of mail in it,
rather than appending the imported messages to the already existing collection?

I didn't find any mention of this, as either a complaint or a wish,
in the E8 bugzilla database (you can always add your own).

Some people might complain that appending might create duplicates
if they repeat the procedure, while others, like you,
don't welcome a wipe-out of all pre-existing mail
(note that pre-existing mail could also be Thunderbird's,
because E8 automatically uses any existing TB profile).

With the benefit of hindsight, one can now see the value of making backups,
particularly just before major operations.

I am a user, not a developer, and seem to have learned a lot
about E3-E7, plus some lesser usage of TB and fiddling with E8.

However, each person has a personal "profile" of usage and preferences
in everything, including software, so I see no way to "recommend" for you.

It can be noted that E8 is a "beta" stage project under development,
while E7 is established, excellent, thoroughly known, and perfectly viable
under ongoing Windows versions to date (including Win7),
so unless its gaps (e.g. lack of full UTF-8 support)
are an obstacle, or you don't like it, or you like TB/E8 better,
or TB/E8 has something you want and only it has,
what's the impetus to jump ship before E8 is even ready, or reliable?

As to IMAP, I personally can't see why anyone would want to use it today,
unless it's forced upon them, since web-based applications (e.g. Gmail, OWA)
offer every advantage of IMAP, without the horrendous overhead or complexity.

Here, for example, is a Eudora user's
(and email system administrator's) critique of IMAP:
http://eudorabb.qualcomm.com/showpost.php?p=19406

If one is determined to use IMAP, despite all this,
some people complain about ongoing IMAP problems in E7,
while of course others don't. The post referenced just above
may give one an idea of how, with such a complex system,
the expression "your mileage may vary" is particularly applicable to IMAP.