Corrupted Eudora mailboxes - what to do

[MamaMoose]

The other day I had a major glitch somewhere and about 1/3 of my Eudora mailboxes were corrupted. That is they were defined as a Unix executable file and this type cannot be seen by Eudora. So I lost a lot of critical, historical mail. I of course went into my backup but I had inadvertently backed up after the glitch occurred. I then turned to my mail archives which contained all e-mail for 2000 to 2004. However, the archive data file was missing too even though it resided on a drive separate form the main boot drive. Needless to say I was very upset. But there was a solution!

There is an Eudora forum that is not run by Qualcom, Eudora special forum. I queried the forum and got a reply from Germany witin a few hours. She suggested I try  a piece of software called ILikeYouMore It is an app when opened asked for  the correct type and creator of the corrupted mailbox. For Eudora mailboxes, I entered Type = TEXT and Creator - CSOm. Dragging and dropping  the corrupted mailbox to the app window resulted in an immediate conversion of the mailbox so it would be recognized as an Eudora mailbox.

I thought this was a very neat piece of programming as it can be used for any file that did not have  correct Type and Creator.

MamaMoose

[Xairbusdriver]

Beware that Apple is no longer using Type and Creator codes as the primary means of identifying what app should open a file. While many developers say there is no suitable alternative, others disagree. However, since this change was first announced some years ago, no developer seems to have found a solution.

While you list all kinds of hardware, I don't see anything about what OSs they might be running. But you problem is easily solved if you are running either version of Leopard and Time Machine. All those files would have been available for restoration with a simple selection and a mouse click.

However, those file probably are XML files, a common method of creating and storing data in text (or even binary) form (.plist/dictionaries/etc.). And once the OS "decide" that XML files should be opened with another app, the problem will remain. I suspect this will become more and more common in the future as Apple changes its rules for identification even more and a benign Restart causes the OS to recognize certain files to be the type they actually are. Even though they may have a different suffix, Eudora suffix codes are probably no longer in the OSs suffix database. And that is now the first thing the OS looks for to decide what kind of file it is.

[Paddy]

Jim, Tom's sig says 10.4.8 - though I think he's actually using Leopard. (Tom...change your SIGNATURE...it's the out of date bit, not the hardware listing! )

Also points up the need for a rotating backup scheme. I have a daily backup to one drive and a weekly backup to another, for just this sort of issue. I'm also about to install a TM drive. Been saying that for months...I know...

[Xairbusdriver]

Ah, you are correct, I hardly ever look at anyones "sig". My bad.

Of course, TM would be great for correcting exactly this kind of problem. Even if one has limited external space, TM can still be used to backup the most critical data you might need, you choose what it should backup. And, as long as one of those files remains on your drive for at least 60 minutes, it will be backed up.

I am also wondering why Eudora lost track of its own files... I still suspect the OS (Leopard?) saved them somehow or wrote new info to hem that deleted the TYPE/CREATOR info. It would be nice to know how to prevent that kind of "glitch" again!

[MamaMoose]

Yes, I meant 10.5.8. Also, as i pointed out, I had a major problem with Time Machine as first it stopped working sending me an error message then it wouldn't open at all. I had no choice but to erase the disk and start TM over again. Unfortunately, doing so I perpetuated  the mailbox problem through my two backups. A perfect storm!!  

Paddy, I was wrong in backing up to the son and the HG at the same time. From now on I will back up to the son one day and then the HG two days later. I hope to catch these kinds of problems that way.

Jim, fortunately by ILikeYouMore corrected a  the problem and restored all the "corrupted" mailboxes. So, as far as I know Type and Creator are still tags for the Leopard file system. Is it possible that Apple dropped the File and Creator tags for Snow Leopard?

00Thanks for all your comments,

Tom

[Xairbusdriver]

The tags are still there but Apple told developers some years ago that they would be dropping support for them "in the future." Previous to Snow Leopard, the OS would us some basic rules to determine what app to use when one double-clicked a file. First it would look for a CREATOR code and use that. Second, it would look for the TYPE code. Finally, if none of those were found (as in all other OS created files), it would use the file suffix (.txt, .doc, .xml, etc.). The Mac was the only OS that was even capable of using the TYPE and CREATOR codes, one of the things that made it unique and, IMHO, better. Multiple apps could easily use the same file, no matter what the suffix might be. If a file was created in Photoshop, double-clicking it would open it in Photoshop, even if it had ".jpeg" as the file name suffix.

Of course, any app capable of opening a file type could always do so, from the normal navigation window or simply a drag and drop. The key use of the feature was the double-click method.

Since OS X is Unix based and Apple wants to be 'standard' (or, IMHO, they want us to use Preview, Mail, Safari, etc.) the new rules now look at the suffix first when a file is double-clicked. Some say this is great! Even claiming that they never liked having a particular app open a file when it is double-clicked! :doh:Excuse me, but that will still happen. It will simply may not be the app that originally created the file. Tell me that won't be confusing...

All the above probably has absolutely nothing to do with your problem. At least I hope so. But I never pass up a chance to rant! I discovered this new behavior when I double-clicked an html file to edit it in BBEdit, where it had been created. Frankly, I assumed a major problem existed when it opened in Safari, which it had never done before! Pre-Snow Leopard OSs saw that the files CREATOR code was fro BBEdit and used that app. Naturally, the less intelligent Unix/Windows/Linux/TRS-80/Apple ][/TI... would simply look at "html" and open the default web browser. In my (probably minor) opinion, it is a great loss in user convenience and OS capability.