Memory Leak with Eudora Pro 5.1

[rongold]

In the past 2 weeks, I have begun to have intermittent crashes while using Eudora Pro 5.1, with Type 1 or Type 2 Errors. Usually occurs while mail is being downloaded from mail server. After the crash, when I check About This MacIntosh under Apple Menu, the size of the of the MacOS has jumped from usual 20-22 MB to an apparent 80 to 136 MB. The memory leak is not occurring with other programs, even Microsoft Word, the more usual culprit. Eudora 5.1 had been working fine previously. I have not installed any new or updated software (other than Shockwave Flash 6.0 r79). Any suggestions as to cause of problem or to fixes (other than reinstalling Eudora)?

PowerMac 7200/90, OS 8.6, 48 MB RAM with Ramdoubler installed.

[taliesin]

Could it be a problem with how much memory you've allocated Eudora in Get Info? If you were to raise it a bit?
I don't see what Flash might have to do with this one.
I can't find anything else directly related right now (obviously if it comes to a reinstall, don't forget the back-ups first).

[rongold]

The memory allocation for Eudora was only 3000 MB. I gorgot to increase it when I had to reinstall version 5.1 following multiple crashes using beta versions on 5.2. I increased memory to 7500 MB.

[CyberPet]

There's a "known" problem with Eudora and the amount of mails in the mailbox, I can't remember now what amount they said, but I was told this by an Eudora support guy. That was when I decided to stop using Eudora... they charge through the nose each year for the non-advertised version and it's getting less and less stable with each version.

/Petra

[Mayo]

Have you tried duct tape?  Just kidding...

Petra is correct regarding the mailbox problem.  Too many messages in a mailbox can often lead to instability in Eudora.  Having too little memory allocated to Eudora doesn't help either...

But there is an easy solution, one I learned eons ago and which has prevented Eudora from crashing on multiple Macs for, well, it seems like  years now.

Instead of leaving those bulging mailboxes in the Eudora Mail folder, put the folders/mailboxes elsewhere in the Eudora folder in your Documents folder (we're talking OS 9 here...) and create an alias for each moved item which then goes into the Mail folder.

Voila! Eudora should be as stable as can be.

There would have to be far more serious problems with Eudora for me to abandon it; I rely very heavily on Eudora's excellent mail-handling capabilities and I wouldn't want to be without it.

I popped for the paid version and I have not upgraded past version 4.3 because 5 doesn't offer me anything new that I need.  If Charter supported SSL e-mail I would probably upgrade in order to take advantage of that security feature.
 
 [ 03-07-2003, 09:48 PM: Message edited by: Mayo ]

[rongold]

I increased memory allocation and will see what happens. I don't think memory leak/Type 1-2 crashes are caused by mailboxes being too full. I have always used an alias system, with each mail box alias being in the Eudora Folder in Documents Folder and the actual mail box being elsewhere on my drive so that the mail boxes are backed up nightly.

[Mayo]

Maybe the duct tape isn't such a bad idea after-all?

Why not just reinstall Eudora and see if that solves the problem?

[rongold]

quote:Originally posted by Mayo:
Maybe the duct tape isn't such a bad idea after-all?

Why not just reinstall Eudora and see if that solves the problem?

I will do that if the problem persists after increasing Eudora's memory allocation. It may well be that trying out the Eudora 5.2 betas has corrupted settings since the problem began after 5.2.15b