Re: Can't open my inbox - HELP! (please)

[Jack <ostroffjh users sourceforge net>]

On 2016.06.08 13:29, William Austin wrote:
.... (I've also had job descriptions that included "...and any other  
tasks as may be required..."

> Yesterday my son (also a computer geek) visited, and he was bugging  
> me to try thunderbird, so I did.  Not fun.  It deleted EVERY email in  
> my /var/spool/mail/<username> mailbox and stored it elsewhere.  But I  
> had taken the precaution of making a backup copy of my  
> /var/spool/mail email file (stored elsewhere) "just in case."
>
> Well the thrunderbird experiment was a fiasco (for example, since the  
> messages were moved to a non-standard location, a lot of other tools  
> which depend on it being in the standard location stop working  
> completely.  Not good.).
>
> So I stopped sendmail and then (as root) I removed the thunderbird  
> package, blew my .thunderbird (and concomitant seamonkey-mail  
> directory which thunderbird had gotten its parameters from [I'm  
> surprised that it was there - but it was so old that it had info only  
> from an email acount I got rid of at least 5 years ago].  I also  
> removed all of the ".msf" and ".sbd" files in my home ~/Mail  
> directory where I store messages, maintain email archives/history,  
> etc.).
>
> Then after stopping sendmail, I restored my /var/spool/mail mailbox,  
> and restarted sendmail.
>
> Now the problem appears.
>
> 1) balsa can now open many files; but it will NOT open my :Linux  
> mailbox - it goes to 100% of at least 1 cpu (12 core machine - it has  
> hit a high of at least 531%), and it never displays anything else.   
> That can go on for up to 4 hours before I kill it.
>
> 2) IF I do not try to open my Linux mailbox, I can open most SMALLER  
> email files, but not all of them - the larger ones appear to hang  
> forever and ps shows that balsa acts just as it does in trying and  
> failing to open my linux mailbox.
>
> 3) Every other email client I tried (mutt, Mail, [really ancient]  
> ishmail, javamail [an app I wrote a few years ago]) has been able to  
> open my Linux mailbox with no problems.  They all agree as to the  
> messages (count, content, order) and I tend to believe that they're  
> correct.

First, am I correct to assume that /var/spool/mail/user is only your  
inbox, and you can now access that OK?

Second, where are all your other mailboxes, and are you sure  
Thunderbird didn't mess with them?  (I also assume these are all mbox  
files.  If not, say so.)  How are you trying to open them in Balsa?   
What specifically is your :Linux mailbox - is the colon notation  
something I should recognize?  How large is it - MB and number of  
messages?  In the past, I have had Balsa choke on mbox files due to  
malformed HTML mime sections, but it sounds like this is unlikely, as  
Balsa was able to access all these mailboxes before your "experiment."   
Again, let us know if I have this wrong.

Have you tried attaching strace to the balsa process to see if you can  
tell what it is hung up on?  (I have tried this in the past without any  
useful success, but it's probably worth trying.)

Hopefully others will have more useful suggestions.

Jack