Ji bai zi

More on Eudora 8 beta 6 -- window problems

I continue to encounter odd problems with Eudora 8.  As time passes, and I restart Eudora, the windows shown at Eudora startup slowly seem to degenerate, until it's impossible to do anything.  I found a procedure (involving editing prefs.js) that fixes the problem.

The first symptom is that old messages are opened (and the windows I had open at last close do not reopen).

Then a window with no content shows up amid the other windows.

Then, I start getting mailox windows without the tree view on the left hand side. 

Finally, the only windows that open on startup are windows of messages (not of mailboxes).  This makes it impossible to scroll through the inbox.

This is another problem with the files in the profile; I've not traced down exactly what's wrong, but I guessed that it had to do with the lines in the prefs.js file that is stored in the root of each profile.  On Win7, it's at

c:\Users\{yourname}\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\{profname}\prefs.js

The AppData directory is, by default, not visible with Windows Explorer; you can change your folder settings to make it visible, or just use a command ine tool to open a command window in the right location.  If none of this is making sense, you probably need to get help from someone who has the bad karma to have had to learn this for themselves, as the workaround won't make much sense.

I guessed, based on experience with Eudora, that the problem was in prefs.js; I suppose that if I deleted prefs.js and restarted, Eudora would recreate prefs.js and fix the problem. However, I didn't want to lose all my imported settings from Eudora 7.1, and I didn't want to have to re-enter my tag definitions (also stored in prefs.js) and account definitions (ditto). So I looked at the file and experimented until I found the following procedure.

1. Exit from Eudora
2. Make sure that Eudora is not running, by looking in Task Manager > Processes.  If you see one still running, and you just did step 1, give Eudora a little while to exit. 
3. Makes a backup copy of prefs.js, just in case something goes wrong.
4. Open prefs.js in notepad or a similar text editor.
5. Search for lines containing the text "penelope.mailbox://". If your setup is like mine, you'll see a large block of lines similar to thils:

   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.fpcollapsed", false);
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.fpsplitter", "");
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.fpwidth", 200);
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.height", 720);
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.mpheight", 200);
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.mpwidth", 200);
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.screenX", 89);
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.screenY", 105);
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.tpsplitter", "collapsed");
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Code%20Review.window.width", 1280);
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Drafts.window.fpcollapsed", false);
   user_pref("penelope.mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Drafts.window.fpsplitter", "");
   ...

   These lines are the problem. I found that if I simply delete all such lines, the problem goes away.
6. Delete the matching lines.
7. Save the file, close the editor, turn three times widdershins, and restart Eudora.

Eudora will recreate its default window layout when you restart.

Eudora 8 beta 6 Address Book Tribulations

I've been using Eudora 8 beta 6 on Window 7 RC for the last week or so, with mixed results.  I've had two long maintenance sessions where I've had to dig deep into the guts to fix problems.  This makes me think it's not ready quite for prime time.  But the following misadventure may be of help to others.

I was able to import my Eudora 7.1 mailboxes and attachments -- about 13 GB of data -- without too much trouble, which gave me a false sense of confidence.  Unfortunately, filters don't import (though they're supposed to), and after examining the source for the import routine I discovered that it's very non-robust.  It neither continues when an unsupported filter is found, nor tells you why it has failed.  I had 700 or so filters in Eudora 7.1, so I'm not about to enter them all by hand  I've reverse-engineered the filter format for both programs (not documented anywhere I can find) and have built a parser that reads my filters and rejects the ones that can't be used.  Still need to write the output processor, which I was hoping to do this evening.

Instead, I spent seven hours fixing a problem with address books.  I made the mistake of doing a large search, and canceling.  This apparently created a .msf file somewhere in my mailbox tree that was corrupt.  Unfortunately, I didn't know this; the symptom was that the address books were unreadable.  Of course, I didn't have a good backup... and anyway, Eudora would not let me create a new address book! 

The error was "Unable to load address book file impab.mab. It may be read-only, or locked by another application. Please try again later."  A search brought me to the similar error message "Unable to load address book file abook.mab. It may be read-only, or locked by another application. Please try again later."  The referenced thread was about Thunderbird 2, not Eudora 8 / Thunderbird 3, but it suggested that the address book was corrupt.  However, temporarily removing all the address books in my profile didn't change the problem, and I wasn't able to create new address books.  This was dismaying.

So....  here's how I found the problem.

1. I tried many of the non-invasive procedures listed in http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Thunderbird (Standard diagnostic - Thunderbird).  No joy.
2. I spun my wheels for several hours trying to find the setup file that pointed to the bad address books.  (Fortunately, I kept copies of my prefs.js file, because that's the only way to link the address books back into Eudora).
3. Finally, I installed Thunderbird 2 on another machine, so I could use the procedure listed here:  "Unable to load address book file abook.mab", and the Address Book plug-in http://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html.  (Alas, that plug-in doesn't work in Thunderbird 3 beta 2).  With that, I was able to verify that my address books were still accessible, to repair them, and to back them up as .VCF files (and export clean .mab files).
4. Next I created and initialized a new empty profile in Eudora.  Easiest way to do this is to start a command window of some kind, change to c:\program files\Eudora (or c:\Program Files (x86) if you're running a 64-bit system), and then enter the command "eudora -P".
5. Step by step, copied settings in.  The test profile address book was fine.  Finally I copied all the text files using the command line:  "cp prefs.js *.mab *.dat *.ini *.rdf ../<<profilename>>".  If you're doing this yourself, and you're not comfortable with the command line, I suggest that you find someone who is to help you out.  In case it's not obvious, I was using cygwin.  The above command copies the address books, and sets up the preferences to use the address books.
6. I then started Eudora with the test profile, and found (to my surprise) that the address books were readable. 
7. I'm much too fearless -- I then used Windows Explorer and moved my main profile Mail directory to the Test profile.   Restarted Eudora, and presto:  address book was broken in the test profile.
8. From that point, it was relatively simple (though tedious) to move mail directories back and forth until I found the one directory that would break the address book. (It was critical to shut down Eudora before making each change, because Eudora caches things.)
9. I examined the contents of the problem directory -- the only thing there other than mail were ".msf" files -- these are the files that Eudora uses as an index.  I was tired and acted on a hunch -- deleted all the .msf files -- and the address book started working again.

It may not be obvious that corrupt mail index files in a deep subdirectory could cause Eudora/Thunderbird's address book to malfunction; but they can. 

After getting things going again, I backed up by address books to LCIF format (which seems to be non-lossy; all the other export options in Eudora 8 seem to be lower fidelity). 

Digital signing looking weaker

Some clever people have figured out how (in general) to create two valid X.509 certificates for different identities, and how to make two different .exe files that have the same
signature.  See:  http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/

Also, they've got a funny demo (and interesting explanation) of their technology:  "predicting" the outcome of the next US presidential election.

http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/Nostradamus/

Digital signing right now is sort of ubiquitous, so this is worrisome.  The vulnerability is (currently) limited to MD5.  They can find a collision quickly (2 days using a PS-3).

Their moral is: don't depend on MD5 signatures.