Re: Powermail slow after security update

[Jeremy Hughes]

PowerMail Engineering (27/1/16, 14:02) said:

>>A single short message takes minutes to retrieve, and PowerMail
>>beachballs and is unusable during that time.
>
>You can take a sample of the PowerMail process using Activity Monitor
>(while it is unresponsive), and send it to me. If you are using
>SpamSieve, you can also sample it if it may be involved.
>Does the problem persists after relaunching PowerMail (and SpamSieve),
>and after a reboot?
>In case the problem is related to SpamSieve, you can quit both
>applications, then delete the folder "{home}/Library/Application Support/
>PowerMail", then relaunch SpamSieve, then PowerMail.

I'd already tried restarting PowerMail and it had no effect - but restarting 
the system seems to have cleared the problem. I previously assumed that the 
system had restarted itself with the update so there was no point in restarting 
it again, but I was obviously wrong about that!

Thanks!

Jeremy

Powermail slow after security update

[Jeremy Hughes]

Is anyone else finding that PowerMail has become desperately slow at collecting 
mail since installing Apple’s latest security update?

A single short message takes minutes to retrieve, and PowerMail beachballs and 
is unusable during that time.

PowerMail  6.2.1

OS X 10.10.5

Collecting from gmail.

Jeremy

Re: Connection failure

[Jeremy Hughes]

> I just upgraded to Mavericks and Powermail gives me a Connection failure 
> ‘Make sure your internet connection is active’, while it is active. Any 
> settings that need to be changed?
> Still using Powermail 5.5.3

You need to upgrade to the latest PowerMail.

Previous versions used an old networking API that has been removed from 
Mavericks.

Jeremy

Character sets

[Jeremy Hughes]

I wish PowerMail was better at displaying UTF-8 and other non-ASCII character 
sets.

Here's some text from a recent TidBITs which causes PowerMail to display 
everything in a reduced-size font:

>DealBITS Drawing: Win Free Tonx Coffee
>--
>  by Josh Centers: , @jcenters
>  article link: 
>
>  We Apple users﹡ love our coffee, and now you have the chance to get 
>  some of the best coffee beans in the world for free. 

It seems that PowerMail doesn't like the Unicode Small Asterisk after "Apple 
users".

Jeremy

Re: More pre-purchase questions... :-)

[Jeremy Hughes]

Hi Tom,

>Hi Jeremy,
>But doesn't the "work around" you suggest negate the ability to use
>spotlight quickly and efficiently to find archived mail within the user
>account I am using now?

That was Rene's suggestion - I wouldn't personally want to do this.

Making it easier to swap between databases (like your Recent Database 
suggestion) would be an improvement.

Other improvements might be:

1. The ability to have several databases open at the same time

2. An option to lock archive databases (so they don't get used for new mail)

3. The ability to search through more than one database from within PowerMail.

Jeremy

Re: More pre-purchase questions... :-)

[Jeremy Hughes]

Rene Merz (11/7/13, 15:33) said:

>What about:
>
>"Exporting the mail database: Select the messages or the folder(s) you
>want to export (if you want to export a subset of your database), then
>select the "Export" item from the File / Database submenu. We recommend
>exporting your mail as set of Netscape / Mozilla, or Unix mailbox files
>since these are the most commonly used formats for interchange, and to
>check the "include attachments" checbox if you want to also export the
>files that were attached to sent and received messages."

That's what I do already, as I said in my previous email:

Jeremy Hughes (11/7/13, 14:53) said:

>I tend to free up space periodically by exporting email-list emails into
>Apple Mail.

But if PowerMail didn't use a single monolithic database with a 2 GB limit, I 
wouldn't have to do this.

There is another option, which I've never found very useful. You can have 
separate databases and switch between them using "Switch User Environment" 
(from the Database submenu in the File menu). You can create a new database 
whenever your existing database gets too large, but that means you'll have to 
switch between databases whenever you want to search through your emails, and 
that's a fairly cumbersome process - you have to select the new database via a 
file dialog.

Jeremy

Re: More pre-purchase questions... :-)

[Jeremy Hughes]

mt (11/7/13, 13:54) said:

>1. How can I "Re-send" or "Send again" a message, in such a way that its
>Subject can be edited? (Any of you being familiar with messages held in
>a moderation queue by Mailman would recognise a typical scenario where
>this is required)

Display the message and edit the subject. PowerMail will ask if you want to 
duplicate the message.

>2. In the Mail Filters window, is there a way to specify "contains word"
>as a condition? In other words, given that the drop down menu does not
>include this option, are there any special delimiters I can use to
>specify a "word-type" string?

Select "Body" and choose "Includes one of the words" or "includes at least one 
of the words" or "includes the exact phrase"

>3. Can the database be any size, or does it have to be under 2 GB?

It has to be under 2 GB unfortunately. When you get near to that limit, 
PowerMail will warn you and you can choose "Compact Database" from the File 
menu. This will shrink the database to a more compact format, but you will have 
to keep choosing this option on a regular basis. If you ignore PowerMail's 
warning, you could end up corrupting your database and losing your mail. 
Eventually you will have to delete some emails to avoid going over the limit. I 
tend to free up space periodically by exporting email-list emails into Apple 
Mail.

I have 250,000 emails in PowerMail, dating back over 10 years. If you have 
fewer emails than this, the 2 GB limit might be less of an issue. Attachments 
don't count towards the limit.

The monolithic database format is bad for backup programs. Either the entire 
database will be backed up every time (which wastes space) or the backup 
program (e.g. Time Machine) will have to compare it with previous backups in 
order to save changes (which slows down the backup process).

What I personally wish is that PowerMail would save separate mail folders into 
separate databases. But I don't think CTM has any interest in doing this. My 
impression is that PowerMail is in maintenance mode - it gets bug fixes and 
occasional minor features, but it's not going to gain any major features in 
future.

I use Apple Mail on my home machine, and I would be fairly happy with that if 
it was less buggy (sometimes it loses emails that it has sent or fails to 
delete auto-saved drafts). PowerMail has faster searching and better filtering. 
Apple Mail has smart folders, better support for HTML emails, inline display of 
image attachments, and threading.

Jeremy

Re: URL display preference

[Jeremy Hughes]

Frank Mitchell (9/7/13, 20:51) said:

>A URL like...
>
>
>
>...looks as if it will take you to Bank of America but, in fact, will
>take you to the Fraudulent Bank site. I'm told that, in AppleMail,
>hovering over (NOT clicking on) the above link will show the whole URL
>revealing it as a fake.
>
>I'd like to do that with Power Mail, if I can.

PowerMail's support for HTML emails is somewhat limited.

I usually view emails as plain text. But I've just tried viewing an  HTML email 
and it seems that clicking on links in HTML emails within PowerMail has no 
effect in any case (clicking on links in plain text does work, but then you can 
see the actual URL before you click on it).

>I use PowerMail's globe too, but I think it only shows the URL *after*
>clicking on it. By then you are already logging into the site.

The globe puts up a menu where one of the options is "View message in web 
browser". This will open the email in your default web browser. You don't need 
to click on any links, but once you have opened the message in your web browser 
you can hover over the link and the web browser will display the link in its 
status bar.

Another possibility, if you have set up PowerMail to display HTML emails in 
preference to plain text, is to choose "Show plain text with header" from the 
globe menu. URLs can't be hidden in plain text, so you can see them without 
hovering over them.

Jeremy

Re: URL display preference

[Jeremy Hughes]

Rene Merz (8/7/13, 15:40) said:

>Frank Mitchell wrote:
>
>>I have been using Power Mail 6.1.5 build 4654 for several years in my
>>Mac G4 PPC with OS X 10.4.11
>>
>>Several messages to my Macintosh User Group email list claim that one
>>can *hover over* a URL in an email message to show the whole address and
>>reveal the true site the link will connect to.
>>
>>I have never been able to find a way to get my versions of Power Mail do
>>this - can it be done?
>>
>>If not, is there a later version of Power Mail which will do this for
>>when I upgrade my computer system later this year?
>
>Not just by copy & paste?
>
>Copy the URL from your browser's address line and paste-it into the
>mail, like this:
>
>
>What's the problem with?

I think he wants to see links in HTML emails, so that he knows where the links 
are going to go before he clicks on them.

In Safari, you can hover over a link and it displays the link address in a 
status bar at the bottom of the window.

What I tend to do with HTML emails in PowerMail is to display them in a browser 
(using the globe popup at the bottom of PowerMail's window). You can check 
links from there. Otherwise I view them in their plain-text format within 
PowerMail.

Jeremy

Re: Crash after changing address book entry

[Jeremy Hughes]

Winston Weinmann (25/5/12, 18:36) said:

>I get a similar problem if trying to add a new email address to a
>contact when the contact has been put in the To field of a new message.
>Typically I get a message that says something like "A database error
>occurred" with options for "more info" or "cancel", neither of which work.

Thanks - that allows me to correct the steps I posted earlier:

1. Type an email to "Fred"
2. Add a new email address for "Fred" in the PowerMail address book
3. Send the email
4. >> PowerMail crashes and the email is lost (on an Intel Mac running 10.6.8)

I misrembered that I added a new address, and didn't merely select a new 
default address.

I guess that PowerMail reallocates memory for the contact, and then crashes 
when it tries to access the old memory address.

Jeremy

Crash after changing address book entry

[Jeremy Hughes]

PowerMail (6.1) crashes for me when sending an email if I change a recipient's 
default email address (the one with the yellow blob) in the address book after 
having entered it:

1. Type an email to "Fred"
2. Change the default email address for "Fred" in the (PowerMail) Address Book
3. Send the email
4. >> PowerMail crashes and the email is lost

This has happened to me a few times now.

Jeremy

Re: 2 GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

MiB (14/11/10, 07:36) said:

>>The monolithic database format is also an issue for backup programs that
>>work at a file level (Retrospect, Time Machine etc.)
>
>Erroneous assumption.

I think you missed my point, even though you quoted it.

QRecall, by its own description, doesn't work at a file level.

Jeremy

Re: 2 GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Lane Roathe (11/11/10, 05:33) said:

>Speed wise, here's the difference between one large file and lots of
>small files:
>
>Flash   XServer
>1 x 250MB large file:   35MB/s  65MB/s
>1000 x 1K-4K files:  2MB/s   6MB/s

If you need to copy lots of small files over a network, the fastest and
most efficient way to do it is to zip them first.

Jeremy

Re: 2 GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael J. Hußmann (11/11/10, 16:43) said:

>> How often do you copy or move your mail folder?
>
>Every time I do a backup.

Well, I don't know what backup program you use - and you obviously have
much less mail than me since you don't care about the 2GB limit - but my
backups are much larger and slower than those of people who are using
Apple Mail.

We're using Retrospect to backup over a network.

Jeremy

Re: 2 GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael J. Hußmann (11/11/10, 14:58) said:

>Just try to copy one 1 MB file versus 1000 files of 1 KB each

How often do you copy or move your mail folder?

>So I'm all for the monolithic database approach. I don't care if a
>backup needs to copy the whole file - copying a single file is fast.

Not so fast over a network, and wasteful of backup space.

Jeremy

Re: 2 GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Tobias Jung (11/11/10, 13:32) said:

>Nowadays Apple Mail saves each _message_ as a single file, MBOX was
>dropped with the Tiger version.

You're right...

... and yet searching seems to be very fast (but with fewer options than
PowerMail, unless I'm missing something).

>Of course, this also solves both issues. I just wanted to point this out
>because some people don't like the idea of having thousands of message
>files, too.

I'd rather have separate message files than a single monolithic
database. So this is another way that PowerMail could go.

I'm not sure what's so wrong with having thousands of message files -
most application packages (e.g. Safari) contain thousands of resource files.

Jeremy

Re: 2 GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Sean McBride (9/11/10, 02:31) said:

>Which email client are you all switching to?  I'm not sure which to
choose

What are the pluses and minuses of switching to Apple Mail?

I know it was hinky in the past, but I think that many of the problems
that it used to suffer from have now been resolved.

The main things that have kept me from switching are that PowerMail has
better filtering and notifications, and maybe better searching.

The advantages of switching (that I know about) are:

1. Separate databases for each mailbox rather than a single monolithic
database (this solves the 2GB limit issue and backup problem)

2. Threading

3. Decent IMAP support

4. Decent HTML support (not so important to me personally)

I've kind-of been preparing for a switch by archiving old mail into
Apple Mail - in an attempt to stay below the 2GB limit (and vainly
hoping that CTM would fix PowerMail in the meantime).

Jeremy

Re: 2 GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

CTM info (9/11/10, 14:54) said:

>Contrary to popular belief,  removing the 2GB per database maximum size
>limit is a considerable endeavour indeed

Personally, I don't think that the 2GB limit is the core problem. The
core problem is that Powermail uses a single monolithic database (which
has a 2GB limit).

How about keeping the limit, but replacing the single database format
with multiple databases - one for each mail folder or subfolder, any of
which can be up to 2GB in size?

That would solve the issue for me, and it would also resolve the issue
of backup programs having to backup all my mail on a daily basis
(instead of merely backing up changed folders).

Archiving into separate "user environments" is a poor solution in my
experience.

Jeremy

Re: 2 GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Paul Schneider (22/10/10, 09:43) said:

>Are there plans to  on give up the 2 GB limit?

This is the worst thing about PowerMail for me. I've managed to carry on
using it by exporting some of my mailboxes to Apple Mail. I don't find
User Environments to be a useful workaround.

The problem is tied to the fact that PowerMail uses a single monolithic
database rather than having separate databases for each mailboxes. I
wouldn't mind if there was a 2 GB limit for individual mailboxes.

The monolithic database format is also an issue for backup programs that
work at a file level (Retrospect, Time Machine etc.) These have to back
up the entire database (rather than active or changed mailboxes) every
time they run.

Jeremy

Re: Time for an update!

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael J. Hußmann (26/1/10, 19:58) said:

>> The other thing that I find tiresome with PowerMail's monolithic
>> database is that the entire database needs to be backed up on a daily
>> basis. With Apple Mail, the only mailboxes that get backed up in an
>> incremental backup are the ones that have new emails.
>
>That might help if some mailboxes were updated much less frequently than
>the others.

Exactly. I have mailboxes that are updated infrequently, or not at all -
e.g. mailing list mailboxes where previous years are in separate
subfolders ("2004", "2005", "2006" etc.)

Here in the office, people who have switched from PowerMail to Apple
Mail have much smaller backups.

Jeremy

Re: Time for an update!

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael J. Hußmann (26/1/10, 19:58) said:

>> The other thing that I find tiresome with PowerMail's monolithic
>> database is that the entire database needs to be backed up on a daily
>> basis. With Apple Mail, the only mailboxes that get backed up in an
>> incremental backup are the ones that have new emails.
>
>That might help if some mailboxes were updated much less frequently than
>the others.

Exactly. I have mailboxes that are updated infrequently, or not at all -
e.g. mailing list mailboxes where previous years are in separate
subfolders ("2004", "2005", "2006" etc.)

Here in the office, people who have switched from PowerMail to Apple
Mail have much smaller backups.

Jeremy

Re: Time for an update!

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael J. Hußmann (26/1/10, 19:58) said:

>> The other thing that I find tiresome with PowerMail's monolithic
>> database is that the entire database needs to be backed up on a daily
>> basis. With Apple Mail, the only mailboxes that get backed up in an
>> incremental backup are the ones that have new emails.
>
>That might help if some mailboxes were updated much less frequently than
>the others.

Exactly. I have mailboxes that are updated infrequently, or not at all -
e.g. mailing list mailboxes where previous years are in separate
subfolders ("2004", "2005", "2006" etc.)

Here in the office, people who have switched from PowerMail to Apple
Mail have much smaller backups.

Jeremy

Re: Time for an update!

[Jeremy Hughes]

Tobias Jung (22/1/10, 11:37) said:

>Don't get my wrong - I don't want to critisize or anything, I'm really
>just curios:
>How many messages do you get?

242179 messages at the moment. I've recently had to prune the database
to continue using it.

>I'm using PowerMail for a year now and PowerMail's DB roughly has 125
>MB. So even if the number of messages will increase a LOT, it'll be

I've been using PowerMail for maybe eight years, and Claris Emailer for
about six years before that. The only way I have managed to continue
using PowerMail is by moving some of my older mailing list emails
(Carbon-Dev, Cocoa-Dev etc.) into Apple Mail. Which means I can't search
them in PowerMail.

>And even then, it'll be sufficient for me to use PMs »Archive and
>Cleanup Assistant« - I really don't need to search messages that, say,
>more than three years old on a daily basis so I wouldn't mind to switch
>the User Environment for this.

I didn't find User Environments to be a satisfactory solution.

The other thing that I find tiresome with PowerMail's monolithic
database is that the entire database needs to be backed up on a daily
basis. With Apple Mail, the only mailboxes that get backed up in an
incremental backup are the ones that have new emails.

If you use (and feel secure using) a backup program that works at a
lower level than system files (i.e. not Retrospect or Time Machine),
this might be less of a problem.

Jeremy

Re: Time for an update!

[Jeremy Hughes]

Lane Roathe (19/1/10, 20:38) said:

>1. Larger than 2GB archive sizes (I have two suggestions: a) a way to
>create folders that use separate DBs, and/or a DB per email account

That's my #1 request as well.

I have one email account, and PowerMail's 2GB limit combined with its
monolithic database is a crippling restriction. Having separate
databases for each folder is what Apple Mail does. I wish PowerMail
would do this.

Jeremy

Re: PowerMail into the future

[Jeremy Hughes]

Sean McBride (2/9/09, 04:08) said:

>Wow, you guys are lucky.  You must also not get lots of mail. :) Mine
>only goes back to 2006 because of PowerMail's 2 GB database limit.
>That's what I'd most like to see changed.

Ditto!

Power Mail should move away from its single monolithic database. If it
used separate databases for each mail folder, it wouldn't matter so much
if folder databases had a 2 GB limit. Having a single monolithic
database with a 2 GB limit is just crippling.

The main reasons I haven't switched to Apple Mail yet are (1) searching
and (2) filtering are better in Power Mail.

Jeremy

Re: Avoiding the 2GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

PowerMail Engineering (19/1/09, 16:19) said:

>>Has anyone managed to export messages from PowerMail to Apple Mail?
>
>PowerMail 6 can export directly to Mail 3.x.

OK, so I guess the problem is that PowerMail 5 exports to Mail 2.x.

>With PowerMail 5, export to the unix mailbox format, then import in
>Mail.app from mbox files

What I actually did was to export to "Mac OS X Mail" format (rather than
"Unix" format). Importing these into Apple Mail 3 has solved the problem
- thanks!

Jeremy

Re: Avoiding the 2GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Dave Nathanson (16/1/09, 17:52) said:

>In Apple Mail; click on the mail folder & choose "Rebuild" from the
>MailBox menu.
>
>On Jan 16, 2009, at 5:14 AM, Jeremy Hughes wrote:
>
>> As a test, I've tried exporting a couple of folders in "Mac OS X Mail"
>> format (File/Database/Export). The mailboxes get saved to Library/
>> Mail/
>> Mailboxes, and they show up in Apple Mail in an "On My Mac" section -
>> but Apple Mail fails to display any messages within the mailboxes.

That doesn't seem to help. The messages aren't displayed after "Rebuild"

Has anyone managed to export messages from PowerMail to Apple Mail?

Jeremy

Re: Avoiding the 2GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Hi Tobias,

Thanks for the feedback.

>Sorry I can't help you, but I'm curious:
>Why is it better to export the messages to a different email client
>instead of using PowerMail's »Archive and Cleanup Assistant« to move
>them to another User Environment?

I've tried user environments in the past, and they just seem klunky
(they're not actually new in PowerMail 6, although the "assistant" is).

It's a pain to have to switch environments whenever you want to search
for an email (especially if you're not sure where to look). Switching
applications is also a pain, but less so.

If you use environments to archive mail, you have to remember to update
the archives whenever you upgrade to a new version of PowerMail.
Otherwise they can become unreadable (that's what happened to me).

What I'd really like is for PowerMail to manage separate databases -
which is what environments are basically - in a seamless fashion (like
other mail clients). The real problem isn't that there is a 2 GB limit -
it's that PowerMail uses a single monolithic database for all mailboxes,
rather than separate databases for each mailbox.

>Sure, switching User Environments might take a bit longer than switching
>applications

Yes.

>but at least the messages are still managed by a single application --
>which is a way that _I_ would prefer...

I'd prefer that too, but I'd like it to be seamless.

Jeremy

Avoiding the 2GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

I've got to the point where I need to start exporting mail from
PowerMail to Apple Mail in order to avoid the 2 GB limit (currently I
have to compact my database every few days).

As a test, I've tried exporting a couple of folders in "Mac OS X Mail"
format (File/Database/Export). The mailboxes get saved to Library/Mail/
Mailboxes, and they show up in Apple Mail in an "On My Mac" section -
but Apple Mail fails to display any messages within the mailboxes.

Is there something I am doing wrong? This is PowerMail 5.6.5 running on
Leopard (10.5.5).

I really wish PowerMail didn't have this limit. But since it doesn't
seem likely that it will be fixed before PowerMail 7 (if ever), I'm
hoping I can carry on using it for a while if I transfer some emails
into Apple Mail.

Jeremy

Re: The 2GB limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Paul Schneider (18/12/08, 16:50) said:

>As the 2GB limit has not been removed with PM6 but simply bypassed, I have
>to find another solution to get ride of this limit.  The easiest way would
>be to start two versions of the same program simultaneously or if PM5 and PM6
>could run at the same time with different accounts and different
>environments of course. Does anybody have a clue how to handle this?

I don't have any ideas on how to run two versions of PM at the same time
- but I think this illustrates why the 2 GB limit is a serious problem
that needs to be fixed properly.

Splitting my email database into two (or more) environments seems like a
poor workaround to me, because it means that I have to switch
environments every time I want to search through my email. Running two
copies of PM simultaneously might make this slightly easier, but I still
have to search twice.

Currently, the only plan that I have is either (1) switch to another
email program entirely (probably Apple Mail) or (2) use Apple Mail for
mailing list emails (some of which are high-volume), and continue using
PowerMail for other emails.

You might be able to continue using PowerMail for a bit longer if you
compact your database regularly (I currently have to do this twice a week).

Jeremy

Re: why this search failed??

[Jeremy Hughes]

m. osti (10/12/08, 11:22) said:

>>FoxTrot searches on words by default. If you're looking for
>>"stresspoint" you will find it by typing "stresspo*" as well.
>
>yes i know but in this occasion it failed. have you any idea about this?
>i mean deleting some prefs or rebuild etc etc

Notice the asterisk (wildcard) at the end of "stresspo*"

Works for me...

Jeremy

Re: PM 6 beta (4574)

[Jeremy Hughes]

Derry Thompson (21/11/08, 15:17) said:

>>That is a major disappointment to me :(
>>
>>I currently have to compact the database twice a week to avoid this limit.
>>
>>Not sure how long I can continue using PowerMail...
>
>You might be missing this feature.
>
>Instead of multiplying risks with bigger and bigger databases, PowerMail
>works around the 2GB database limit by enabling the archiving and
>splitting into several smaller indexable message corpuses.
>
>Not ideal, but seems to work OK in my limited testing so far.

I tried that a while back, and it wasn't a good solution.

In any case, I don't want bigger and bigger databases. I want separate
databases for each email folder (like in Apple Mail). It's fine if these
have a 2 GB limit. What isn't fine is a single monolithic database with
a 2 GB limit.

Jeremy

Re: PM 6 beta (4574)

[Jeremy Hughes]

Matthias Schmidt (21/11/08, 12:29) said:

>well, I forgot to mention one thing,
>I'm wondering, why the database format was not changed.
>A one-file-monolythic database is really not up-to-date together with
>technologies like Time Machine.
>And the most often asked feature request in the past was to lift the 2GB
>limit of the database and not styled text.

That is a major disappointment to me :(

I currently have to compact the database twice a week to avoid this limit.

Not sure how long I can continue using PowerMail...

Jeremy

Re: Turn off mistaken address autocomplete?

[Jeremy Hughes]

Rene Merz (22/10/08, 09:52) said:

>Winston Weinmann wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>How can I stop PowerMail from putting in a mistaken address when I click
>>into the message window? It also happens if I click to add another
>>address line . Note that this does not happen if I use tab or return to
>>go to the message window - only if I click into it.
>
>I know the problem from older versions.
>But since 5.6.5 I don't have-it anymore.

I think it's a feature. If you type "john" into the Recipients field,
and then click out of the field, PowerMail assumes that you're sending
to "john" in your email domain. This happens for me in 5.6.5.

Personally, I'd rather it didn't do this, or there was a preference to
turn it off.

Jeremy

Re: SpamSieve Statistics

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael Tsai (15/10/08, 16:04) said:

>> But as you can see from my last email, SpamSieve is filtering mail (2
>> Good Messages, 11 Spam Messages) but failing to report this in the
>> Filtered Mail and SpamSieve Accuracy sections.
>
>The 2 and 11 are the numbers of messages in the corpus (i.e. the ones
>you've trained it with).

I didn't train it with any messages - these are messages that SpamSieve
has filtered (the current totals are 50 good and 112 spam).

It doesn't seem to be necessary to train SpamSieve in this case - it is
using its existing whitelist and blacklist and filtering quite
successfully with these. I've corrected one false negative out of 162
messages so far.

>They don't show that it filtered any
>messages. You'd need to look at the log to determine whether it did.

Yes - the log shows that they have been filtered.

Jeremy

Re: SpamSieve Statistics

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael Tsai (15/10/08, 16:30) said:

>> I wonder if the problem is caused by the fact that SpamSieve's
>> History.db file has got quite large (122.9 MB).
>
>The size doesn't matter, but it sounds like the file is damaged. You
>could either start a new one (hold Command-Option when launching
>SpamSieve) or send me the file (e.g. on an iDisk or Dropbox) and I'll
>repair it.

Thanks!

Resetting the history has fixed the problem :)

Jeremy

Re: SpamSieve Statistics

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael Tsai (15/10/08, 14:34) said:

>> Is the Statistics window in SpamSieve 2.7.1 broken?
>
>No. Only you can know whether the statistics shown match reality, but
>most likely they do. What it says is that SpamSieve has not been asked
>to filter any messages since yesterday at noon.

SpamSieve is filtering messages fine - but it's failing to report this
correctly in the Statistics window (see below).

>This could be because
>you didn't receive any messages or because of a setup problem in
>PowerMail. Less likely, it's possible that a damaged database file is
>causing SpamSieve to show fewer messages than there actually were--you
>could tell if this were the case because the statistics would be
>inconsistent with the log.
>
>Secondly, it says that you've only trained SpamSieve with 13 messages
>(total, not just since yesterday). Or maybe you recently reset the
>corpus?

I reset the corpus earlier today, because it had got large and I thought
this might be causing the Statistics problem. The "Corpus" section
reports the number of messages that have been filtered since the corpus
was reset. In my previous email this showed as "2 Good Messages, 11 Spam
Messages (85%)". It's now up to "37 Good Messages, 74 Spam Messages
(66%)", but Filtered Mail still says "0 Good Messages, 0 Spam Messages etc."

I wonder if the problem is caused by the fact that SpamSieve's
History.db file has got quite large (122.9 MB).

Jeremy

Re: SpamSieve Statistics

[Jeremy Hughes]

Hi Michael,

>> Showing Statistics Since
>> 14/10/2008 12:00
>
>Maybe you should set the date to a year ago or so. You are looking at
>the statistics for just one day.

It makes no difference.

I reset the corpus and deleted some rules earlier today.

But as you can see from my last email, SpamSieve is filtering mail (2
Good Messages, 11 Spam Messages) but failing to report this in the
Filtered Mail and SpamSieve Accuracy sections. This was happening before
I reset the corpus.

Are you using 2.7.1?

Does the Statistics window work for you?

Jeremy

SpamSieve Statistics

[Jeremy Hughes]

Is the Statistics window in SpamSieve 2.7.1 broken?

Mine shows:

Filtered Mail
0 Good Messages
0 Spam Messages
0 Spam Messages Per Day

SpamSieve Accuracy
0 False Positives
0 False Negatives
0.0% Correct

Corpus
2 Good Messages
11 Spam Messages (85%)
1,009 Total Words

Rules
6,354 Blocklist Rules
3,072 Whitelist Rules

Showing Statistics Since
14/10/2008 12:00

Jeremy

SpamSieve slowness

[Jeremy Hughes]

Hi,

SpamSieve seems to have become really slow for me recently, and I
suspect it is because my spam corpus is pretty large (345,672 messages,
2,390,729 words).

Does this seem unreasonably large?

There used to be a Prune Corpus option, but this has disappeared -
should I just open the corpus and delete everything that was "Last Used"
before 2008?

I first noticed the slowness after moving from Tiger to Leopard a few
weeks back - not sure if this is connected.

Jeremy

Re: One other wish for PM6

[Jeremy Hughes]

Bill Schjelderup (3/9/08, 16:27) said:

>After watching these for a long time, I believe they are related to
>receiving email while performing some user activity -- long user
>activities that often result in crashes are drag events and executing
>applescripts with dialogs, like renaming subject line.

I get crashes if iCal sends an email reminder when I'm compacting the
database.

Unfortunately, I have to compact the database every few days because of
the 2 GB limit. I'm currently holding out to see if the limit gets fixed
in PowerMail 6 - otherwise I shall reluctantly switch to Apple Mail or
something.

Jeremy

Re: Show Hide PM

[Jeremy Hughes]

PowerMail Engineering (9/7/08, 13:25) said:

>>>We really need a way to view and forward raw source from PowerMail!
>>What about the "Show Source in Textedit" script?:
>
>PowerMail does not store the messages in raw source form. This
>Applescript command regenerates a message in the RFC 822 form, but it
>will not be strictly identical to the original message, especially if
>the original message was HTML.

I did a file compare on the two raw versions, and there were a couple of
minor differences (one had 7-bit encoding and the other had 8-bit encoding).

I've sent Jerome the AppleMail version.

Jeremy

Re: Show Hide PM

[Jeremy Hughes]

MB (9/7/08, 12:14) said:

>>We really need a way to view and forward raw source from PowerMail!
>
>What about the "Show Source in Textedit" script?:

That worked, thanks - but don't you think it should be a built-in
command, or at least a standard script?

Jeremy

Re: Show Hide PM

[Jeremy Hughes]

PowerMail Engineering (9/7/08, 11:11) said:

>We have currently not found a 100% reproducible case of this problem.

These are the steps for me:

1. View an HTML message (with HTML viewing turned off)
2. Command-H
3. >> PowerMail is moved back in the window list, but doesn't get hidden
4. Switch back using Command-Tab
5. >> PowerMail comes to the front, but its window remains behind other
windows
6. Click on the Dock icon
7. >> PowerMail's window comes to the front

I've also seen a different situation where Command-H does nothing, but I
think the causes are different.

>If you have a specific HTML message that cause this problem, please send
>me it's raw source (from Mail.app or a webmail access) as an attached
>file, so I can see if a workaround can be found, and send a report to Apple.

I don't think it happens with every HTML message. However, I do have one
that it happens with regularly, so will try to send it - but it's a bit
of a hassle because I don't normally use Apple Mail (although I might
have to switch if the 2GB limit doesn't get fixed).

We really need a way to view and forward raw source from PowerMail!

Jeremy

Re: Show Hide PM

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael Lewis (8/7/08, 14:24) said:

>>I expect it's some kind of interaction with WebKit, which can cause
>>problems when it's used in Carbon applications.
>
>I have the hiding issue and have HTML viewing turned off.

Same here.

>I have chosen
>to use the button at the bottom of the message to tun on the HTML or
>view in a browser. Would webkit still be the causing the hiding issue
>even when HTML viewing is off?

It seems like WebKit is involved in some way, because this happens
whenever an HTML message is displayed - even when HTML viewing is turned
off (as Chris Niemiec reported).

But this is just a guess on my part - it's up to CTM to find out why
things are going wrong and try to fix it.

Jeremy

Re: Show Hide PM

[Jeremy Hughes]

C. A. Niemiec (7/7/08, 21:14) said:

>Restart PowerMail and preview only messages that don't have an HTML part.
>Hiding should be fine.
>Select one message with an HTML part.
>Hiding should now be borked.

I get something like this happening (PowerMail 5.6.4 on OS X 10.4.11).

Once an HTML email has been displayed, PowerMail becomes unreliable at
hiding (it sometimes hides, or sometimes just gets sent behind another
application), and it also fails to display properly when you switch back
into it (you have to click on the icon in the Dock to get it to show its
windows).

I expect it's some kind of interaction with WebKit, which can cause
problems when it's used in Carbon applications.

Jeremy

Re: Review of Power Mail in new MacWorld magazine

[Jeremy Hughes]

MB (15/6/08, 12:07) said:

>>another problem with the monolithic file format is that incremental
>>backups (Retrospect, Time Machine, whatever) have to back up the entire
>>database each time it changes.
>
>Qrecall only backup the parts of the file that are different.

This doesn't look like it could replace Retrospect for client/server
network backups. It might be OK as a personal backup system.

I think it's a problem that PowerMail doesn't work well with standard
backup systems - but this is a minor inconvenience compared with the 2
GB limit.

Jeremy

Re: Review of Power Mail in new MacWorld magazine

[Jeremy Hughes]

Dave N (10/6/08, 23:22) said:

>Review of PowerMail in new July 2008 MacWorld magazine
>
>And PowerMail didn't do well. It got only 2.5 Mice out of 5

My main problem with PowerMail is that it uses a monolithic database
format that can't be larger than 2 GB. Currently, I have to compact the
database at least once a week to avoid corruption :(

I don't know if any of its competitors have this problem - Apple Mail
certainly doesn't.

Apart from the inconvenience of having to compact the database regularly
(it takes about 30 minutes to do this on my 2GHz iMac), another problem
with the monolithic file format is that incremental backups (Retrospect,
Time Machine, whatever) have to back up the entire database each time it
changes. With Apple Mail, all that gets backed up are the changed mailboxes.

This wasn't mentioned in the review. If it had been, I think it would
have justified a 2-mouse rating.

If CTM can fix this problem, I would be happy to continue using and
recommending PowerMail over other clients. Searching and filtering are
much better than Apple Mail. PowerMail is great at handling a large
email corpus (I have over 300,000 emails) - so long as you don't get
anywhere near the 2 GB limit.

I haven't contributed to the discussion on the MacWorld web page,
because I'm hopeful that CTM will reconsider their previous decision to
leave this problem unfixed, and I don't want to leave negative comments
in a public forum. PowerMail has other weaknesses, besides those
mentioned in the review, but the 2 GB limit is its most serious weakness
for me personally.

Jeremy

Re: Database issues

[Jeremy Hughes]

Derry Thompson (14/5/08, 15:59) said:

>I've tried a low-level rebuild, a database compact both of which failed.

What version of PowerMail are you using?

According to the ctmdev web site:

"Low-level rebuild was broken after the 5.6.2 porting to XCode 3.0" -
this was apparently fixed in 5.6.3 or 5.6.4 (not sure which).

Jeremy

Re: PowerMail 5 Hiding Bug: Round 4

[Jeremy Hughes]

Christian Roth (28/1/08, 15:38) said:

>To CTM: Is this an Apple bug? If so, can you work around it? If it
>isn't, can you fix it?

My problem (since 10.4.11) is that PowerMail doesn't bring its windows
to the front if I click on its icon in the Dock or switch into it using
Command-Tab.

Sometimes it doesn't even activate its menu bar, and the only way I can
bring it to the front is to select a window from the Dock menu.

I haven't seen this happen with any other Carbon applications.

OS X 10.4.11
PowerMail 5.6.1

Jeremy

Re: Powermail's website down

[Jeremy Hughes]

George Henne (4/12/07, 16:07) said:

>I can't access  - the server can't be found.

It seems to be up again, but I noticed it was down last week.

Jeremy

Re: Time Machine discussion.

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael J. Hußmann (13/11/07, 13:29) said:

>>> Anyway, even if the mail database was split into several databases, you
>>> could still run against the 2 GB limit.
>>
>> Yes, and you could split a large folder into two smaller folders to deal
>> with this.
>
>Yes, you could, but it's an awkward solution.

Awkward for you perhaps. It would work well for me, as I explained in my
last email. None of my existing folders are anything like 2 GB in size.

>> Maybe, but PowerMail have said they're not going to do this.
>
>"Not going to do this" as in "never ever"? I don't think so.

CTM's "Official Pronouncement" (October last year) was: "In the process
of moving PowerMail to XCode and Intel, we discussed long and hard the
matter of maximum database size and have decided, for technical and
philosophical reasons, that the right thing to do was to keep the 2GB limit."

>> In any case, it doesn't solve the backup problem.
>
>Neither does the multiple database approach.

Yes it does. The problem is that my email database is nearly 2 GB in
size, and the entire database is backed up every day. If I was using
Time Machine (I'm not), it would be backing this up every hour. If
PowerMail followed other email clients in having a separate email
database for each folder, all that would need to be backed up would be
the folders that received new emails in the last day (or hour in the
case of TM). This excludes the largest folders, which are archives of
previous years' emails.

>I really wonder how many users of PowerMail actually hit the 2 GB limit
regularly.

A shrinking number, because we are (or have or will be) switching to
different email clients. PowerMail doesn't work if you have an email
database that is larger than 2 GB.

Jeremy

Re: Time Machine discussion.

[Jeremy Hughes]

Michael J. Hußmann (12/11/07, 20:34) said:

>Anyway, even if the mail database was split into several databases, you
>could still run against the 2 GB limit.

Yes, and you could split a large folder into two smaller folders to deal
with this.

>Wouldn't lifting the 2 GB limit be a more straight-forward remedy?

Maybe, but PowerMail have said they're not going to do this. In any
case, it doesn't solve the backup problem.

>With a couple of databases, it would be just the same

Of course. I have many more than just a couple of folders.

>- unless some
>folders were rarely used and thus wouldn't need to be saved with each
>backup. Unfortunately, folders whose content rarely changes typically
>contain a relatively small number of mails (for just that reason), so
>even when these folders weren't included in every backup, the disk space
>saved would be negligible. With my setup, most folders receive mails all
>the time

Not all my folders receive emails every day. Additionally, I use
subfolders to archive mailing lists, so that "Carbon-Dev" (for example)
may contain emails sent in the current year along with subfolders for
emails from previous years - these folders are large and never receive
new emails. Having separate databases for each folder would make a big
difference to me.

As you said, you don't use email very heavily and your database is much
smaller than 2 GB. For those of us who have larger databases, the way
that PowerMail currently behaves is a problem.

Jeremy

Re: Time Machine discussion.

[Jeremy Hughes]

Bob Parks (11/11/07, 19:45) said:

>TM seems much better suited for use with email programs that maintain a
>lot of separate files rather than one big database.

I *really* wish PowerMail would follow other email programs in splitting
its database into separate databases for each email folder:

1. This would solve the problem of the 2 GB limit. Currently, I have to
compact my database every two to three weeks. Eventually (perhaps within
the next year) I will have to switch to a different email client.

2. Backing up a single database that is nearly 2 GB in size, whether
it's done hourly with Time Machine or daily with Retrospect (or another
backup program), is wasteful of backup time and resources.

Jeremy

Re: Slow Address Book

[Jeremy Hughes]

Hi Bill,

>If I have Powermail open when my backup is run, Powermail address lookup
>becomes VERY VERY slow. I quit Powermail and it's OK again. 

Same here. It's been mentioned on this list on more than one occasion.

In our experience, Powermail becomes generally slow and unresponsive
(not just the address lookup).

We're using Retrospect as our backup program.

Jeremy

Re: Exporting from PowerMail - all mail is Unread

[Jeremy Hughes]

Barbara Needham (21/9/07, 17:13) said:

>I have 700 MB since 2002 but that is after compacting the database. And I
>do not get huge volumes of e-mail.

I have 1.15 GB - but that is after compacting the database earlier
today. Before compacting, it was 1.7 GB.

I need to compact once a month to avoid the 2 GB limit.

Jeremy

Re: Exporting from PowerMail - all mail is Unread

[Jeremy Hughes]

Steve Abrahamson (21/9/07, 14:05) said:

>On 9/21/07 at 7:28 AM, Richard Davis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said:
>
>>If you reach the 2 GB limit you can make another user.
>>
>>Wouldn't be much different from searching your mail archive
>>with another mail app.
>
>I can have PowerMail and Mail.app running at the same time; I cannot
>have both users running at the same time in PowerMail.
>
>And, as this thread has revealed, this point may ultimately be moot.

It's disappointing that no one from CTM has commented on this, or on the
basic problem of the 2 GB limit.

The last official comment I saw about the 2 GB problem was that they're
not planning to do anything to address it.

I like PowerMail, but will eventually have to switch if the limit is not
removed.

Jeremy

Re: Bad aftersales Service

[Jeremy Hughes]

Carl Darby (13/7/07, 17:14) said:

>Does anybody else get lack of response to Powermail developers. I have
>sent about five emails to their customer support and have got no answer.

1. Did you use the PowerMail Help menu to send the emails? The support
address has changed from what it used to be.

2. You could ask here, and someone might know the answer.

Jeremy

Re: Forwarding email

[Jeremy Hughes]

Carl Darby (6/7/07, 17:19) said:

>Does this mean that if the recipients then click reply it will
>come to my address?

Yes.

This list is an example of how this happens. When you reply to a
message, the message is sent to the "Reply To" address (powermail-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]) rather than the "From" address.

[In the case of list messages, the "Reply To" address is added by the
list server.]

Jeremy

Re: Forwarding email

[Jeremy Hughes]

Carl Darby (6/7/07, 15:33) said:

>>If they hit reply it will go to the original address; which is perhaps
>>what you are trying to avoid.
>
>Yep, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid! I don't see any way around
>it though. Is it possible to edit the Headers before sending at all I wonder.

Maybe you could send (redirect) it from an account which has "Reply-to
address" set to your address:

1. Setup Mail Accounts
2. Duplicate your existing account
3. In the Advanced section of Identity set the Reply-to address
4. When redirecting the original email click on the Account popup (top
right of message) and set it to the new account

Jeremy

Re: PowerMail 2GB Limit

[Jeremy Hughes]

Sean McBride (10/5/07, 05:34) said:

>Lane Roathe ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) on 2007-05-09 16:36 said:
>
>>- 2GB DB size limit; be nice to get at least 4GB, that would hold me for
>>a few more years until we can get the limit removed all together.
>
>Alas, CTM has said that they won't be upping this limit.  :(
>
>I've managed to survive at 1.8 or so, compacting every few months, and
>deleting some messages, but it's a real shame.

If the limit isn't removed, or changed to be a limit on individual
mailboxes (folders), then PowerMail's days are numbered as far as I am
concerned. I think it's a shame too.

Jeremy

Re: Multiple databases (yet again)

[Jeremy Hughes]

Steve Abrahamson (30/1/07 16:22) said:

>Since the 2 gig database limit is going to remain, I need to start
>either looking at multiple-database operation, or looking for a new mail
>client. I'd rather not leave PowerMail

I'm in the same position: I'd rather not leave PowerMail, but from past
experience multiple (user-created) databases are not a solution.

What I'd like to happen is that the database is split into one database
per mailbox/folder (which is what I think Apple Mail does), and the 2
gig limit applies to each folder rather than to the entire database.

Otherwise, I will find another mail client.

Jeremy

Re: Anti Aliasing

[Jeremy Hughes]

A-NO-NE Music (19/12/06 15:54) said:

>I still like anti aliasing disabled.  Do you think I am just not
>used to how this look maybe?

I think antialiased text looks great. It's much more readable because
you see letter shapes rather than pixels. If I look at non-antialiased
text it looks ragged and spidery by comparison. Some of the early
implementations of antialiasing could make text look blurry, but I
haven't found this to be a problem recently.

Going back to non-antialiased text would be like stepping back into the
stone age (System 7 or an old version of Windows).

Jeremy

Re: Anti Aliasing

[Jeremy Hughes]

A-NO-NE Music (19/12/06 14:40) said:

>Does anyone have any comment about bold/normal distinction problem with
>anti aliasing turned on?

I don't have a problem with this: I'm using Verdana 14 pt for lists, and
the bold/normal distinction is very clear.

Jeremy

Re: Anti Aliasing

[Jeremy Hughes]

A-NO-NE Music (18/12/06 23:51) said:

>The message body is bulky Courier font, and for the life of me I can't
>find the way to change it as well as its display size.

1. Go to "Preferences/Display"

2. Choose a font and size for each script (I have Helvetica 16 for Roman).

Jeremy

Re: trouble filtering

[Jeremy Hughes]

"includes the exact phrase" works for me.

Jeremy

Re: trouble filtering

[Jeremy Hughes]

marco osti (10/11/06 16:36) said:

>Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

Bloated signatures?

Jeremy

Re: 2GB limit: the Official Pronouncement

[Jeremy Hughes]

Mikael Byström (1/11/06 23:01) said:

>The 2GB limitation can be tolerated, though one may lose a lot of time
>trying to cope with it.

I'm living with it for now, but I'll switch to a different client rather
than split my database into different environments. I tried doing this a
few years back, and it wasn't usable. What I need is a client which uses
a separate database for each mailbox/folder. (Don't most email clients
do this now?)

Something which is going to make the 2GB limit intolerable sooner rather
than later is the increasing use of HTML emails, which seem to be at
least five times larger than plain text emails. (Not helped by the fact
that Apple Mail sends HTML emails by default.)

>Besides this, I'm happy with PowerMail.

Ditto, except for the attachments bug and a few other niggles (e.g.
Redirect option).

Jeremy

Re: 2GB limit: the Official Pronouncement

[Jeremy Hughes]

I hope you will reconsider this decision.

Switching user environments is tiresome, and you have to remember to
update the archives whenever the database format changes.

Personally, I'd prefer it if PowerMail used separate databases for each
folder and subfolder.

I can probably continue using PowerMail for a year or so - if I keep
compacting the database - but eventually I'll have to switch to a
different program.

My database is currently 997.8 MB. Before it got compacted, it was 1.78 GB.

Jeremy

Re: Problems with Attachments in 5.5

[Jeremy Hughes]

Mark Smith (24/10/06 09:14) said:

>It looks like PM is treating the RTFD file as a folder.

...which is what it is. RTFD "files" are packages - a special kind of
folder that looks like a single file in the Finder, but is actually a
folder containing other folders and files.

Jeremy

Re: Universal Binary

[Jeremy Hughes]

Christian Meenaghan (29/7/06 14:03) said:

>No kidding, I am restarting Powermail 12-15 times a day on my MacBook
>Pro.  It especially likes to crash on large file emails, anything over
>about 3MB I need to restart several times

One way to reduce this problem is to tell PowerMail to partially
retrieve messages that are over (say) 200k (in Setup/Mail Accounts).
Later on, you can Control-Click on any partially retrieved messages to
retrieve them completely. If you retrieve them individually PowerMail is
less likely to crash.

Jeremy

Re: Backing up :: Applescript to Quit & save PowerMail

[Jeremy Hughes]

Jay S. (13/7/06 19:57) said:

>Dave Nathanson wrote:
>
>> We do need to quit PowerMail to ensure a good backup don't we?? 
>
>You shouldn't have to quit before backing up, but you must make sure 
>that no automatic operations are being performed during the backup.

PowerMail runs *very* slowly if its files have been backed up by
Retrospect while it was running - so you will eventually have to quit
and restart it in this case. I think the best thing is to quit before
backing up.

Jeremy

Re: Panics, Intel and PowerMail?

[Jeremy Hughes]

Sean McBride (11/7/06 02:30) said:

>It seems to always be the Dequeue() function that crashes.
>
>Is this what other people see?

I have three Dequeue() crashes in my crash log, all from over a year ago
running under PPC.

The Intel/Rosetta crashes are mostly in threading code:

Thread 5: Crashed (0xb031eebc, 0x83f7a570)
0x002d83bc: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN18LInterruptSafeList6RemoveEP24LInterruptSafeListMember + 0x3c 
0x00473b18: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN18TInterruptSafeListIP18StOpenTptOperationE6RemoveES1_ + 0x1c 
0x002d71c4: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN20LOpenTptNotifHandler19RemoveNotifListenerEP18StOpenTptOperation + 0x1c 
0x002d6968: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN18StOpenTptOperationD1Ev + 0x40 
0x002d5a98: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN19LOpenTptTCPEndpoint11ReceiveDataEPvRmRhm + 0x1c0 
0x0013b8fc: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN8CNetIntf11ReceiveDataEPcRmm + 0x3c 
0x0040f2c8: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN14CNetConnection11ReceiveDataEPcRmm + 0x20 
0x0017089c: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN14CSSLConnection11ReceiveDataEPcRmm + 0x88 
0x00168fbc: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN13CPOP3Protocol16ParseMsgResponseEmu7__bool8 + 0x74 
0x00168c90: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN13CPOP3Protocol6DoRETREsm + 0x1dc 
0x00166fe4: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN13CPOP3Protocol8DoGetMsgEsu7__bool8 + 0xc4 
0x0016a0e4: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN10CPOPThread3RunEv + 0xa8 
0x00153340: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN15CBasicThreadImp3RunEv + 0x20 
0x0014f58c: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN9CPPThread3RunEv + 0x20 
0x0026c9e0: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN7LThread7DoEntryEPv + 0x38 
0x90cdcfb8: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/
Frameworks/CarbonCore.framework/Versions/A/CarbonCore :
_InvokeThreadEntryUPP + 0x18 
0x90cdcd38: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/
Frameworks/CarbonCore.framework/Versions/A/CarbonCore :
_CooperativeThread + 0x138 
0x9002bea8: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib : __pthread_body + 0x60 
0x: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :  + 0x0 

For me, PowerMail is reasonably stable under Intel/Rosetta EXCEPT when
receiving emails that have large attachments. Then it usually crashes -
sometimes five or six times before it finally manages to collect the email.

If you don't get large attachments you might not have many problems.

Jeremy

Re: Panics, Intel and PowerMail?

[Jeremy Hughes]

>I am not trying cast aspersions (yet), but wonder if others have seen
>similar issues on Macintel machines.

PowerMail crashes regularly for me (on an Intel iMac) - usually when
retrieving files with large attachments.

I haven't had any kernel panics.

Jeremy

Re: PowerMail instability (Intel)

[Jeremy Hughes]

PowerMail Engineering (9/6/06 08:43) said:

>Jeremy Hughes wrote:
>
>>I recently started using PowerMail on an Intel iMac (running 10.4.6) and
>>I have been experiencing several crashes a day. A colleague who uses
>>PowerMail on a similar machine has been experiencing fewer crashes
>>(typically one a day). Previously, when I was using a G5, PowerMail
>>rarely crashed (maybe once a month).
>
>PowerMail is more unstable when running with Rosetta. We are working
>hard on a universal binary version of PowerMail; it's neither an easy or
>fun task, but we are progressing significantly.

Glad to hear that it's progressing!

I've noticed that PowerMail tends to crash at hourly intervals (approx),
and that I have an account that is checked once an hour, along with
another account that is checked every two minutes. Since the crash logs
appear show that the crashes are occurring in threading code, I think
it's possible that they are triggered by two accounts being checked
simultaneously.

I've changed the frequency with which the first account is checked from
once an hour to once every four hours - hopefully this will reduce the
crash frequency. Touch wood. Etc.

Jeremy

PowerMail instability (Intel)

[Jeremy Hughes]

Hi,

I recently started using PowerMail on an Intel iMac (running 10.4.6) and
I have been experiencing several crashes a day. A colleague who uses
PowerMail on a similar machine has been experiencing fewer crashes
(typically one a day). Previously, when I was using a G5, PowerMail
rarely crashed (maybe once a month).

I think it normally crashes when collecting mail.

According to the crash logs, it seems to be crashing in threading code. E.g. 

Thread 9: Crashed (0xb0420ebc, 0x83f8d7f0)
0x002d83bc: /Applications/PowerMail.app/Contents/MacOS/PowerMail :
__ZN18LInterruptSafeList6RemoveEP24LInterruptSafeListMember + 0x3c 

Jeremy

Re: Hiding PM

[Jeremy Hughes]

computer artwork by subhash (18/5/06 13:33) said:

>[Jeremy Hughes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb am 18.5.2006 um 13:06 Uhr:]
>
>>Try disabling DefaultFolder and DragThing and any other system hacks you
>>might be using.
>
>No. I cannot work without one of them. Besides DragThing is no system
>hack it is just an application. I do it without hiding PM.

You could try disabling them temporarily. If you narrow down the problem
so that it is reproducible, you stand a better chance of getting it fixed.

Jeremy

Re: Hiding PM

[Jeremy Hughes]

Try disabling DefaultFolder and DragThing and any other system hacks you
might be using.

Jeremy

--

computer artwork by subhash (18/5/06 11:44) said:

>[Jeremy Hughes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb am 18.5.2006 um 11:14 Uhr:]
>
>>PowerMail doesn't seem to be
>>worse than other Carbon applications.
>
>In my case it is. No other app behaves like this when I push command-H
>(that's the way I hide apps.)

Re: Hiding PM

[Jeremy Hughes]

Sean McBride (17/5/06 00:20) said:

>computer artwork by subhash ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) on 2006-05-13 03:25 said:
>
>>I did. Hiding PM *never* worked correctly for me. Not with 10.3, not 
>>with 10.4. All other applications hide but not PM. And worse: If I try 
>>to hide it, I cannot change back to PM from another application, but 
>>have to force-quit PM and start it new.
>
>I have this problem too.  It only happens sometimes, maybe 3 times a
>month.  I've seen it on 3 systems.  None has Codetek Virtual Desktop,
>all running English 10.4, some systems have APE.  I've never found a way
>to repro it reliably.  I usually have to kill PM because quitting nicely
>prompts to save and I can't see the dialog.

I've seen this happen, not just in PowerMail but in other Carbon
applications including the Finder. I don't have any hacks on my system.
It happens maybe once a week in my case. PowerMail doesn't seem to be
worse than other Carbon applications.

I think it happens when I switch out of an application and hide it at
the same time (usually by command-option-clicking on a different
application in the Dock). When I go back, the first application has lost
its windows and is unable to display any windows from this point on.

Jeremy

Re: What happened to the Support address at CTM?

[Jeremy Hughes]

Steve Abrahamson (21/2/06 17:08) said:

>>Steve Abrahamson (21/2/06 16:04) said:
>>
>>>I just sent an email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>
>>Select "Send a Message to PowerMail Support..." from the PowerMail
Help menu.
>
>I did. That's what generated that address.

PowerMail 5.2.2 generates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Maybe they changed it to reduce spam.

Jeremy

Ignore Fwd: when sorting by subject

[Jeremy Hughes]

PowerMail ignores Re: when sorting by subject. Could it also ignore Fwd:
please?

If I have a folder with the following emails:

Fwd: Wibble
Re: Fwd: Wibble
Re: Wibble
Something else

PowerMail will sort:

Fwd: Wibble
Re: Fwd: Wibble
Something else
Re: Wibble

Note: "Re: Wibble" may be a reply to "Fwd: Wibble". Some email clients
strip "Fwd:" from email titles before adding "Re:"

This would make it easier to view and follow threads.

Jeremy

Re: SPAM problem needs help

[Jeremy Hughes]

Mikael Byström (27/9/05 3:35 pm) said:

>Great, but emailaddresses should anonymized.

It looks like they are normally - but there are problems if someone
includes an email address within the content of their email (e.g. in a
quote attribution).

Jeremy

Re: SPAM problem needs help

[Jeremy Hughes]

Wayne Brissette (27/9/05 2:44 pm) said:

>Since the list doesn't archive things anywhere I'm not sure what you're
>referring to.

http://pmdiscuss.ctmdev.com/

Jeremy

Re: automating PowerMail

[Jeremy Hughes]

Steve Abrahamson (26/8/05 4:43 pm) said:

>But I just want to be clear to anyone else reading the list (lurkers et
>al) that your statement of "I don't think PowerMail or other well-written
>applications behave like this" simply isn't true. Very well-written
>database engines keep files open, and yes, a crash or cut to power can
>leave those files unusable. But I'd like to stress for the technical out
>there (and there seem to be plenty on this list) that that's not an
>indication that the app is flawed; it's simply the nature of databases.

PowerMail doesn't behave like this for me. The database is rarely
corrupted by a power cut or crash.

This really has nothing to do with leaving files open. An application can
leave files open without them being in an incomplete state. There is a
possible issue with write caching (data may not be written to disk until
a second or so after it has been written to the file).

Jeremy

Re: automating PowerMail

[Jeremy Hughes]

>That's not the issue: the issue is that you're backing up an open file.
>Database engines do housekeeping before the close a file. When Retrospect
>restores it, all of the dirty flags and cleanup routines that are done
>when the database engine closes a database won't have been done, things
>internally are out of place for a file that's expected to be closed, and
>the file may be unusable... even if Retrospect restores exactly what it
>was given.

If the file is unusable, this will also be the case whenever there is a
crash or power cut etc. I don't think PowerMail or other well-written
applications behave like this.

Anyway, it's not a problem for me. I normally log out before the backup
runs. On the few occasions when I don't, I've noticed that PowerMail runs
slowly until I restart it.

Jeremy

Re: automating PowerMail

[Jeremy Hughes]

Mikael Byström (24/8/05 2:11 pm) said:

>>It checks that backup copies of files are identical with the original
>>files (if a file changes during a backup, this isn't the case). It also
>>reports which files which were not backed up successfully.

>But an open file may have important data yet uncached, right?

Yes, if the file is being written to.

I don't think PowerMail would leave its database in a half-written state
at other times. If it did this, the database would be corrupted whenever
there is a crash or forced quit.

Jeremy

Re: automating PowerMail

[Jeremy Hughes]

Mikael Byström (24/8/05 12:22 pm) said:

>>Retrospect checks the integrity of backups, so this isn't really a problem.
>
>How can it check integrity of PowerMail structures?

It checks that backup copies of files are identical with the original
files (if a file changes during a backup, this isn't the case). It also
reports which files which were not backed up successfully.

Jeremy

Re: automating PowerMail

[Jeremy Hughes]

PowerMail Engineering (24/8/05 10:36 am) said:

>>I do not use a schedule to retrieve mail, so my PowerMail database is
>>inactive when my Retrospect backup runs.  If I am certain that the
>>database is inactive, will the backup be OK?
>
>It will *probably* be OK, but there is no guaranty. I personally would
>not rely on such backups.

Retrospect checks the integrity of backups, so this isn't really a problem.

Jeremy

Re: automating PowerMail

[Jeremy Hughes]

A-NO-NE Music (23/8/05 5:43 am) said:

>I have posted this 2-3 times.  In my case, PM slows down after using
>momery/cpu intensive app such as sample player or DSP application.  As
>soon as I quit these app, I need to restart PM to get its performance back.
>
>No one else seen this?  This is 100% reproducible on my AlBook1.5/1GB/
>OSX10.4.2.

PowerMail slows down regularly after a Retrospect backup. It's the only
program that I know which is affected in this way. Restarting PowerMail
(or quitting it before the backup) resolves this problem.

OS X 10.3.9
PowerMail 5.1

Jeremy

Re: Attachment compression

[Jeremy Hughes]

Andy Fragen (10/5/05 4:17 am) said:

>At the very least I think it should be an option to use the built-in zip
>compression as the default compression method.

Yes! Zip is a more useful cross-platform format.

OS X also has gzip.

Jeremy

Re: New on list

[Jeremy Hughes]

Hi Steve,

>That's just the thing: no. It's PowerMail that's being a snail, all else
>is fine. I can load a web page in a snap while PowerMail is taking 45
>seconds to fetch 17 pieces of emails each 1-3k in size (which is
>frontmost doesn't seem to have any effect).

Do you use Retrospect or other backup software? PowerMail slows
dramatically if it was left running during a Retrospect backup (maybe
other backup programs as well). Restarting PowerMail fixes this problem.

It's good to quit PowerMail before a backup, in any case - you don't want
the mail database to be changed while it's being backed up.

Jeremy

Re: Spam not evaluated

[Jeremy Hughes]

Jérôme,

Thanks for fixing this.

The problem I was trying to deal with is that spammers try to get around
spam filters by pretending to be the person they are spamming (me, in
this case). So, knowing that I always use my real name when sending
emails, I thought I could detect spammers by checking whether they used
my real name or not.

Another related spam problem is that spammers will sometimes send emails
from the names of other people with the same domain (who they are also
spamming). If those people are in my address book (which is quite likely
with a company domain), this is enough to fool Power Mail's spam filter,
with its condition of evaluating messages as spam if the sender is not in
the address book. Generally, this is a useful condition, but I found I
wanted to make an exception of people who share the same domain name.

What I ended up doing was to make two spam evaluation filters: one
evaluates emails from anyone who shares the same domain name, and the
other is the standard Power Mail filter with the additional modification
of not evaluating emails from the same domain name. This is kind of
klunky, because Power Mail continually warns me that I have two spam
evaluation filters (whenever I make any changes to filter rules) - but it
doesn't matter that there are two in this case because they don't clash.

Because of this, I no longer check whether an email that comes from me
uses my real name or not. The alternative that we came up with was to get
people in the company to set the "Organization" field appropriately, and
then evaluate any email from our domain which doesn't have this field set
properly.

Best wishes,

Jeremy

--

>Jeremy,
>
>A looong time ago, you said:
>
>>>As a workaround, I have set up an additional filter which evaluates the
>>>spam rating if "From, Sender, or Reply-To contains [EMAIL PROTECTED]"
>>>and "From, Sender, or Reply-To does not use your real name".
>>
>>I've since changed the second condition to "From does not use your real
>>name" because it seems that "From, Sender, or Reply-To does not use your
>>real name" evaluates to true if an email does not contain a Reply-To field.
>>
>>I would have expected "AB or C does not use your real name" to be the
>>negative of "AB or C uses your real name" (i.e. AB or C does not use your
>>real name = NOT AB or C uses your real name).
>>
>>A bug perhaps?
>
>Yes, a bug. Note however that "does not use your real name" is typically
>useless for the "from, Sender or reply-to" fields; it is more useful for
>"to or cc", and there was no bug in this case.
>
>It will be fixed in version 5.2
>
>Thanks for the report.
>
>
>Jérôme - PowerMail Engineering
>
>
>-
>   "If you liked Emailer, and many, many of us did, you'll love this app.
>The PowerMail people are constantly adding new features. A lightning
>fast search is one of its many attributes"
>  PowerMail user comment on www.macupdate.com
>
>
> Download a demo version from www.ctmdev.com
>-
>
>
>
>

Re: Server-Side Solution?

[Jeremy Hughes]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (18/3/05 4:43 pm) said:

>You need a mailing list, not a mail application. The easiest one is
>LetterRip, but I'm not sure what the status is of that product (I have a
>license for a Mac OS 9 version, and I don't think a Mac OS X version is
>even under development). 

I'm pretty sure there is an OS X version of LetterRip.

There's also Mailman, which is free and is what Apple provide with OS X
Server - but it can be tricky to set up, even with the limited GUI
interface which Apple have added in OS X Server. Once you have it set up
and working, it's easy to administer it through a Web interface.

Jeremy

Re: Big Type Little Type

[Jeremy Hughes]

Anthony Sanna (18/3/05 4:45 pm) said:

>I have my display preferences set to Geneva 14pt.  I have old eyes, and a
>monitor set to a higher than normal resolution, which renders screen type
>smaller than normal.  This all works.
>
>However, when I print out an e-mail, the type is overly large.  OK for
>the eyes, I suppose, but it wastes a lot of paper.  Even the shortest e-
>mail has a hard time fitting on a single page.  Question
>
>Can screen type and print type be set independently in PM? 

What I do is go to Page Setup and set the scale to 90% for printing.
PowerMail remembers this setting.

Jeremy

Re: Why I'm switching from PowerMail to OS X Mail

[Jeremy Hughes]

Dan Webb (17/3/05 6:51 am) said:

>PowerMail advantages:
>1. Different signature for each account.
>2. Different column preferences for each view.
>3. Message priorities.  Mail has message colors, but they're not easy 
>to use.
>4. Faster searching.  Mail is slower, but still very usable.  I have 
>about 7000 messages.

5. Handles larger message databases without problems. But Apple Mail will
be fine with 7000 messages (I have 117000).

6. Better filtering

7. Better notifications

Jeremy

Re: PM 5 - database corrupted, no recovery? [u]

[Jeremy Hughes]

Hi Stephen,

>In the end it came down to an issue of 
>stability.  Mail has it, PM doesn't.  At least that is my experience, 

My experience is the opposite. If you use Apple Mail, be careful to
archive your mail regularly to prevent your mailbox from growing too
large. Otherwise you will lose mail randomly.

I have 112,000 messages in my PowerMail database. I wouldn't trust Apple
Mail with more than 50,000.

Whatever email client you use, you should back up your mail regularly if
it is important to you.

Best wishes,

Jeremy

Re: Powermail slowing

[Jeremy Hughes]

Pat O'Halloran (4/1/05 6:30 pm) said:

>>Do you have Retrospect on your machine? PowerMail slows dramatically if
>>it was left running during a backup. Restarting PowerMail fixes this
problem.
>
>No, I don't use Retrospect. 
>Is it specific to Retrospect or any back-up? I use ChronoSync.

I don't know why the slow-down occurs, but I think it involves Retrospect
accessing a file which PowerMail has open. Presumably this can happen
with other backup programs, although it might be dependent on a
particular sequence or condition that doesn't happen with all programs.

See if the slow-down starts immediately during or after a backup.

One other point is that it is a good idea to quit PowerMail before a
backup in any case. If you leave it running, your mail database may be
backed up in an inconsistent state (if PowerMail writes to it while it is
being backed up). In this case, the database you backed up may be useless
if you ever need to restore it.

Jeremy

Re: Powermail slowing

[Jeremy Hughes]

Pat O'Halloran (3/1/05 2:30 pm) said:

>I noticed recently that if I leave PM running for several days it becomes
>slower.

Do you have Retrospect on your machine? PowerMail slows dramatically if
it was left running during a backup. Restarting PowerMail fixes this problem.

Jeremy

Re: PM support for 'threaded viewing'?

[Jeremy Hughes]

computer artwork by subhash (29/12/04 6:00 pm) said:

>>grouping messages belonging to each other closer
>>together? Sounds to me that makes PM *easier* to use.
>
>Not for me. I have no use for this. So it would be an unnecessary feature
>*for me* and only causing some bytes more to load when PM starts. But:
>That's only *my* case.

I think threading would be a useful feature. It can be implemented
unobtrusively so that people who don't want to use it can ignore it.

This is PowerMail (not SimpleMail) after all...

Jeremy

Re: auto reply to sender - not mailing list

[Jeremy Hughes]

David Gordon (21/12/04 2:10 pm) said:

>For example if I said "Rude Word" in this message, how would you set up
>an auto reply _to me, not the list_  suggesting I didn't say Bad Words!

I think it's fine if you want to do this with personal emails, but I
don't think you should do this with list messages - it's up to the list
manager to decide what kind of language is inappropriate and how to deal
with it.

More generally, what is the point in having auto responses to "rude
words"? If you are campaigning to stop people using words that you
consider to be offensive, is this likely to have the desired effect?

Jeremy