I am running XP SP2.

I can no longer "save" a created email in my Drafts folder. It gives me a
popup window with the message, "Cannot save this message". I can do a "save
as" and put it into my My Documents folder, but not a "save" to store it as
a draft.

I've tried deleting the Drafts.dbx file under the Identities folder for OE,
tried putting a new Drafts folder inunder Local Folders, but nothing works.

Otherwise,OE is working OK.

How can I repair this?

Thnaks.

Ken

Was OE closed when you deleted Drafts.dbx? It won't change a thing if OE is
open.

What is the size of Drafts.dbx?
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"KenV" wrote in message
...
I am running XP SP2.

I can no longer "save" a created email in my Drafts folder. It gives me a
popup window with the message, "Cannot save this message". I can do a
"save as" and put it into my My Documents folder, but not a "save" to
store it as a draft.

I've tried deleting the Drafts.dbx file under the Identities folder for
OE, tried putting a new Drafts folder inunder Local Folders, but nothing
works.

Otherwise,OE is working OK.

How can I repair this?

Thnaks.

Ken

Yes, OE was closed when I deleted Drafts.dbx. I couldn't even delete the
file when OE was open.

I have since re-created a drafts.dbx folder several times--still no luck.

I just restored from disk backup an old copy of drafts.dbx with 819 kb and 6
saved emails. They show up fine now in OE in the Drafts folder. But I still
can't save a new draft email.

Ken


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Was OE closed when you deleted Drafts.dbx? It won't change a thing if OE
is open.

What is the size of Drafts.dbx?
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"KenV" wrote in message
...
I am running XP SP2.

I can no longer "save" a created email in my Drafts folder. It gives me a
popup window with the message, "Cannot save this message". I can do a
"save as" and put it into my My Documents folder, but not a "save" to
store it as a draft.

I've tried deleting the Drafts.dbx file under the Identities folder for
OE, tried putting a new Drafts folder inunder Local Folders, but nothing
works.

Otherwise,OE is working OK.

How can I repair this?

Thnaks.

Ken

Is your old copy named Drafts.dbx? You can't have two folders with the same
file name. Move the messages in the backup Drafts folder to a user created
folder and see if you can delete Drafts.dbx again. If you can't, try a new
identity.

You may have a damaged identity especially if it is the default Main
Identity. File | Identity | Add New Identity. Create a new one and test it.
If all is well, you can import your messages and Address Book from the old
identity and delete it.

How to Create and Use Identities in Outlook Express
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=209169
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"KenV" wrote in message
...
Yes, OE was closed when I deleted Drafts.dbx. I couldn't even delete the
file when OE was open.

I have since re-created a drafts.dbx folder several times--still no luck.

I just restored from disk backup an old copy of drafts.dbx with 819 kb and
6 saved emails. They show up fine now in OE in the Drafts folder. But I
still can't save a new draft email.

Ken


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Was OE closed when you deleted Drafts.dbx? It won't change a thing if OE
is open.

What is the size of Drafts.dbx?
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"KenV" wrote in message
...
I am running XP SP2.

I can no longer "save" a created email in my Drafts folder. It gives me
a popup window with the message, "Cannot save this message". I can do a
"save as" and put it into my My Documents folder, but not a "save" to
store it as a draft.

I've tried deleting the Drafts.dbx file under the Identities folder for
OE, tried putting a new Drafts folder inunder Local Folders, but nothing
works.

Otherwise,OE is working OK.

How can I repair this?

Thnaks.

Ken

I don't know what it was, or why it happened, but it's fixed.

I deleted the Drafts folder, shut down OE, rebooted it, and it created a new
drafts folder and drafts.dbx. The first time I did a manual create of a
Drafts folder, but it wasn't in the right position under Local Folders, so I
guess it wanted to re-create the Drafts folder itself and put it below
"deleted items" which is the default position.

It now saves again. Thanks very much.

Ken


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Is your old copy named Drafts.dbx? You can't have two folders with the
same file name. Move the messages in the backup Drafts folder to a user
created folder and see if you can delete Drafts.dbx again. If you can't,
try a new identity.

You may have a damaged identity especially if it is the default Main
Identity. File | Identity | Add New Identity. Create a new one and test
it. If all is well, you can import your messages and Address Book from the
old identity and delete it.

How to Create and Use Identities in Outlook Express
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=209169
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"KenV" wrote in message
...
Yes, OE was closed when I deleted Drafts.dbx. I couldn't even delete the
file when OE was open.

I have since re-created a drafts.dbx folder several times--still no luck.

I just restored from disk backup an old copy of drafts.dbx with 819 kb
and 6 saved emails. They show up fine now in OE in the Drafts folder. But
I still can't save a new draft email.

Ken


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Was OE closed when you deleted Drafts.dbx? It won't change a thing if OE
is open.

What is the size of Drafts.dbx?
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"KenV" wrote in message
...
I am running XP SP2.

I can no longer "save" a created email in my Drafts folder. It gives me
a popup window with the message, "Cannot save this message". I can do a
"save as" and put it into my My Documents folder, but not a "save" to
store it as a draft.

I've tried deleting the Drafts.dbx file under the Identities folder for
OE, tried putting a new Drafts folder inunder Local Folders, but
nothing works.

Otherwise,OE is working OK.

How can I repair this?

Thnaks.

Ken

You're welcome. Glad it is resolved.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"KenV" wrote in message
...
I don't know what it was, or why it happened, but it's fixed.

I deleted the Drafts folder, shut down OE, rebooted it, and it created a
new drafts folder and drafts.dbx. The first time I did a manual create of
a Drafts folder, but it wasn't in the right position under Local Folders,
so I guess it wanted to re-create the Drafts folder itself and put it
below "deleted items" which is the default position.

It now saves again. Thanks very much.

Ken


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Is your old copy named Drafts.dbx? You can't have two folders with the
same file name. Move the messages in the backup Drafts folder to a user
created folder and see if you can delete Drafts.dbx again. If you can't,
try a new identity.

You may have a damaged identity especially if it is the default Main
Identity. File | Identity | Add New Identity. Create a new one and test
it. If all is well, you can import your messages and Address Book from
the old identity and delete it.

How to Create and Use Identities in Outlook Express
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=209169
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"KenV" wrote in message
...
Yes, OE was closed when I deleted Drafts.dbx. I couldn't even delete the
file when OE was open.

I have since re-created a drafts.dbx folder several times--still no
luck.

I just restored from disk backup an old copy of drafts.dbx with 819 kb
and 6 saved emails. They show up fine now in OE in the Drafts folder.
But I still can't save a new draft email.

Ken


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Was OE closed when you deleted Drafts.dbx? It won't change a thing if
OE is open.

What is the size of Drafts.dbx?
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


"KenV" wrote in message
...
I am running XP SP2.

I can no longer "save" a created email in my Drafts folder. It gives
me a popup window with the message, "Cannot save this message". I can
do a "save as" and put it into my My Documents folder, but not a
"save" to store it as a draft.

I've tried deleting the Drafts.dbx file under the Identities folder
for OE, tried putting a new Drafts folder inunder Local Folders, but
nothing works.

Otherwise,OE is working OK.

How can I repair this?

Thnaks.

Ken

KenV wrote:
I don't know what it was, or why it happened, but it's fixed.

I deleted the Drafts folder, shut down OE, rebooted it, and it created a
new
drafts folder and drafts.dbx...

Then OE was NOT closed the other times you deleted DRAFTS.DBX.

If you could literally delete the Drafts folder, either it wasn't the
default Drafts folder or your identity's damaged.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/s

Here is what happened, in sequence, as I recall it:

First, I couldn't save new messages as drafts.

Then I saw that the Drafts folder was missing in OE--when or how it
disappeared, I don't know. So I decided to add a new folder, Drafts,
manually. That was the wrong thing to do, but I didn't know that, and there
was then a new, empty folder, Drafts, in alphabetical order with the rest of
the folders beneath the default folders.

I then shut down OE, then went to Windows explorer, and deleted the
drafts.dbx file

I then reopened OE, and there was the same Drafts folder I had manually
added, but I still couldn't save into it. I shut down OE again and deleted
the drafts.dbx.

I then restored, from an image backup on an external drive, the entire OE
Identities sub folder I had backed up a few days ago, and put that subfolder
onto my Desktop.

I copied all the newer files--everything--from the current corrupted
Identities subfolder into the Identities subfolder on the desktop,
overwriting the week-old dbx files, to bring it up to date.

Then I deleted the OE Identities subfolder I had been using, moved the
restored folder with the current dbx files, etc., from my Desktop back to
the location where OE expected to find it. It had the same long name with
all the numbers, etc., as the one I had just deleted. It also had the old,
backed-up drafts.dbx, since there was no newer drafts.dbx to overwrite it.

When I then opened OE, everything was completely back to normal--OE had
re-created a default Drafts folder, which it wouldn't do before, and all my
other folders were current with the messages I had sent and received since
my week-old backup. And I could now save to the drafts folder.

That was probably a very long way around the problem, but seemed easier than
creating a new identity and importing everything including the address book,
accounts, re-writing the message rules, etc.

I'm still not sure what got corrupted originally, or how it got corrupted.

Ken





"PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote in message
...
KenV wrote:
I don't know what it was, or why it happened, but it's fixed.

I deleted the Drafts folder, shut down OE, rebooted it, and it created a
new
drafts folder and drafts.dbx...

Then OE was NOT closed the other times you deleted DRAFTS.DBX.

If you could literally delete the Drafts folder, either it wasn't the
default Drafts folder or your identity's damaged.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/s

I'm still not sure what got corrupted originally, or how it got corrupted.

See this discussion:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx

General OE Caveats:

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Frequently perform a manual compact of all OE folders while "working
offline". More at http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- Do not cancel Automatic Compacting, should it occur, and do not attempt to
close OE via Task Manager or shutdown your machine if Automatic Compacting
is taking place.

- Your anti-virus application's email scanning feature can also cause such
corruption. Disable it. It provides no additional protection.
--
~PA Bear


KenV wrote:
Here is what happened, in sequence, as I recall it:

First, I couldn't save new messages as drafts.

Then I saw that the Drafts folder was missing in OE--when or how it
disappeared, I don't know. So I decided to add a new folder, Drafts,
manually. That was the wrong thing to do, but I didn't know that, and
there
was then a new, empty folder, Drafts, in alphabetical order with the rest
of
the folders beneath the default folders.

I then shut down OE, then went to Windows explorer, and deleted the
drafts.dbx file

I then reopened OE, and there was the same Drafts folder I had manually
added, but I still couldn't save into it. I shut down OE again and deleted
the drafts.dbx.

I then restored, from an image backup on an external drive, the entire OE
Identities sub folder I had backed up a few days ago, and put that
subfolder
onto my Desktop.

I copied all the newer files--everything--from the current corrupted
Identities subfolder into the Identities subfolder on the desktop,
overwriting the week-old dbx files, to bring it up to date.

Then I deleted the OE Identities subfolder I had been using, moved the
restored folder with the current dbx files, etc., from my Desktop back to
the location where OE expected to find it. It had the same long name with
all the numbers, etc., as the one I had just deleted. It also had the old,
backed-up drafts.dbx, since there was no newer drafts.dbx to overwrite it.

When I then opened OE, everything was completely back to normal--OE had
re-created a default Drafts folder, which it wouldn't do before, and all
my
other folders were current with the messages I had sent and received since
my week-old backup. And I could now save to the drafts folder.

That was probably a very long way around the problem, but seemed easier
than
creating a new identity and importing everything including the address
book,
accounts, re-writing the message rules, etc.

I'm still not sure what got corrupted originally, or how it got corrupted.

"PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote in message
...
KenV wrote:
I don't know what it was, or why it happened, but it's fixed.

I deleted the Drafts folder, shut down OE, rebooted it, and it created a
new
drafts folder and drafts.dbx...

Then OE was NOT closed the other times you deleted DRAFTS.DBX.

If you could literally delete the Drafts folder, either it wasn't the
default Drafts folder or your identity's damaged.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/s

Very helpful! Thanks!

ken


"PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote in message
...
I'm still not sure what got corrupted originally, or how it got
corrupted.

See this discussion:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx

General OE Caveats:

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Frequently perform a manual compact of all OE folders while "working
offline". More at http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- Do not cancel Automatic Compacting, should it occur, and do not attempt
to close OE via Task Manager or shutdown your machine if Automatic
Compacting is taking place.

- Your anti-virus application's email scanning feature can also cause such
corruption. Disable it. It provides no additional protection.
--
~PA Bear


KenV wrote:
Here is what happened, in sequence, as I recall it:

First, I couldn't save new messages as drafts.

Then I saw that the Drafts folder was missing in OE--when or how it
disappeared, I don't know. So I decided to add a new folder, Drafts,
manually. That was the wrong thing to do, but I didn't know that, and
there
was then a new, empty folder, Drafts, in alphabetical order with the rest
of
the folders beneath the default folders.

I then shut down OE, then went to Windows explorer, and deleted the
drafts.dbx file

I then reopened OE, and there was the same Drafts folder I had manually
added, but I still couldn't save into it. I shut down OE again and
deleted
the drafts.dbx.

I then restored, from an image backup on an external drive, the entire OE
Identities sub folder I had backed up a few days ago, and put that
subfolder
onto my Desktop.

I copied all the newer files--everything--from the current corrupted
Identities subfolder into the Identities subfolder on the desktop,
overwriting the week-old dbx files, to bring it up to date.

Then I deleted the OE Identities subfolder I had been using, moved the
restored folder with the current dbx files, etc., from my Desktop back to
the location where OE expected to find it. It had the same long name with
all the numbers, etc., as the one I had just deleted. It also had the
old,
backed-up drafts.dbx, since there was no newer drafts.dbx to overwrite
it.

When I then opened OE, everything was completely back to normal--OE had
re-created a default Drafts folder, which it wouldn't do before, and all
my
other folders were current with the messages I had sent and received
since
my week-old backup. And I could now save to the drafts folder.

That was probably a very long way around the problem, but seemed easier
than
creating a new identity and importing everything including the address
book,
accounts, re-writing the message rules, etc.

I'm still not sure what got corrupted originally, or how it got
corrupted.

"PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote in message
...
KenV wrote:
I don't know what it was, or why it happened, but it's fixed.

I deleted the Drafts folder, shut down OE, rebooted it, and it created
a
new
drafts folder and drafts.dbx...

Then OE was NOT closed the other times you deleted DRAFTS.DBX.

If you could literally delete the Drafts folder, either it wasn't the
default Drafts folder or your identity's damaged.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/s