Tapcis mail.sav file corrupted

[rlohmann]

Lindsey/Judy--

I need some email traffic from the summer of 2004 with our builder. However, the mail.sav file seems to be corrupted; I can't read it.

Is there any way to restore it?

Thanks.

[fhaber]

WordPad will read most anything that's not sitting on a bad sector.

[Judy G. Russell]

First try deleting the mail.~av (index) file. If that doesn't work, a text editor like Notetab Pro or TextPad might do it.

[Lindsey]

I need some email traffic from the summer of 2004 with our builder. However, the mail.sav file seems to be corrupted; I can't read it.
Uh -- what means "I can't read it"? What kind of an error message are you getting? And how large is the file? TAPCIS will have trouble with anything over about 30MB, and a MAIL.SAV file that's been around for a while may well be of such a size.

--Lindsey

[rlohmann]

Uh -- what means "I can't read it"?"Vot means..." You learn to write Cherman! Ferry gut! :)

What kind of an error message are you getting? It's not an error message. I'm just trying to open the file. The other .sav files open as text files; Mail.sav opens as a large sequence of garbage characters.
And how large is the file? TAPCIS will have trouble with anything over about 30MB, and a MAIL.SAV file that's been around for a while may well be of such a size.Uh-oh. 57 megs.

This does not look good.

[rlohmann]

I tried Notepad and WinWord. Neither worked.

[rlohmann]

Tried it.

Nada.

[rlohmann]

Everybody stop.

Deleting the mail.sa~ file had no effect on my opening mail.sav in XP, but it did make it possible to open it in Tapcis itself.

The message I was looking for wasn't there.

I don't know why. That's frustrating because it could be worth about $3000.

In 2004, we were building a house in Maryland while living in Germany. We had a builder with a well deserved reputation for quality. However, he had never built a house for a purchaser 3000 miles away, so we had to make up a lot of things as we went along.

Yesterday morning, I discovered that the 60 or so boxwoods that line our driveway aren't boxwoods; they're a variety of Japanese holly that strongly resemble boxwoods, but cost only half as much.

The message I had been looking for was one to me from the builder offering a series of landscaping options, one of which included about 60 boxwoods, at a fairly steep price, lining the driveway. We thought that was way cool, so sent a response telling him to make it happen.

That's the message I'm looking for.

It's not in mail.sav. I don't know where it is. The computer belonging to the clerk I was dealing with crashed and burned about a year ago. All of her files are gone.

There are some interesting evidentiary issues involved, but the bottom line is that without that message, we've paid boxwood prices for hollies.

Somewhere, Sr. Mary Merciless is smirking mercilessly for having nailed me for having paid too much attention to those black patent-leather shoes. :(

[Judy G. Russell]

With a 57 Mb file, it may actually not be gone but rather may just be not visible. Can you zip and send me the file? I can break it into much smaller segments and you can check it then.

[Lindsey]

Deleting the mail.sa~ file had no effect on my opening mail.sav in XP, but it did make it possible to open it in Tapcis itself.

The message I was looking for wasn't there.
Are you sure you're seeing the entire file? There's a limit to the number TAPCIS will index. Did you get any message about that? (Though I doubt that you would have had more than 16 thousand e-mail messages in even a very old MAIL.SAV file.)

Also, did you have your TAPCIS options set to save outgoing messages only to the MAIL.SAV file?

Yesterday morning, I discovered that the 60 or so boxwoods that line our driveway aren't boxwoods; they're a variety of Japanese holly that strongly resemble boxwoods, but cost only half as much.

Hmmm, well -- there are boxwoods, and there are boxwoods.

For example, there is the Japanese boxwood (http://cals.arizona.edu/pima/gardening/aridplants/Buxus_microphylla_japonica.html) (B. microphylla) the American boxwood (http://www.dipbot.unict.it/orto/0052-1.html) (B. sempervirens 'Arborescens'), and the English boxwood (http://englishboxwood.com/pages/1/index.htm) (Buxus sempervirens 'Suffruticosa').

Japanese boxwood are a dwarf variety that grow only to about 4 feet. American boxwood are also known as "tree boxwood"; they are faster growing than the English variety, less dense, and more leggy. English boxwood are also officially a dwarf variety, I think, but if you let them grow long enough (like maybe a couple hundred years), they can get rather large. But they're very slow growing (about an inch a year), and very compact -- they naturally grow into rounded balls. For a detailed discussion of the differences between American and English boxwood, see here (http://www.englishboxwoods.com/eva.htm).

English boxwood are the expensive ones if you get a shrub of any size, because they grow so slowly.

--Lindsey

[fhaber]

Listen to Lindsey. TAP is the **wrong tool** for this. Make copies of the file immediately. Then find out why you see garbage in WordPad, or better, in a text editor. Vim or emacs on the Linux side would do. Or any "strings" program will get past the garbage and display all text.

TAPCIS WILL NOT DISPLAY some/most of a file that large.

[Jeff]

Listen to Lindsey. TAP is the **wrong tool** for this. Make copies of the file immediately. Then find out why you see garbage in WordPad, or better, in a text editor. Vim or emacs on the Linux side would do. Or any "strings" program will get past the garbage and display all text.

TAPCIS WILL NOT DISPLAY some/most of a file that large.

In the old house we used to have "Strip" and "Chop" in the library, the former to remove inadvertent upper ASCII insertion into a .MSG file and the latter for size reduction of same. Mayhaps his Graveyness could use an emailed file or two.

[Judy G. Russell]

I still have Chop on my system...

[rlohmann]

Hmmm, well -- there are boxwoods, and there are boxwoods.

For example, there is the Japanese boxwood (http://cals.arizona.edu/pima/gardening/aridplants/Buxus_microphylla_japonica.html) (B. microphylla) the American boxwood (http://www.dipbot.unict.it/orto/0052-1.html) (B. sempervirens 'Arborescens'), and the English boxwood (http://englishboxwood.com/pages/1/index.htm) (Buxus sempervirens 'Suffruticosa').

Japanese boxwood are a dwarf variety that grow only to about 4 feet. American boxwood are also known as "tree boxwood"; they are faster growing than the English variety, less dense, and more leggy. English boxwood are also officially a dwarf variety, I think, but if you let them grow long enough (like maybe a couple hundred years), they can get rather large. But they're very slow growing (about an inch a year), and very compact -- they naturally grow into rounded balls. For a detailed discussion of the differences between American and English boxwood, see here (http://www.englishboxwoods.com/eva.htm).

English boxwood are the expensive ones if you get a shrub of any size, because they grow so slowly.--LindseyAs far as the different varieties of boxwood go, I didn't get involved in that. I did what the botanists do: looked at the stems and leaves. Boxwood leaves are opposite; holly leaves are alternate. As soon as I looked at the leaves, I knew what I had.

[rlohmann]

Thanks for the tip, but the issue has been OBE. There's a legal remedy, but under the circumstances, it isn't worth pursuing.

[rlohmann]

Are you sure you're seeing the entire file? There's a limit to the number TAPCIS will index. Did you get any message about that? (Though I doubt that you would have had more than 16 thousand e-mail messages in even a very old MAIL.SAV file.)Unfortunately, it no longer matters. I probably didn't make clear in my earlier message that after I deleted the .SA~ file I was able to read the MAIL.SAV file in Tapcis, and the email exchange I was looking for simply wasn't there.

I don't know why. It's possible that I deleted it. In August of 2004 I was frantically trying to clear off my desk at work and do all the things you have to do when you're moving out of the country, and things were beginning to unravel pretty seriously.

[Judy G. Russell]

after I deleted the .SA~ file I was able to read the MAIL.SAV file in Tapcis, and the email exchange I was looking for simply wasn't there.But that doesn't mean you were able to read THOSE MESSAGES. Your file is simply waaaaaay too big for Tapcis to be able to load all the messages. So it loads the first 16000 (give or take a few). All the rest are there... but you can't get to 'em with Tapcis. So the messages could very well be in that file, but unless you break the file into smaller pieces, you won't be able to find them.

[Lindsey]

As far as the different varieties of boxwood go, I didn't get involved in that. I did what the botanists do: looked at the stems and leaves. Boxwood leaves are opposite; holly leaves are alternate. As soon as I looked at the leaves, I knew what I had.
Ah, OK. Yeah, alternate leaves doesn't sound like buxus. And take a look at this page on Buxus sempervirens (http://www.hort.uconn.edu/plants/b/buxsem/buxsem3.html). About 2/3 of the way down the page, under "ID Features" it says, "opposite leaves distinguish it from Ilex crenata which has similar appearance, but alternate leaves." And Ilex translates to "holly." :(

Good job, detective!

--Lindsey

[Lindsey]

But that doesn't mean you were able to read THOSE MESSAGES. Your file is simply waaaaaay too big for Tapcis to be able to load all the messages. So it loads the first 16000 (give or take a few). All the rest are there... but you can't get to 'em with Tapcis. So the messages could very well be in that file, but unless you break the file into smaller pieces, you won't be able to find them.
He may not have as many as 16,000, though, even with a file that large. MAIL.MSG files get too physically large long before they get to the indexing maximum, and even if it had reached that indexing maximum, he'd have gotten an error message to that effect.

As I recall, the error from loading a file that was physically too large was altogether different, and kept you from being able to read anything at all. I'm amazed he was able to load an 80MB file, but maybe that's one of the good things XP has to offer.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Maybe so... but his file was 57Mb!

[earler]

We have boxwood all over. It's a lot of work, however, trimming those hedges in the french manner: flat top and vertical sides. But, we have some at the corners of the lawns, each trimmed to resemble a sphere.

-er

[Lindsey]

Maybe so... but his file was 57Mb!
I misremembered the size; I was remembering it as 80-something. But even that could easily be short of 16,000 items, depending on what sort of mail it included.

--Lindsey

[Lindsey]

We have boxwood all over. It's a lot of work, however, trimming those hedges in the french manner: flat top and vertical sides. But, we have some at the corners of the lawns, each trimmed to resemble a sphere.
Yes, that is a lot of work -- which is probably why American-style usage of English boxwood tends to be more naturalistic, taking advantage of the plant's innate ability to maintain a pleasing shape. And since they grow slowly, they don't get out of hand even over the course of several seasons. The main thing you have to do with them is to keep them thinned, and that's something you can do with casual pinching now and again.

Of course, they'll get out of hand if you let them go a couple of centuries without any kind of pruning. I happened to visit "Montpelier," James Madison's home in Orange County, Virginia, a couple of years after the state had acquired it and while it was still in the process of renovation. The gardens had been pretty much untended for a very long time; the boxwood had grown to 10 feet or more, and were were horribly unkempt. First time I've ever seen English boxwood look absolutely wild.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

I still think it'd be worth trying to run it through Chop just to see...

[Lindsey]

I still think it'd be worth trying to run it through Chop just to see...
Yeah, Chop being fairly easy to run, and since one "chop" into two parts should do the trick...

--Lindsey

[rlohmann]

And Ilex translates to "holly." :(

Good job, detective!<bowing graciously>

:)

[rlohmann]

I should have explained that.

We have reason to believe that the subcontractor--but probably not the builder--knew that we had accepted the boxwood arrangement, but apparently they were a little too much trouble to get during the summer of '04, so he got a variety of holly that looks very much like a boxwood. He didn't tell the builder and didn't tell us, but his invoice is for hollies; not for boxwoods.

That leaves us with a claim for benefit-of-the-bargain damages, which would involve the sub's digging up the hollies, bringing in boxwoods of the size they would have attained if planted in August of 2004, and charging us the difference in price between boxwoods and hollies as of that time period. We're having some landscaping work done anyway, and the line of shrubs along the driveway doesn't impress either the landscaper or us, so--and particularly because neither the builder nor the subcontractor is conscious of any irregularity--we see no point in pursuing the issue.

[Lindsey]

<bowing graciously>
I'm truly impressed -- my father wouldn't know a boxwood from an azalea, even if the azalea were in bloom. (And he was a biology major.) :rolleyes:

--Lindsey

[Lindsey]

He didn't tell the builder and didn't tell us, but his invoice is for hollies; not for boxwoods.
Well, at least you didn't pay boxwood prices for hollies! And most people would probably not know or care about the difference.

I'm not surprised that the builder's landscaping leaves you and your landscaper underwhelmed; for the most part, builders are to landscaping what hospitals are to the culinary arts.

--Lindsey