topic Re: Disappearing emails in Internet

When I open Outlook on my desktop all the emails in my Inbox disappear.

ap — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 21:32:40 GMT

Twice within the last few days when I open Outlook on my desktop computer, all the emails in my Inbox disappear. Note, they disappear, not get deleted. I click on another folder, like Sent, then click back to Inbox and Outlook will re-synch with the server and re-download all the emails. Of course with thousands of emails, this takes some time.

Has anybody else had this happen?

Thanks

Re: Disappearing emails

Paladin — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 19:32:00 GMT

Hi!

Are you fetching your emails using POP3 or IMAP? (ie how did you configure Outlook to get your emails).

What you describe is a very weird behaviour for POP3 which makes me think you could be using IMAP.

It could also be caused by having a view filter, please take a look at this:

https://techgenix.com/emails-disappear-outlook-inbox-after-being-read/

Good luck and have a nice day!

Re: Disappearing emails

ap — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 20:28:11 GMT

Thanks for the reply.

I am using IMAP. I have confirmed that there is no filter set.

As I said, I had to click on another folder, like Sent, then clicked back on the Inbox folder. Outlook then immediately started to re-synch the folder and the emails began to reappear. But it wasn't like they were in the OST file, it was re-downloading them all. I know this because once when it happened, I shrank the data file first before re-synch, and it shrank by over 1.5 GB. So the emails definitely were wiped out and re-downloaded.

I am also having a similar, but to a much smaller degree, with my phone app. So I wonder if there is a problem on the Bell email server and some index pointer.

Re: Disappearing emails

Paladin — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 00:10:27 GMT

I am far from an expert with IMAP but the general idea is that the emails are kept on the servers...

I believe however that for performance reasons a copy of them is kept locally and resynched with the content on the servers...

If you said that the problem was only with Outlook I would think that there could be a possibility that something got corrupted in that local copy but the fact that you are seeing this behaviour elsewhere make me think that you might be right about the problem possibly being with the servers...

I have a question though, on your phone are you using IMAP as well or POP3? POP3, at least of what I have seen of it in the past, can be pretty unhappy about not being the only one reading the emails, I wonder what would happen if one of your clients was using IMAP and the other POP3...

POP3 usually removes emails from the servers so they would not usually be available for IMAP but you can usually disable this...

You would not happen to have another computer on which you could try replicate your Outlook setup to see if you can replicate the same problem by any chance?

Good luck and have a nice day!

Re: Disappearing emails

ap — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 02:08:26 GMT

Hi,

I am using IMAP everywhere, on my phone, laptop and desktop. As you suggested, POP will delete the emails from the server unless you turn that off.

And I did experience the complete disappearance of my Inbox messages twice on my desktop and once I my laptop. The weird part is that on my phone, and I don't use the Outlook app there I am using AquaMail, the Inbox only has either the most recent 100 emails disappear, or the most recent 1 email disappear. Then when I tell the app to refresh, they come back.

I am convinced it is something to do with the server side.

Thanks very much.

Re: Disappearing emails

BellPatricia — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 16:05:57 GMT

Hi there. Great conversation going on here @ap & @Paladin 🙂

@ap, are you experiencing the same issue when you log directly into our webmail? Bell email

We invite you to join the conversation over here as well New Webmail - Mail Filters and Folders Not Working Correctly where another user posted about emails not showing up in their inbox for a few hours.

Keep the Community posted on how everything is going.

- Patricia

Re: Disappearing emails

ap — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 17:25:15 GMT

Hi Patricia,

No, Webmail doesn't seem to suffer from the same problem.

Email

Cujo — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 01:32:44 GMT

I'm having a problem with my email on my iphone, running ios 15.6. My read emails disappear from my inbox after about a week. any ideas?

I have unread emails. Can’t find them.

suds2022 — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 20:09:52 GMT

I have unread emails but I cant find them.

Re: Email

Rosy — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 15:27:12 GMT

same for me

Re: Disappearing emails

Rosy — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 15:27:42 GMT

I can't find unread emails, there used to be a folder and it's no longer there

Sympatico Emails disappearing on iphone and on Bell.net

dentgal — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 17:50:53 GMT

Once I open an email, it disappears.

I don't see any settings on the Bell.net platform to prevent this from happening.

They are NOT in the spam, deleted or junk files.

Re: Disappearing emails

Canada73 — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 16:05:25 GMT

I am having similar experience.

I use POP account and the emails are downloaded into my computer. I am using Thunderbird and it is set up to leave mail on the server. Every few days I log in the web mail and delete the mail in the inbox.

During the last few days when I go to my Webmail the inbox is empty and the mail is not in the deleted folder The last deleted mail was 3 days ago

Re: Disappearing emails

BellPatricia — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 18:55:08 GMT

Hi there @Canada73, thanks for your post.
Interesting! Are your emails still not visible through Bell webmail?
Can you share which browser you're using, and if you've tried an alternate browser? We also recommend clearing cookies and caches, and then check to see if the emails are present in your Inbox.
Let the Community know how everything is going.
- Patricia

Re: Disappearing emails

Canada73 — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 21:53:29 GMT

Over the last few days AFTER I have downloaded the mail to my thunderbird (pop account) I would immediately access webmail with Firefox and delete the mail in the inbox so that it will be in the deleted folder.

I am going to this little experiment. I will only access Webmail with Microsoft Edge and not Firefox. I will leave the mail in the inbox and check after a few days to whether it is still in the inbox. I will report back.

Re: Disappearing emails

Canada73 — Sat, 07 Jan 2023 13:25:13 GMT

During the last 15 hours I have received 7 emails which I Ieft in the inbox. They have not disappeared in thin air which was occurring previously. I have used Firefox and Microsoft Edge to access the mail.

I have configured my thunderbird pop account to leave mail on the server.

My research on the indivdual thunderbird files was informative

....................

popstate.dat Keeps track of which messages have been left on the POP3 server

..................
My hunch is that there were some issues in Thunderbird communicating with the server.

I did this 2 days ago

I deleted the popstate.dat file in Thunderbird.

I reinstalled Thunderbird. It created a new popstate.dat file. This did not cure the problem.

The problem has has miraculously disappeared in the last 15 hours 🙂

I suspect the issue was on the Bell pop server communication with Thunderbird. I might be wrong!

Re: Disappearing emails

ap — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 23:50:56 GMT

My situation is different. As I mentioned previously, all my mail is fine when I view it from within Webmail. It was a problem with Outlook on my desktop and/or my laptop. Randomly, I would open Outlook, and then all my emails disappeared from my inbox. When I resynch the mailbox, the emails will begin to come back in to Outlook. I also have a problem with the email app on my Android phone. When I delete an email, the first email at the top of the list will disappear. Sometimes the first 100 emails will disappear. Note, they are still present in my inbox in Webmail, they just disappear from the inbox in my app. I have to tell the app to resynch, and then the emails reappear.

I have already communicated with the email developer, and it is not the email app. I am convinced there is some index pointer or something in the Bell database that is messing up.

Re: Disappearing emails

Gom — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 20:22:32 GMT

I too have been experiencing strange behaviour with Bell emails.

I have access to my Bell (sympatico) account from 4 different devices

a) a laptop running Windows LiveMail , my main source

b) a new iPhone 13 running the Outlook app

c) an old Samsung Galaxy phone running the default Samsung email app

d) via Bell Webmail using Microsoft Edge browser

all devices share Internet access thru my Bell WiFi and all devices have identical email Account parameters

Observations:

1) On the laptop, by chance, I’ve noticed that when the application syncs, new mail downloads but there’s a flicker as the last email downloads and it never shows up. It’s not in Junk, nor Deleted Folders. It’s just gone.

It sometimes shows up on a later sync but not always, sometimes it’s just gone. Without checking my other devices, I’d might never have noticed the missing email.

2) On the iPhone, all the messages download, but the last one arrives as a subject title but with error message “This message has no content”. The email is just empty.

3) On my old cell, all messages download , and all have their content. Perfect!

4) Same for messages on Bell Webmail, all present .

Tests & Results:

I’ve sent bursts of 3 emails toward my account. The laptop receives the first two, but not the last. The iphone receives all three but the last has no content. The other cell phone and Webmail receive all 3 intact.

I’ve sent similar bursts to my spouse’s email on bell.net ... no problem.

I’ve Reset the account thru the iPhone’s Settings causing a resync. This resync restored the content to the missing emails, however new emails arriving suffer the same missing content as above.

I deleted and re-added my account from the laptop causing a complete deletion and reloading of all folders. Missing emails were still missing.

I’ve checked the Junk filters and can see nothing which should inhibit the correct operation.

Originally I felt I was getting forgetful, misplacing emails. Then, I felt why me. Having seen this forum conversation, I can see I’m not alone and feel more confident something is wrong on the server’s end.

Cheers
Gom

my email

catman42 — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 14:59:30 GMT

My email keeps deleting things, changing things, moving things deleted stuff comes back etc any ideas

All my saved emails disappeared recently.

Tisha — Sun, 28 May 2023 14:11:10 GMT

How do I find my saved emails on Sympatico?

I was jumping on free wifi when travelling