Re: [VM] N Stale messages are ignored

[Uday Reddy]

address@hidden writes:

> When I run this I get:
>        (inbox label stale): No messages.
> 
> Despite the fact that 'saving' gives me:
>        492 stale deleted messages are ignored

In my experience, this situation happens only when a transfer from the IMAP
server had to be aborted, either due to network problems or typing Ctrl-G.
In that case, the downloaded messages would not have been properly
initialized.  So, the connection between them and the corresponding messages
on the server would not have been established.  VM knows them because they
have invalid UIDs.  

I just tried this situation with vm-8.2.0b.  When I attempt to save the
folder, VM generates the following dialogue:

  Found 11 messages with invalid UIDs.  Expunge them? (y or n)  n
  They will be labelled 'stale'

Since I answered 'n' to the questin, all those messages got labelled as
"stale".  I can view them by doing `V C label stale'.

If I answered 'y' to the question, then those messages would have been
expunged from the cache folder and I would never hear from them again.

If you haven't seen anthing like this, then you should assume that your
cache folder is corrupted and regenerate it.  To delete the cache folder, do
`M-x buffer-menu' and find the entry corresponding to the damaged folder.
The entry should have the full path name of the cache folder.  Do `M-x
delete-file' for that path name.

Next time you visit the IMAP folder, VM will download fresh copies of all
the messages.  If downloading all the messages again would be too
time-consuming, you can use the "external messages" feature, which is
described in the VM manual.

Cheers,
Uday