-39 is "eofErr" or an unexpected end of file. It means there was a problem
on the hard disk or floppy containing the mail prefs, such that the file
was truncated or an end of file (EOF) symbol was inadvertantly paced in the
middle of the file, rather than at the end. Find and throw away the mail
prefs file (look in the System folder/Preferences folder/Netscape folder).
Or delete the System/Preferences/Netscape folder and reinstall netscape. Or
use Disk First Aid or Norton Disk Doctor or something like those to
diagnose your hard drive.
Newer versions of Netscape (in my opinion, anything after version 1.1N)
have been noted for unexepectedly quitting or hanging up, and turn your
hard drive to mush, as seems to have happened to you.
See this note from www.netscape.com about Mac Netscape v3.0b5:
>B-Tree Corruption
>
>Should your Mac crash while Netscape is writing a document to
>the file cache, there is a slight chance that your hard drive's B-tree will
>become corrupted. Netscape Navigator writes more information to more
>disk files than almost any other Mac application. Because of this, we
>are more susceptible to random crashes in this area. If you experience a
>crash while loading a page in Netscape, you may want to run a disk
>repair utility such as Disk First Aid or Norton Disk Doctor to make sure
>the crash didn't affect your hard disk. Remember, even if you crash
>while writing to the disk, it's very unlikely that B-tree corruption
>will occur. The "window of opportunity" for a problem is very small.
>However, we wanted to warn our users of this possibility. We've tried to
>eliminate all crashes from the application. But, as with any Mac
>program, third-party extensions and control panels may reduce
>stability.
It's not the end of the world, and it's what we get for using free "beta"
software. Microsoft made it to the top of the heap by releasing
not-so-perfect software ahead of its competitors--the industry values
features more than stability or quality--and Netscape seems to be operating
on the same premises!
Good luck!
John
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John W. Pilgrim pilgrim@sfusd.k12.ca.us
Horace Mann Academic Middle School
3351 Twenty Third Street 415.695.5881 phone
San Francisco, California 94110, USA 415.695.5884 fax
http://nisus.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sch618/webschool/default.html
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