stable email client
 

I have been using Seamonkey email. I recently had a weather related sudden electrical loss while the program was running. On regaining eletrical power all emails and account settings were lost.

Such electrical storms are not uncommon where I live. I'm guessing they are not unheard of worldwide.

A very small amount of my email is very important for business reasons. Setting up accounts is relatively trivial but tiresome and should be a one time event.

I'm guessing that any mozilla based email client is similar and not stable enough for serious use.

Any suggestions for an email client that can survive a sudden power outage with at least my account settings intact?

Hello,

I don't think you'll find any piece of software that can survive a power outage since the problem is not software only related. When you suffer from a sudden power outage or a peak that's just like pulling the power cord. When this happens your OS doesn't have time to sync to disk and data could be lost. What you should do is look for a UPS (Universal Power Supply) to connect your system to instead of directly to the wall outlet. When you're connected to a UPS you'll have (limited) time to graceful shutdown your system, saving all your information correctly. If you suffer from those storms that frequently, then that's where I'd start.

Kind regards,

Eric

I bought a small UPS for just such circumstances--it provides enough time for me to shut down my non-laptop machines in an order fashion if the power goes out.

Oops. I forgot the ups thing. I had one for years and when it died I never replaced it.

I live on the atlantic coast in North Carolina. Weather events are not unheard of.

Still why would any software modify user settings and leave them unsaved until the user quits the program or lightning strikes?

Just asking. Why?

I guess the OS might have been accessing that part of the disk when the spike hit and left files corrupted??
I backup my settings and email directories to a different drive using rsnapshot, and also offsite using SpiderOak free service.
With such backups you could at least restore your email after the damage.

I don't know how Seamonkey works, but maybe using a simpler(?) client such as pine would reduce the impact of adverse events.

First, after such a system crash, make sure the filesystem is okay. also back up often.

I do not think that it's a Seamonkey problem. If deleted messages reappear after the blackout,
ok, that may be, there are hidden settings that expunge / compress folders immediately.

Also, there are systems settings that determine how often the write buffers are really written to disk.

I do not believe that Seamonkey waits for program exit to save it's settings.
When I look into my ~/.mozilla/seamonkey, I see several files that were written this very minute...

But in your situation, I would not get a USV, nor tune kernel params, nor another email client, I would get a laptop / notebook ;-)

Cheers, Tom.

Thanks Everyone
 

Good point about the laptop. I don't think I've ever lost any files or settings on the laptop. And since it's networked I could save my email and other important stuff on it's hard drive.

I guess I've been kinda careless. When you live here for a good while you stop worrying much about anything less than a category 4 hurricane or a tornado.

Human nature I guess.

Thanks for all the replies.