Netscape 4.72 address book

[ctuna]

The address book in netscape is doing strange things.
When I change a e-mail address it will not allow that address to be added to a list.
It will sometimes post the old address book.
Most of the time it says not such address found.
When I try to down load the address book only half will down load and then it stops.
Is there something I can do to stop this problem.

 

[Brooks]

Sometimes you can fix little problems like this by moving the prefs.js and liprefs.js files to a backup folder then resetting up netscape.

After moving them, you will have to go setup your preferences when you restart netscape.

 

[ctuna]

Tried that and no help. I notice that when I scroll down the address book when I get to the G I see a section of blank lines and if I click on a line the program crashes.
Not a major problem but in driving me up the wall since I have to deal with over 3000 address.
Del McEwen

 

[Cherokee]

Hi ctuna,

Sounds like you have a very large Address Book. Netscape has a 200 KB entry limitation, and I'm wondering if yours might exceed this size?

Cherokee

 

[ctuna]

That may well be the problem I checked and the address book is 345K. Is there any work around for this 200K limit?

 

[Brooks]

The 200k is the number of entries, not the size of the file.

Version 4.5 and higher have a new architecture which will scale to around 200,000 entries, and has increased performance as well.

http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/19980925-3.html

About the only thing I can think of now would be to export the book to a .csv file, open it in excel and try to find those blank lines in the G's and try and delete them, then import the book back. This might be tedious though.


Before I did this, I would make sure that I saved a copy of your address book in a safe location. Heck, make a copy of your whole profile folder.

You could also ask on the netscape support forums.

Go to http://www.ufaq.org/ and about halfway down the main page is links to the netscape newsgroups. These are open and even if you don't have newsgroups setup or as in my case from work don't have a newsgroup server, you can still access them.

 

[Cherokee]

Brooks is definitely on the right track. I found two Netscape KB articles which support his statement.

http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/19980904-3.html
http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/19980925-3.html

The latter being the same.

Exporting the AB as an .ldif file is also an alternative, after first backing up your Users Profile. Then you can do as Brooks suggests, edit out the corrupt lines.

 

[ctuna]

Tried to export using 3 different type of files. all but txt would transfer less than half of the book and txt would not transfer anything. I have made a copy of the user file on a ZIP disk so I can get back where I started if need be. Anything else I can try?

 

[hewee]

Cherokee,

Like me be the first to say Hi and Welcome to TSG.

Looks like Brooks has another page for your Netscape web site.

So you missed something but your still the Netscape Queen and everyone that needs help with Netscape will love having you here.
Add you site to your Signature so all will see it and know that we have someone here to help us Netscaper's

 

[Brooks]

Sorry ctuna, I cannot think of anything else at this time.


Nice site Cherokee.

I have bookmarked your site there is a lot of good info there about netscape and since we use Netscape hear at work, this should come in handy.

 

[Cherokee]

O.K. ctuna, I'm back with a little more information. I am disturbed to see that you are only able to export half your addresses.

You are using the Export utility in the Address Book, right? Then open the .ldif file in Notepad.

Here is another KB Article describing your problem, and how to solve. It does say that you may lose the corrupt part of your Address Book.

http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/19980911-19.html

Problem:
Cannot add new addresses to the address book.

Solution:
It is likely that your Communicator address book file is damaged. In this case, having Communicator recreate the address book file can resolve the problem.

Open Communicator.
From the Communicator menu, select Address Book.
In the address book window, on the left, select the address book to which you cannot add new addresses. The contents will then be displayed on the right.
From the File menu, select Export.
Save the file as address.ldif
Close Communicator.
Go to your Communicator user profile folder on disk. It is normally located in:
C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\{your profile name}
Rename the file which matches the name of the non-functioning address book. If it was the Personal Address Book, and not one you created, rename the pab.na2 file so that ".na2" is replaced with ".old". For instance, pab.na2 would be renamed pab.old. If it is named family.na2, rename the file family.old
Open Communicator.
Open the address book window.
From the File menu, select New Address Book.
Name the address book as you wish and click OK.
Select the new address book you created under the Directory column on the left.
From the File menu, select Import.
In the Import window, select Communicator Address Book and click Next.
Click on the "Files of type:" drop-down menu and select "All Files (*.*)"
Locate the address.ldif file you saved earlier, select it, and click Open.
You should now see your old addresses in the address book. Try adding another address to see if the problem has been resolved.

Let us know if this helps.

Cherokee

 

[ctuna]

I can add new address with no problem. When I try to export only half or less will export so that creates a problem. I have tried all different ways to save the book with no luck.
Any way the address book can be opened in a edit mode with out transfering it to a differt program?
I am using 4.72 Netscape.

 

[Cherokee]

ctuna,

This is why I thought you were unable to add addresses:

When I change a e-mail address it will not allow that address to be added to a list.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to edit the Address Book except in the Address Book Properties.

Or by exporting the Address Book as an .ldif file, editing out the corruption ,using Notepad, and then Importing it back.

 

[ctuna]

Sorry I mess you up. what has happened to date is
1. I sorted the address book by nickname and exported it to MS Word.
2. Looked over the address and noted something strange. After the name on line 1 was a e-mail address and down several lines named mail was a different address. This seems to be the cause of my problem. These address were address that had been changed. Seems like when I try to add a new address to a address book it will add the old address from line 1 and not the new address.
3. I am thinking about deleting the address book in netscape user and then importing the file from word after I make all the e-mail address the same.
4. During the review of all the address there was no discrepancies noted except as above.
5. As a note there is one other problem in the program, in that when I open the preferences and click on font or color the program crashes the computer.
6. I am open to all ideas as I would like to get this problem solved.
Thanks so much for you effort.
Del McEwen

 

[Cherokee]

Hi ctuna,

You should be able to make those edits in your Address Book Properties, but if I understand correctly, this is where the problem is.

Do you highlight the address that you are changing, then click on Properties?

If you decide to import the edited AB, be sure to back up the old one first.

On your font crash, Netscape says this:

This is usually caused by Adobe Type Manager (ATM) being loaded in the Windows Control Panel. Disabling ATM should resolve the problem.

If this does not resolve the problem, you may have some corruption in one of your Netscape Preferences.

I think creating a new Profile is a great idea, as you obviously have more than one problem going. Create the new Profile before importing the edited AB. It may even help with this problem.

With Netscape closed:

Go to C:\Windows
Delete nsreg.dat, or rename it to:
nsreg.bak

Create a new profile, following these steps:

Create a new profile for yourself using all of the information from your old profile (i.e. Mail server settings) except make sure to name the profile something different so that it doesn't overwrite your old profile.

Now, open Communicator, and check to make sure that the new profile is working. If it is, you can shut down Communicator.

Now open up Explorer, go to your User directory: C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\ and then the old profile name, and copy the Mail folder, the News folder, the bookmark.htm file, the abook.nab file, and any .na2 files into the new profile directory.

After a few days and you are sure that everything is working, go back to the User Profile Manager and delete your old profile.

A new Profile may help your Address Book problem, but I'm not sure.

Cherokee