Interactive Mail Download

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Known Problems
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MailCOPA has been tested in a variety of situations, but there will inevitably be software and/or hardware environments which might cause problems. In this event, Intervations will endeavour to resolve the situation. See the page on Technical Support.

The Built-In Database.

The built-in database has been used and rigorously tested by Intervations in other applications, and has proved reliable and stable, as it has in this implementation. It is capable of holding huge quantities of messages, and accessing them quickly. There are one possible issue:

Unseen Count
The count of unseen messsages against each folder might occasionally be wrong - the running count maintained may become corrupted. In the event that this happens, using the menu option Utilities menu-arrow Recount Unseen Messages will quickly rectify the problem - it will scan the database and recalculate the running count for each folder.

Windows 7, Windows 8.x and Windows 10

These operating systems increase emphasis on security and set new challenges for programmers. We have been able to manage many of these but the following remains:

Default Mailer - Unlike previous Windows operating systems, it is not possible to programmatically set the default mailer (so that for example mail links in web pages will use MailCOPA rather than, say, Outlook Express. The settings here will be disabled under these operating systems.

To set MailCOPA as the default email application:

Windows 7 and Windows 8.x

Go to the Windows Start Button at the bottom left of your screen. 

Select Default Programs

Click Set your default programs

Select MailCOPA in the list of Programs 

Click Set this program as the default

Click the OK button

Windows 10

Click the Windows Start Button at the bottom left of your screen

Select Settings (the 'wheel' icon - settings_icon)

Click Apps

Click Default Apps

Click on Email and choose MailCOPA from the list.

Sending JPG files from Windows Explorer

This is done by right-clicking such a file, selecting Send To and then Mail Recipient.

If you opt to send it in its original size, the process works normally.

However, if you opt to resize it before sending, then Windows will create a temporary file for the reduced version, but this is deleted again before MailCOPA can access it!

Messages with unusual formats.

These have been seen occasionally, and some of the problems cannot be resolved. They are due either to non-standard formats in the messages themselves, or the viewer's handling of them. You always have the option of selecting View message in browser from the viewer context menu (right-click to display this).

Occasionally, an errant message may lock up MailCOPA when being loaded into the viewer. If you have the autoviewer open MailCOPA will always lock up when this message is selected (or the folder is selected that contains this message). The solution is to close the autoviewer (Configure menu-arrow Preferences menu-arrow General). You can then examine the message source and decide what to do with it - often this will be deletion because many such non-standard messages are spam.

Some mailers and mail lists (and many spam messages) use a non-standard format for the date and time. Such messages may not be immediately visible in the message list because the non-standard time gets interpreted as 00:00, thus placing the message at the top (or bottom) of the message list if it is sorted by date. Clicking the Unseen tab and scrolling to the top or bottom of the list should find them

Browser Links

When a link is displayed in a message in the viewer, it will be highlighted just as in a Web page, and clicking on it will start the default browser (most often this is Internet Explorer) and fetch the page linked.

However, one or two instances have been seen where the page was not fetched correctly. This is because the link in the message is faulty, and we have no control over this unfortunately.

Large Fonts

If these are in use (Control Panel menu-arrow Display menu-arrow Settings menu-arrow Advanced menu-arrow General), then the labels for the folders and the columns in the Message List may be too big, or misplaced. This version of MailCOPA does not allow changing the fonts or font-sizes for these (although those for the viewers can be).

It is anticipated that more flexible handling of these fonts will be introduced in a later version of MailCOPA.

Use with Anti Virus Software

Most AV products will transparently scan messages as they are fetched by MailCOPA, and this will normally provide adequate security.

However, problems can arise if an Anti-Virus product scans the database files, and if this is likely to be the case, configure it not to scan the data directory.

Toolbar or Window Problems

You may find that the arrangement of one or more of the toolbars is not as you want it, but you are unable to unravel the problem. The menu option View menu-arrow Toolbars menu-arrow Restore Default Layout will return them to their original arrangement, when MailCOPA was first installed.

Similarly with the windows - View menu-arrow Windows menu-arrow Restore Default Layout will restore them to the arrangement when MailCOPA was first installed.

The Temp folder becomes full

This is rare, but may happen. You may well get a warning message from MailCOPA if this is the case, and a particular operation depends on access to this folder. If this should happen, the operation will be ended gracefully without loss of data.

You are advised to consult your Windows documentation for help on this area, but the following may be useful:

The solution is to reduce the number of files in the Temp folder - be wary about deleting files that were last modified today, they might be in use by running applications, and any files with the extension ._sm as these are used by MailCOPA.

The location varies between different versions of Windows, and can be found by entering %temp% into the address box of Internet Explorer.