Internal Error while Merging mailboxes

Hello,

I’m evaluating EagleFiler. I’m testing the process of importing mail archives, nothing of significant size compared to what I’ve read about in this forum. However, I’ve been running into problems. I’m trying first to import a mail store from Opera. In this store, each message is in its own mbox file, with the extension .mbs, and files are in a nested folder structure, Year/Month/Day. I would like to get all the messages for a given year out of all those folders and subfolders and into one file.

To use the Merge function I see that only the mbox files must be selected, not the enclosing folders. So I’ve used the Smart Folder function to select only the .mbs files without the folders. So far so good. But then selecting them all and doing Merge Mailboxes/Message files throws a “Internal Error while Merging mailboxes” message: “OSError: error 7 (Argument list too long) for file: None”.

I’ve gone back and tried to merge just a few files at a time. That works. Since then I’ve been gradually augmenting the number. I must wait for re-indexing each time before being able to go on. The process is very time consuming with crashes and spinning balls if the number of files is too high. I see no one else complaining about this on the forum so I’m guessing that the problem is with these Opera files. It took the whole night to import them in the first place.

Is the permitted number of files that one can merge at once a fixed number? Knowing that would be very helpful. My trial and error method of finding it out is really too primitive.

But maybe the problem is not just that. I find it strange that while EagleFiler is working, Activity Monitor shows it to be hung. Then it unhangs, that is, Activity Monitor shows it to be unhung, then it shows it to hang again, finally the job is finished and Activity Monitor shows it to be normal again. If EagleFiler is working on building tables of contents and indexing, that shouldn’t show up as a hang, should it?

Thanks for any help on this,
Morton

How many mailboxes were you trying to merge at once? With Lion I think it should be able to handle about 13,000. But that’s kind of ridiculous. EagleFiler is designed to handle large numbers of messages, but 10,000+ mailboxes will probably be slow. Is there a way that you can select the messages in Opera and export them into a smaller number of mailbox files (not one per message)?

Building tables of contents and indexing happen in background threads, so they won’t make it hang. However, some work (such as updating the progress bars and the database) happens in the main thread, so it can cause the interface to stop responding briefly if there’s a lot of activity going on.

How many mailboxes were you trying to merge at once? With Lion I think it should be able to handle about 13,000.

I tried 6,000 without success; but I’m running Snow Leopard. 700 does work.

Is there a way that you can select the messages in Opera and export them into a smaller number of mailbox files (not one per message)?

I wish! I gave up on Opera about three years ago. Successive versions on Mac updated and ruined the mail store so that Opera couldn’t work with it any more. EagleFiler is doing a good job with the material. Even if patience is necessary and attachments are lost apparently, I am able to consult messages which I haven’t been able to read in years.

OK, I’ll look into whether it’s possible to increase the limit. Definitely empty the trash as soon as you finish the merging to reduce the overhead of having all those mailboxes.

If Opera is not storing the attachments in the .mbs files, then it would seem they are not in the standard mbox format.

OK, I’ll look into whether it’s possible to increase the limit.

Thankyou for looking into this. I’ve finished the import so I won’t personally need to merge thousands of mbox files together ever again.

If Opera is not storing the attachments in the .mbs files, then it would seem they are not in the standard mbox format.

I have a question about viewing attachments but that’s a different subject, so I’ll look through the forum before asking and start a new thread if necessary.

I’ve purchased my license by the way.

Thanks, Morton