PMMail email address db messed up. How to fix it?

[Matt Walsh]

My PMMail 3.25 Address Book is totally messed up and I can't get it fixed.  If I move an entry it gets duplicated and I can't get the entries sorted.  It has a .db file format and I don't seem to be able to fix it with programs I have.  Do I have to just delete the file and re-enter all the names & email addresses?  I have over 150 entries and that doesn't seem very efficient.
Any suggestions?  Thanks for any help.
Matt W.

[Doug Bissett]

Well, first, make a backup, so you don't end up with worse problems. Of course, you could simply restore the file from a backup, if you have one (you do backup, of course).

Realize, that even if it is called ADDR.DB, it is NOT a database file. It is a plain text file. If you look in the Help, you will find a section that describes the data format (Address Book Data Format). Be sure to read the Note at the bottom of the page.

Now that you know the data layout, you should be able to open the file (in the text editor), and you will likely spot where something went wrong.

If you go to http://www.os2voice.org/mailinglists.html you can subscribe to the PMMail/2 User mail list, when PMMail users hang out. That is the best place to get help with PMMail problems. It is pretty low volume.

[Doug Bissett]

Please check your incident in Mantis. Apparently there was a discrepancy in your e-mail address, that may have been incorrectly fixed. That can mean that you don't get notified of updates to the incident.

For anybody following this, it looks like one of the data separator characters got changed to a semi-colon, somehow.

[Matt Walsh]

Thanks for recommendations.  I'll work on it some and read the references.
Matt W