Skin notifier doesn't work

[abr88]

I tried to install a skin notifier ("xp_embed") in Pop Peeper but it doesn't seem to be showing up when new mail arrives. I downloaded the notifier to a zip file in my "Downloads" folder. I then dragged the zip file to the "Plugins" display in Pop Peeper. Pop Peeper then said xp_embed had successfully installed.
(Although it doesn't show up in the list of Plugins -- perhaps that's as it should be??) I would appreciate any help. Thank you.

[Jeff]

It sounds like you only downloaded the skin, but you have to download and install the actual skin notifier, as well. If you don't see "Notification skin" under Tools / Plugins, then you do need to install it:
http://www.esumsoft.com/products/pop-pe ... inNotifier

The individual skins will not show up in the Plugins list. After you install the Skin Notifier, you can change the skin by going back to Tools / Plugins and double-clicking on "Notification skin."

[abr88]

Thank you, Jeff. I followed your directions and the xp_embed skin is working properly. Now I have another question, a new problem which I didn't used to have in my previous PP version: When I am reading an opened email and then, within that opened email, hit the "Delete" square at the top, the "Delete" square changes to its "pressed" appearance but nothing else happens on the screen. When I exit the screen I see that the file has indeed been marked for deletion, but in the old version the reading-the-email screen is exited automatically when "Delete" is pressed, and user is returned to the list of all received emails. Seems like something is wrong. I would appreciate any help -- thanks.

[spc3rd]

Hi abr88,

Until Jeff returns to review your post, please check your settings at:

PP > [TOOLS] > PPTWEAKER > MISC

Note the setting in the image below (within the red rectangle). If it is not set to "Close window" - then that is likely the reason for the problem you're experiencing. Changing the setting should correct the issue.

PP > TOOLS > PPTWEAKER > MISC settings

Hope this helps!

Best regards,

[abr88]

That was the culprit -- thanks!

[Jeff]

You probably changed that in v3.8 and forgot about it. In v4.1, PP will ask you what you want to do if you haven't already set it.

[abr88]

OK -- just trying to tweak PP to iron out wrinkles at my end. This notifier (attached) appeared on my screen -- as you can see, it's blank. There actually was a new email but it doesn't appear on the PP screen that lists received emails. The only way I am able to view it is on my Ipad. Can this be fixed?

I really appreciate you(pl)r prompt responses -- thank you!!

[spc3rd]

Greetings again abr88,

While awaiting Jeff to stop by the Forums, I'll try to get started on resolving the issue you're having. It's possible the problem is the result of whatever settings you have, as shown in the image below:

PP > TOOLS > OPTIONS > MESSAGE RETRIEVAL

Please follow the instructions shown below (which were provided by Jeff to another member with a similar problem).

"To check your settings:

- (main menu) Tools / Options / Message Retrieval-- any/all of those top 3 options, depending on your accounts.
- It can also be overridden on a per-account basis, so while you're still in Tools / Options, go to the General page and make sure "Advanced Options" is enabled; then edit one of your affected accounts - select the "Advanced" page and make sure the Retrieval option is not set to "number of messages".

If you get the blank notification again, open PP and see if the affected account has an error; e.g. if the account is underlined in the Accounts List."

When you post back, please let us know which version of PopPeeper you are using, and whether or not the above instructions helped resolve the problem you're having.

Best regards,

[Jeff]

Note that you do not need to set those values to "entire message" and in fact I don't recommend that. The default/recommended values are:
POP3: entire
webmail: preview
imap: preview

The minimum value you would need is "headers" -- so 'headers' or 'preview' or 'entire' will work; "number of messages" will not.

[abr88]

My saga of endless PP problems continues unfortunately. Please bear with me -- I used PP for years (on this computer -- Windows 7) and was quite happy with it and would like to get back to that happy state!!
Last night, after doing an uninstall and re-install, everything in the proper order, PP seemed to be working perfectly. But then this morning, upon booting up and running PP, weirdness reappeared. It looked like PP was reloading all 6000+ of my AOL emails even though they were already there, a lengthy process, but somehow when it finally finished only one copy of each email was on the screen, not the 2 copies of each that was appearing during the reloading. The one copy of each was marked as unread (bold). I decided to exit PP and reboot it to see how those emails would then appear, but (and this has happened in previous attempts to get PP working as well) PP would not boot! I saw in Windows' Task Manager that the Pop Peeper *process* was running but not the application.

So that is how things stand now -- 2 problems deep. Hope you can help and much appreciate your assistance.

[abr88]

P.S.: Re: PP becoming un-rebootable as described above: powering down the computer and then rebooting it does not help. The only "solution" is to uninstall PP and reinstall it.

[Jeff]

For the first problem you noted about PP reloading all your messages: it sounds like the "unique IDs" (UIDs) of the messages changed. Each message has a UID and this tells PP that it already has the message and doesn't have to download them again. If the message's UID changes (which should never happen for a message, but one such explanation is that the UID for a given message is usually different depending on the protocol, e.g. the UID will be different if using POP3 vs IMAP), then PP has to download it again. PP will then remove any messages whose UIDs were not in the list (that's why you didn't end up with 2 copies).

If you didn't change the protocol (ie. from POP3 to IMAP), then AOL probably changed the message's UIDs for some reason or another. I wouldn't worry about it too much as it was probably just a one-time thing.

As for the other problem with PP not seeming to load. Try waiting several minutes to see if PP eventually loads. With 6000+ messages, it may just be taking a while. There are plans to dramatically improve the loading time in the future, but there is an update coming in v4.1 that may also help significantly.

There is a beta available for v4.1 (beta 02 at the time of this writing) which includes the aforementioned update. To download the beta, open PP and go to Tools / PPtweaker; select the "troubleshooting" page and enable "include beta versions..." and press OK. Then, go to Help / About, press "check version" and you should get the notification of a new version available, which you can then follow to get the beta.

[abr88]

Yes, it turned out that PP wasn't "failing to load" as I had thought but that suddenly it started taking a minute and a half before anything appeared on the screen instead of appearing almost instantly as it had done before. It continues to do so even after I deleted hundreds of old emails in an attempt to get it to pick up the pace. Could this have anything to do with pop-vs-imap choices? I chose pop for aol and imap for gmail, which might be different from what I had selected before (long ago , so don't remember). If not, any suggestions of how to get the screen to appear as zippily as it was doing a mere 2 weeks ago? Thanks!

[Jeff]

As mentioned above, v4.1 should make it load much faster. But it's still not going to be "instant" with thousands of messages, so reducing the number of messages will help (removing larger-sized messages will help, too). I would recommend installing the v4.1 beta first, though, as it may be sufficient for you.

[abr88]

OK it didn't used to be instant -- it took maybe 10 seconds; now it takes 90 seconds. and with fewer emails. I had been using Pop Peeper daily for about 5 years.... something changed. If you have any suspicions as to what could have slowed down the loading I would appreciate hearing from you about it.

I will probably try the beta version eventually but am hesitant because I finally got everything except the above problem working OK with my V4 (e.g. xp_embed skin works perfectly, PP no longer snatches back gmails after temporarily showing them and no longer fails to load new emails that show up on my Ipad, etc., etc.)

Thanks again very much for your prompt attention to my posts -- much appreciated!!

[Jeff]

From the version history for v4.1:
- Fix: Optimization when loading database initially (should improve startup time slightly to significantly, depending on various factors)

Of the people that reported slow loading times, they have all reported much faster loading times after installing v4.1.

If and when you install v4.1, be it the beta or the final, just note the following:
The first TWO times that this version starts may be slow for the purpose of database maintenance. After that, POP Peeper should load faster than before.