Losing your address book in the manner described is a very common occurrence. Don't worry, all your addies are still there, and intact. Here's the scoop...

The "empty" address list problem became most evident with the 2.9 update, although it existed before that. It was simply much worse after the 2.9 was issued. If you want to correct the problem, you have two choices: take the 2.9.1 update, or follow the instructions found lower down on this page. To take the 2.9.1 (it's only purpose is to fix the address book problem), log on to the following website and hit your Scroll Down key twice; then click on the link for taking either the 2.9.1 or the 2.9.1 Beta. Both are the same.

http://www.angelfire.com/mt/jdhardball/vortex.html

If you are using an earlier client build than the 2.9, and wish to remain there without having to update to either 2.9 or 2.9.1, you can keep reading to find a rather simple and quick solution for the problem!

If you were just about to begin an email when the "empty" notice pops up, you can simply go to your WebTV Home page, click on Switch users, and then choose the same username. This should restore your address book, but if it doesn't, you can power off for about three or four minutes, power back up, and then log on to your username again. Your address book should now be intact.

But let's suppose you have spent a half-hour composing a very long email, but you haven't addressed it yet. You scroll up to the top, click on To:, but you get the dreaded "Empty" notice. You know that you can power off or switch users and restore the address book, but you run the very real risk of losing your entire email that you spent so much time composing..

To "hold" that message so that you can get your address book restored, address it to:

abc@webtv/.net

The abc part isn't important. You can use anything there; even your own email name. What is important is to include the forward slash after webtv and before the dot net. Its location must be exactly as shown above!

After addressing your email as described above, go back to the bottom and click on Send.

Almost instantly, you will get a "Mail Delivery Failure" notice from our WebTV postmaster, which will say the following:

From: MAILER-DAEMON@webtv.net(Mail Delivery System)


Date: Wed, May 26, 2004, 9:07am (CDT-2)
To:
YourName@webtv.net


Subject: Delivery failure: Returned to Sender



Mail Delivery Notification

A message you sent earlier with the subject "quick return?" has been returned to you because it could not be delivered to all of the intended recipients. Here is what the remote mail system said the problem was:

[abc@webtv/.net]: bad address syntax: "abc@webtv/.net"



If you want to correct the addresses and resend your message, select the Edit Message button below. To see the complete delivery rejection notice, select the Show Details button.

Simply press your Home key and then click on Switch users. Choose the same username from where you just came.

Once you are logged on, click on Mail, and open the Mail Delivery Failure email.

One touch of your Scroll down key will reveail the "Edit message" button in the email body.

Click on the "Edit Message" button in the message and you can now erase abc@webtv/.net, click on "To:" and insert the correct addy!