nnml trouble -- track of all read messages is lost

[Arcady Genkin <a.genkin@utoronto.ca>]

All of a sudden, I cannot retrieve any of my previously read articles
from any mail group. The articles are still there, i.e. they are not
expired. I see in .newsrc.eld for my Private mail:
,-----
| ("nnml:mail.Private" 1 ((1 . 1649)) nil (nnml "") ((expiry-wait
| . never)))
`-----
and in my ~/Mail/active:
,-----
| mail.Private 1649 1649 y
`-----
Overview file in ~/Mail/mail/Private points to just one article:
,-----
| 1649 Thursday's Calendar a.genkin@utoronto.ca (Reminder Service) Thu,
| 18 Nov 1999 09:46:04 -0500 <E11oSp2-00004b-00@main.wgaf.net> 98 4
| Xref: main.wgaf.net mail.Private:1649
`-----

I tried "nnml-generate-nov-databases" (sp?), and
"nnml-generate-nov-databases-1", and it only screwed the things up
some more. For example, in mail.Private group I had two or three
unread messages that could be accessed after the "crash", vanished
after the update of nov databases.

Please help! I had some unanswered email there, and all the ticked
messages are gone now too.

I didn't do any radical stuff, like upgrade any xemacs software. I did
mess around with faces a lot just prior to this happening. After the
"crash" I upgraded to .98 (from .97), hoping that it would do me good,
but it didn't help.

Is it time to restore my Mail directory from a backup? Last time I ran
backup 3 days ago, so how would I go about the articles that were
received since then? I have a bunch of ~/Mail/incoming* files. Can I
make use of them?

Thanks!
-- 
Arcady Genkin                                http://wgaf.dyndns.org
"'What good is my pity? Is not the pity the cross upon which he who
loves man is nailed?..'" (Zarathustra - F. Nietzsche)