my email vanished

[Hendrik Boom <hendrik@pooq.com>]

Last nighe all my email in /var/spool/mail/hendrik vanished
without a trace.  Some new mail has appeared since the vanishing.
Everyone else's email in intact.

I read my mail with mutt.

I use the exim that comes with sarge, undoctored except for a minimal
configuration done at installation time, waying I receive and send
messages by SMTP and will forward messages for one or two other sites.

Does any one have an idea
  how this could have occurred?
  how I can track down the problem?
or. most importantly,
  how I can prevent it in the future?

-- hendrik

I don't know if this is relevant (but if not it is likely another problem)  but after the disappearance I did receive
a message of over 50000 lines from root, apparently on behalf of
scrollkeeper, with messages like

/etc/cron.monthly/scrollkeeper:
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
/usr/share/gnome/help/gdm/zh_CN/legal.xml:9: parser error : Entity 'ldquo' not defined
                   <para>

binary gibberish on the line after <para>.

Here's another from further down.


/usr/share/gnome/help/drivemount/de/drivemount.xml:47: parser error : Failure to process entity legal
   &legal;
  


And another

/usr/share/gnome/help/command-line/de/command-line.xml:307: parser error : Entity 'auml' not defined
             <term> Vom Benutzer abfragbare Befehls-Vervollst&auml;ndigungsfunkt
 

It ends with

I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd
I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd