Archiving Yahoo! Groups messages; Yahoo! 999 Error

Update (10:37 PM 5/17/2005): A better discussion of the Yahoo 999 error is here.
Update (10:13 PM 2/17/2005): If you have come here trying to find information about the Yahoo 999 error and you are not able to access your email, you might want to try the options mentioned below:
– Trying logging into your account using
http://login.europe.yahoo.com/ or
http://edit.in.yahoo.com/ or
www.bt.yahoo.com or
http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/
Read more about the error here.


Spent the last 5 hours trying to figure out how to archive Yahoo! Groups messages. I want to keep a copy of the messages on my computer and also put a local copy online.
[1] PG-Offline [Windows]
Site: http://pgoffline.com/
Type: Shareware
Bob’s Review: This one works great. Very easy to configure. Also, the messages can be exported as .mdb (MS-Access) files. However Yahoo! Groups blocked my IP after about 332 messages. I got the Yahoo! 999 error. Here is a screenshot. Access was restored after about 3 hours. More discussion about the Yahoo! download limit is here.
Cons: Does not seem to have an export to html option.
[2] yahoo2mbox [Unix/ Linux]
Site: http://www.lpthe.jussieu.fr/~zeitlin/yahoo2mbox.html
Type: Freeware
Bob’s Review: This one was really easy to install. Just one Perl script. That’s it. However, you need shell access to run the program. Use this syntax:
perl yahoo2mbox.pl --start=0 --end=200 --user=your_username -o mbox group_name
Yahoo blocked my IP after about 300 messages. Since I had access to about 60 different logins (and therefore 60 different IPs) to my unix account, I kept changing the logins after I got a block. No need to use the --delay option. Just change your IPs when you get blocked. Of course, if you are on a static IP, then maybe wait 3 hours and try again!
The mbox file generated can then be read using Outlook Express (Well, I use Outlook Express!) by creating an IMAP connection to the unix machine and choosing the location of the mbox file as the root folder path.
Update (6/12/2004):
MHonArc
The mbox file generated using yahoo2mbox can be converted into mailmain style static html pages using MhonArc. You will need a Unix/Linux machine (and most probably root access) to run the script. MHonArc is really good and works just great!

13 thoughts on “Archiving Yahoo! Groups messages; Yahoo! 999 Error”

  1. I first thought that my school has blocked yahoo mail, Now I realized that everyone is having the same problem. Anyone knows a solution? BTyahoo never worked for me.

    Reply
  2. Hello, i have a problem with my yahoo account and when i enter the id and password it open but the reply can’t open and it keep on saying yahoo 999 error and i don’t understnad so i want you to explain everything to me okay.
    bye.
    Beatrice

    Reply

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