Error: 'Server Error: This database cannot be read due to an invalid on

disk structure' sending Notes mail

Technote (troubleshooting)

Problem
In Lotus Notes, you receive the following error message when sending mail messages:

"Server Error: This database cannot be read due to an invalid on disk structure".

The mail still sends successfully.

Resolving the problem

This issue can occur if the user has "Always keep a copy" selected for the "Save mail that you
sent" option under File > Preferences > User Preferences > Mail. If changing this setting to
not keep a copy allows the user to successfully send the message, this would indicate a
problem with the Sent folder being corrupt. Running fixup, compact and updall on the mail
database should resolve the problem in this case.
In one case, running these utilities did not resolve the issue and resulted in additional errors
such as "Database is corrupt -- cannot allocate space." Further, when this database was
opened in a browser, the error "HTTP Web Server: Lotus Notes Exception - Special database
object cannot be located" displayed. Finally, an attempt to recompile all of the LotusScript
code in the database resulted in 'Invalid syntax' errors.

The solution in this case was to create a new database for the user and copy/paste all
existing documents into the new mail database (as in technote #1110903).