[X4U] Safari's 3.x RSS Database3 file corruption problems...

[LA Licata]

Dear list, I use Safari 3.2.1, system 10.4.11 and Safari's RSS reader  
to get my news on a 17" PB G4. I know there are other RSS readers out  
there, but all of my needs, but the one I am going to describe, are  
met right now.

I have multiple news bookmarks filed in folders that reside on  
Safari's bookmarks bar. I normally have the news RSS feed sorted by a  
short article length, then by "new," then by "last 7 days" and then  
by all feeds.

I learned that in the "Syndication" folder there is a "database3"  
that seems to keep track of all these.

I noticed this file grows every time I access my news rss feeds, and  
that when it gets to be greater than 10 MB in size, RSS news feed  
take longer to load Eventually, it becomes corrupted and I know that  
because routine,y, if I have an RSS page set to "last 7 days" and it  
comes up empty, then I can only restore the page by deleting this  
database3 file and creating a new one.

Then of course, i loose my preferred settings, and have to reselect  
them all.

Per a discussion on one of apple's forums, it stated that an badly  
written RSS feed might be the cause, but does not give a hint on how  
to ID one. Might someone know? I cannot discern if a particular web  
page is causing this problem as it does not appear that the problems  
described show up on  the same web page.

I also have tried the following with little to zero success in  
prevent the problem.

- Just after creating new database3 file, make a copy of it and when  
the original becomes corrupted, swap out.
- Lock the database3  file to prevent changes after inital creation
- lock the folder where the file is located.
- try to view the file to edit the corrupted lines out (textedit does  
not seem to work, and do not know of a free program that will allow  
me to view the database3 file.)

So, if someone has a hint, I am willing to hear.

I do not know if a clean install (ugh!!) will solve this problem, so  
am reluctant to perform. I do not know how long I have had this  
problem but I believe a very long time.

Sorry for the long post but thought I needed to provide as much I as  
know, which is not a lot, and as much info on the problems, and what  
i have done so far to troubleshoot.

TIA

Lee