"Unable to write mail to the mailbox" - ???

Dick · *Dick* Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 8

Hi,

When i try to download my new messages i get the message:

Unable to write mail to the mailbox. Make sure the system allows you write prevelages, and you have enough space to copy the mailbox

What the heck i have over 15GB free space on the drive my documents&settings folder is. I took a look in my account in "local settings\mozilla etc" in my e-mail folder. Although my trash is empty, there is a big file called "trash" that was like, 500 MB or something. Sometimes it takes an age to load the trash folder even when it appears empty in the mail program.

I use:

Netscape 7.1
P4 1.7 ghz
512 ram
windows xp home

Edited by Moderator to remove curse word

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

Ramona · Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 2350 Location: Midwest USA

Dick,

Compact your folders, and then try downloading your Mail. If no joy, then with Netscape and Quick Launch closed, navigate to your Mail folder, and delete all files with an MSF extension. Don't delete the files without the MSF extension, as they contain your mail. See: Profiles Folder Location

.

Even though you have emptied your Trash folder, those files still remain in the folder, on the HD, until the Mail is compacted. Open the Trash folder in Windows Explorer before compacting, and you can see all the files you thought were gone...

Let us know if you continue to have problems.

Ramona

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616

RAMONA
Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox Solutions

Dick · *Dick* Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 8

Sweet! It worked! Thanks!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

Ramona · Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 2350 Location: Midwest USA

Hi Dick,

That's great, and you're most welcome!

Ramona

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616

RAMONA
Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox Solutions

architectmississippi · Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 2

We are also getting this error but the deletion of .msf files has not helped. We use a unix server and are using netscape 7.1 on windows nt and xp machines. Sometimes, using a newer faster machine can download the problem mail, but sometimes not. The mail that it hangs up on always has an attachment but the size does not seem unreasonable usually. The last one was 364k in size. Before this started, we could routinely download attachments up to 10Mb easily.

We are wondering if this is an issue translating the mail from the unix format in /var/mail to the netscape format? But if so, we have no idea what to do about it.

Any Ideas?
Pamela

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

Fulvio · Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 10431

I don't know if the unix server is the problem. What is not clear to me is if you are having problems downloading mail without even looking at it, or is the problem after you got your mail, when you want to download the attachment. At that point, it is no longer a mail, but rather a Download issue. http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/ns71cantdownload.html

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Seabunny/0.9.2

"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP2, FF2.0.0.15, FF3, TB2.0.0.14 IE7.0, Opera9.5, SM1.1.10, Flock1.2.1, Safari3.1, Sygate5.6; AVG8.01, JRE1.6_05

akbash · Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Posts: 363

architectmississippi - There is a bug in all Netscape releases to date which causes the client to hang while retrieving a message that's malformed in a certain way (it's bug 166111

if you're interested in the details). The troublesome messages have line endings and message termination sequences that are out-of-spec in a way that Netscape mail doesn't expect. This sounds very much like the problem you're seeing.

The hang can be "fixed" case-by-case by logging into the mail server by hand and clearing out the problematic message. It may be fixed permanently by updating the server to a version that doesn't create out-of-spec messages, if such an update is available. It can also be fixed by updating the mail client to a version that isn't confused by the bad message.

This bug was fixed in Mozilla, the program Netscape 6 and 7 are based on, last March. As I mentioned, no Netscape mail client has been released since then. However the bug is fixed in Mozilla 1.7. You could update to Mozilla 1.7 or wait for the upcoming Netscape 7.2, due to be released "any day now," though I'd be prepared to hold my breath for a month or so.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a2) Gecko/20040704 Firefox/0.8.0+

architectmississippi · Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 2

I guess we'll see what Netscape 7.2 brings.
oy!

Thanks!!
Pamela

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

lidaray · Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 1

hello, I have this same problem and have tried compacting the folders, deleting old messages, and manually deleting the *.msf files. I have also rebooted the machine several times in this process. All to no avail.

This account worked well until mid-evening two days ago. I am running Windows XP Pro and the only thing I have "changed" around the time this message started appearing was that I 1.) deleted several hundred emails from my inbox(It was not unusual for my account to have this many messages), and 2.) cleared my cache & cookies in IE while also running Netscape. I don't see how that would be related though.

I have a large number of subfolders in my netscape mail where I store all relevent info for my clients and I would really Exclamation

hate to have to move to Outlook.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

akbash · Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Posts: 363

This doesn't exactly match the problem description of anyone in this thread, but I wonder if you're seeing some variant of the problem described in http://sillydog.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6209

.

Mozilla 1.6 was known to choke on certain malformed messages that some mail servers occasionally delivered. This sounds a great deal like your problem, except that the issue I'm thinking of generally showed an error alert: "Unable to write mail to the mailbox."

While this may not be exactly your problem, it is fair to say that Mozilla 1.6 was known to have issues with certain messages from certain servers. This bug (and many others, including some serious security flaws) is supposed to have been fixed (though I've heard reports to the contrary) in Mozilla 1.7.3, Netscape 7.2, and Thunderbird 0.6. It should help to upgrade. It may even solve your problem.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040928 Firefox/0.10

jcmchesapeake · *John* Joined: 05 Mar 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Chesapeake

Hhhhmm.

I've search for "*.MSF" files or folders - found none.

I've compacted my email folders in Netscape 7.1

I'm still getting the error. Any other suggestions out there?

Thanks, John

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

Fulvio · Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 10431

What kind of mail accounts do you have. No need for details. Just the kind, or what is after the "@"?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050217

"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP2, FF2.0.0.15, FF3, TB2.0.0.14 IE7.0, Opera9.5, SM1.1.10, Flock1.2.1, Safari3.1, Sygate5.6; AVG8.01, JRE1.6_05

jcmchesapeake · *John* Joined: 05 Mar 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Chesapeake

My email is [username]@cox.net. I'm using Netscape 7.1 email. There is one email that always gets transmitted into my inbox folder. The title of this SPAM email is: "VERY STRANGE OUTGOING PERSON RIGHT HERE egypt".

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

Alice · *Alice Wyman* Joined: 21 Jul 2002 Posts: 1787

jcmchesapeake · *John* Joined: 05 Mar 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Chesapeake

Dear Alice and Fulvio,

Something (I wish I could tell you exactly what) worked!

I've got my mail downloading protocol back.

I did go to MS Outlook and download some files (including the SPAM file I mentioned) and that may have "fixed" the problem. But, then again, I tried other suggestions, as well.

Thank you, thank you!

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)

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