Unable to retrieve email

Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Camino, Mozilla, Netscape 6/7/8/9, and all Gecko-based browsers discussion and support forum.
(MozInfo701, Netscape Browser Archive)

Moderators: Antony, Edward, profman, Ramona

Unable to retrieve email

Postby splogcooper » Sat 05 Apr, 2003 9:18 pm

System:

compaq pentium IV
512 mb RAM
18GB hard drive (1gb avail.)
Netscape version 7.0
Netscape disk cache: 500000 kb
Netscape memory cache: 4096 kb



When I click on get mail, I get a prompt saying:
"UNABLE TO WRITE THE EMAIL TO THE MAILBOX. MAKE SURE THE FILE SYSTIME ALLOWS YOU WRITE PRIVELEGES AND YOU HAVE ENOUGH DISK SPACE TO COPY THE MAILBOX."
Also, the exsisting emails are not showing up in the sent and inbox
folders.

In my mail folder within my profile folder, I can see that the "inbox"
is 21MB. Therefore, I know it contains hundereds of emails.
Same goes with the "Sent" folder.

Thanks
Roger C.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0
splogcooper
new member
new member
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat 05 Apr, 2003 9:09 pm

Re: Unable to retrieve email

Postby Fulvio » Sun 06 Apr, 2003 1:47 am

splogcooper wrote:System:


Netscape disk cache: 500000 kb

When I click on get mail, I get a prompt saying:
"UNABLE TO WRITE THE EMAIL TO THE MAILBOX. MAKE SURE THE FILE SYSTIME ALLOWS YOU WRITE PRIVELEGES AND YOU HAVE ENOUGH DISK SPACE TO COPY THE MAILBOX."
Also, the exsisting emails are not showing up in the sent and inbox
folders.

In my mail folder within my profile folder, I can see that the "inbox"
is 21MB. Therefore, I know it contains hundereds of emails.
Same goes with the "Sent" folder.

Thanks
Roger C.


Since you can see the mail file, have you deleted Inbox.msf and Sent.msf files? Do it with Netscape closed. Those are header files, so you may think that all mail was gone.
However, I don't know about the message.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4a) Gecko/20030323
A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong
~ Henrik Ibsen
WinXP, SP3, 512 MB, FF10, SM2.7, TB10, IE8.0, PC Tools Firewall , Avast 6.x, JRE1.7_02
User avatar
Fulvio
Moderator
Moderator
 
Posts: 11827
Joined: Wed 19 Jun, 2002 10:08 am

Postby roman » Thu 21 Aug, 2003 1:50 pm

I am getting the same message with Netscape 7.1...

"UNABLE TO WRITE THE EMAIL TO THE MAILBOX. MAKE SURE THE FILE SYSTEM ALLOWS YOU WRITE PRIVELEGES AND YOU HAVE ENOUGH DISK SPACE TO COPY THE MAILBOX."

Has anyone been able to solve this?
UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
roman
new member
new member
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu 21 Aug, 2003 1:44 pm

Postby roman » Thu 21 Aug, 2003 1:54 pm

Dell Dimension Celeron 2.2
256 mb RAM
30GB hard drive (24gb avail.)
Netscape version 7.1
Netscape disk cache: 50 mb
UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
roman
new member
new member
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu 21 Aug, 2003 1:44 pm

Postby Fulvio » Thu 21 Aug, 2003 3:23 pm

roman wrote:I am getting the same message with Netscape 7.1...

"UNABLE TO WRITE THE EMAIL TO THE MAILBOX. MAKE SURE THE FILE SYSTEM ALLOWS YOU WRITE PRIVELEGES AND YOU HAVE ENOUGH DISK SPACE TO COPY THE MAILBOX."

Has anyone been able to solve this?


Same answer as for the other guy, about the .msf files.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) (CK-SillyDog)
A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong
~ Henrik Ibsen
WinXP, SP3, 512 MB, FF10, SM2.7, TB10, IE8.0, PC Tools Firewall , Avast 6.x, JRE1.7_02
User avatar
Fulvio
Moderator
Moderator
 
Posts: 11827
Joined: Wed 19 Jun, 2002 10:08 am

Postby roman » Thu 21 Aug, 2003 11:44 pm

Sorry, I forgot to mention I already tried deleting the all of .msf files.

Still get the same message.
UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
roman
new member
new member
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu 21 Aug, 2003 1:44 pm

Postby Alice » Fri 22 Aug, 2003 6:25 am

Maybe it's a bad e-mail on yor ISP's mail server? Does your ISP allow access to your e-mail using an http webpage? If so, try reading the mail from the mail server and then delete the mail.

See http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=166111

==================copy/paste===================
------- Additional Comment #1 From Jason Airlie 2002-10-04 06:08 -------

Getting the same thing on Win XP Mozilla build 2002093010. Plenty of disk space and I am logged in with Administrator rights. I have gone so far as to delete all the files for that account. Mozilla recreates the mailboxes and still gives the error. No filtering prior to Mozilla happening here.

Could it be a 'bad' email message that is causing the error?


------- Additional Comment #2 From Jason M. Waldo 2002-10-07 21:13 -------

I believe it to have been a bad email on the server. I was able to access the messages through an HTML interface and delete them one at a time until they would all download.


------- Additional Comment #3 From Jason Airlie 2002-10-08 05:14 -------

Same here, I deleted some spam off the server and was then able to download the rest of my mail.


------- Additional Comment #4 From Colin Blake 2002-10-10 10:44 -------

(snip)
This problem just happened to me, though I'm running Netscape7 on Windows98.
Each time I tried to "Get New Mail" just one message would come down (always the same one) and I'd get the Alert message "Unable to write the email to the mailbox. Make sure the file system allows you write priveleges, and you have enough disk space to copy the mailbox." Once I manually deleted the message from the POP3 server, everything was fine again.
====================end c/p=======================
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020826
User avatar
Alice
Mozilla Champion
Mozilla Champion
 
Posts: 1790
Joined: Sun 21 Jul, 2002 8:57 am

Postby roman » Fri 22 Aug, 2003 10:45 am

Thanks for quick replies!!!

Unfortunately the problem remains...I went in and deleted all of the email(through Qmail) and I still keep getting the same alert message.
UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
roman
new member
new member
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu 21 Aug, 2003 1:44 pm

Postby Alice » Fri 22 Aug, 2003 12:14 pm

Do you only have a single pop mail account set up?

You're sure you deleted all the mail from the server?

If there is nothing left on the mail server(s) then clicking "Get Msgs" in the Mail window should bring back a brief message in the status bar that there are no new messages on the server. If you're still getting the same error message with nothing left to download then I'm out of ideas.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020826
User avatar
Alice
Mozilla Champion
Mozilla Champion
 
Posts: 1790
Joined: Sun 21 Jul, 2002 8:57 am

"Unable to write the email to the mailbox..."

Postby factcheckr » Mon 06 Oct, 2003 8:19 am

Did anyone ever come up with a solution to this problem. I've recently been having this issue with deleting email, which is a minor hassle as I can manually move unwanted emails from my inbox to the trash in my "local folders" so hadn't bothered to find a fix.

Now I am getting the same message when I try to retrieve my new mail from the server. I deleted all incoming mail via my hosting website and get "there are no new messages on the server" until I send a test, then it's back to "Unable to write the email to the mailbox...".

Additionally I've been getting a weird intermittant "ghost" mail in either the inbox or trash with no message dated 12/31/1969 and although I am not getting this now one of my buyers is getting it.

I have gotten this "ghost" mail from time-to-time and have "fixed" the problem in the past by deleting the .msf files.

I am running XP Professional w/Netscape 7.1.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)
factcheckr
new member
new member
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu 12 Jun, 2003 1:29 pm
Location: Chicago Lakefront

Unable to retrieve email

Postby factcheckr » Wed 08 Oct, 2003 4:06 pm

OK, sorted.

I could find very few references to this problem on the web and what few plaintive cries I located had no useful response. I did find some references to a Mozilla bug but I'm not that technically inclined so I didn't dive into that realm.

Since no one responded to any of the postings I made on any of the forums I found I backed up my mail and phone books, then uninstalled Netscape and went in to the application data and deleted the Mozilla folder and sub folders.

I re-installed Netscape and all my tests ran fine. I re-installed the mailboxes individually and found that there was something in my inbox and my trash that was causing these faults and found by trial and error that by deleted selected emails I could get rid of the fault.

I'm in the process of retransferring the mailbox & local files and addressbook before I redownload the mail from my server (for the tests I switched to leaving the mail on the server) but it appears that I will have workable email from tonight once I delete which ever emails are causing the problem.

I hope this info helps someone in the future.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)
factcheckr
new member
new member
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu 12 Jun, 2003 1:29 pm
Location: Chicago Lakefront

Postby Fulvio » Wed 08 Oct, 2003 6:29 pm

It is alwways a good idea to start a new thread. I rarely go on and read anything which was added several days after the last post, and, probably the same was true of other people.
You could have saved yourself some extra work, if you had simply created a new profile, and renamed, and copy/pasted the old mail files. The renamed ffiles are inactive, but mail could selectively be moved back into the new Inbox.
I found that it is much easier to create a new folder, rather than directing mail into the local folders, which are present for a different reason.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) (CK-SillyDog)
A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong
~ Henrik Ibsen
WinXP, SP3, 512 MB, FF10, SM2.7, TB10, IE8.0, PC Tools Firewall , Avast 6.x, JRE1.7_02
User avatar
Fulvio
Moderator
Moderator
 
Posts: 11827
Joined: Wed 19 Jun, 2002 10:08 am

"Unable to write the email to the mailbox..."

Postby CharlieRED » Sun 15 Feb, 2004 10:51 am

Hi guys, I had the same problem on these days ("Unable to write the email...") whith Netscape 7.0, I tried all your tips and nothing worked, but I have another tip, which is well to my problem.

-Close all Netscape apps
-Move manually the folder called "Mail" from your email profile to another location on your disk.
-Create an empty folder called "mail" to replace which was moved and Netscape can find it and re-create the standard folders.
-Open Netscape and type your password, if it start to download all messages and doesn't send any error message, it must to be ok.
-Then configure your "Local Folders" account from Netscape to use the original "Mail" folder placed somewhere in your disk.
-Close Netscape.
-Open Netscape, type your password and check if it still working.
-Go to your "Local Folders" and copy all your old emails from here to your actuall Inbox.
-Close/Open Netscape and check again.
-If it send the error again, try the same procedure but copying your old emails one by one or in groups, trying to find some "bad" email.

It works for me and hope works for you too. Sorry about my english, I know that it's not very good but I'm just trying to share my solution with you :wink: . Cheers from Chile...
UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
CharlieRED
new member
new member
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun 15 Feb, 2004 10:26 am

Postby Fulvio » Sun 15 Feb, 2004 4:19 pm

I am not so sure about the fix, because the ISP will download only the mail which are still on the server. Netscape is not quite clever enough to look for files on the hard drive, and find them. I tested the theory, and I came up empty-handed. I never figured out what my ISP is doing, but I got, once, about twenty messages which I had deleted.
I would steer away from the the Local Folders, and create, instead a subfolder within the mail account.
But, I will look into this. I may have picked the wrong account to do this, but I agree about emptying the Inbox.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) (CK-SillyDog)
A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong
~ Henrik Ibsen
WinXP, SP3, 512 MB, FF10, SM2.7, TB10, IE8.0, PC Tools Firewall , Avast 6.x, JRE1.7_02
User avatar
Fulvio
Moderator
Moderator
 
Posts: 11827
Joined: Wed 19 Jun, 2002 10:08 am

Unable to write to inbox

Postby Capt Crunch » Wed 23 Jun, 2004 12:12 pm

As the moderator suggested, I deleted Inbox.msf and Sent.msf from C:\WINDOWS\Profiles\<my name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\<my name>\8vxs0oov.slt\mail\pop-server and restarted my computer but this failed to correct my email problem. I went back into the directory and also deleted the files Sent and Inbox (neither had a file extension) as well as the
.msf files which had been rebuilt, restarted my computer and the problem seems to be fixed (':lol:')
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)
Capt Crunch
new member
new member
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed 23 Jun, 2004 11:38 am

Next

Return to Firefox, SeaMonkey and Netscape

Who is online

Registered users: Google [Bot]