Unable to fetch email (POP3) lack of write privileges

[Grenville]

hello all,

I am wondering if anybody can help me. I am probably useless at doing a web search, but it would appear that I have found a reasonably unique problem. This suggests that is something I have done and not a problem with Thunderbird, so perhaps nobody will be able to help.

Anyway, I have a slightly odd setup.

• I am using Thunderbird, obviously.
• One of the accounts that I have is set to fetch the emails via POP3.
• the local folder is stored on a veracypt partition which is mounted with read/write access
• there are just over 8 GB of free space on the partition

as far as I can work out, I have changed no settings but today I'm getting the following error message:

Unable to write the email to the mailbox. Make sure the file system allows you write privileges, and you have enough disk space to copy the mailbox.

does anyone have any bright suggestions? Thank you

[tanstaafl]

Check that the local directory setting for the account (its at the bottom of the accounts server settings) hasn't changed behind your back. It specifies where the accounts files are stored.

I used to store my profile in a Veracrypt container (rather than a hardware partition). I never tweaked the access rights when mounting it. Are you using Volume -> "Mount Volume with Options" or just the Mount button? I have always used the latter and currently use Veracrypt to protect a container where I store financial documents etc.

See if http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_wri ... he_mailbox helps. It might be a problem due to a automated upgrade of your anti-virus scanner.

[Grenville]

wow,

Thank you so much. I followed your steps and discovered that one of emptying the trash and compacting the inbox seems to have improved the issue. How bizarre. There seem to be plenty of free space in the container (I think it is a container rather than a proper hardware partition, I am using). anyway, after deleting the rubbish and compacting the folder it was able to download some of the emails. but the error message has returned.

Just to confirm, the container is mounted with read/write access, or at any rate the "read only option" is not ticked. Disabling the antivirus scanner, which I think is Windows defender, it is the built-in Windows 10 programme, doesn't help

[tanstaafl]

If emptying the trash and compacting the inbox helps then that doesn't sounds like a problem with how VeraCrypt is mounted. I'm also using Windows Defender because its pretty rare for it to effect Thunderbird, unlike other anti-virus scanners such as Avast and BitDefender that I've used in the past.

Do you have any other security software (other than Windows Defender) that might open files in the Thunderbird profile? I'm also using Malwarebytes Antimalware but that doesn't do anything with email.

See if moving most of the messages you want to keep from the inbox to other folders helps. That also reduces the risk of the folder becoming corrupt.

[Grenville]

thank you so much for your advice. I did as you suggested. I moved lots and lots of emails out of the main inbox and compacted it. This seems to have solved the problem for now.

I have also learned that I need to keep my inbox nice and trim to avoid corruption. I did not know that.

I am really, really grateful for your help.

PS: I think that I downloaded clamav a long time ago, but I'm pretty certain that I never managed to set it up