Unable to write the email to the mailbox

fabienlelez · Post by **fabienlelez** » September 9th, 2003, 1:49 pm

Hi,

I just installed Thunderbird 0.2 on Windows 2000, and after setting up an account and downloading about 100 emails I get the same message I already had with TB 0.1: "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".

Of course, I've got no privilege problems (the filesystem where the profile is is FAT32, but I've tried with a NTFS filesystem and I got the same message), and there's 1.5 GB free on the partition...

After a little bit of investigation, I found out that one email was the cause of the problem -- as soon as I deleted that email from my SMTP server (Argosoft Mail Server Plus 1.8.2.2), everything worked fine again.

I've put the "offending email" at <http://perso.edulang.com/a6nlejp0pybypn02.zip>

It might be a problem with my SMTP server, but in that case, the error message should be made a little clearer. Oh, BTW, I tried to get and delete the same email via Telnet (netcat, actually), and it worked fine.

Except for that problem, Thunderbird seems very promising... I can't wait to get rid of the old Eudora 3 we use at work :-)

fabienlelez · Post by **fabienlelez** » September 9th, 2003, 2:03 pm

OK, I think I've found the problem: the "offending email" contains a single dot on a line, and the SMTP server doesn't escape it properly. So the first "single dot on a line", which is part of the message, is understood by TB as the end of the message, and when the server sends another "single dot on a line" (meaning the end of the message, as required by the POP3 protocol), TB doesn't know what to do with it, and outputs a weird error message.

Darken · Post by **Darken** » December 8th, 2003, 10:12 am

I've been using Thunderbird for several months, I installed the 0.4 yesterday. I had no problem until today. I've got the same message now with an email (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).

I don't really know what to do. Maybe using another mail client to retrieve the nasty mail and switch back to Thunderbird.

Darken · Post by **Darken** » December 8th, 2003, 10:20 am

Ok, I got the nasty mail with Outlook Express, and saved it to disk.
The message ends aswell with a dot and an end line made of \r (while the rest of the message uses end lines with \r\n).

Darken · Post by **Darken** » December 9th, 2003, 6:44 am

I found this bug file in bugzilla :

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

It seems the sequence \n.\r anywhere in the mail content causes this bug.

Spintonik · Post by **Spintonik** » April 14th, 2004, 9:03 am

Thanks guys for a tip, I would not have guessed my problem this fast ever without you.

Same error message "Unable to write email to the mailbox. Make sure the file system allows you write privileges, and you have enough disk space to copy the mailbox." does appear for me with one extremely short email with no "." in single line or sequence Darken mentioned.

And top of it all, I am using Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 (20040207), not the older versions mentioned. By deleting the email via webmail, problem was solved.

I do not have a homepage space where I could place it and I do not want to copypaste headers to public forum due paranoic security reasons, but I am saving it for a while on my computer.

Moderator or anyone else interested WDRM, drop me a email (or reply to this thread) and I send it to you.

Spintonik · Post by **Spintonik** » April 14th, 2004, 9:07 am

Uh and btw.

please be kind enough to ask me the details you need to know in order to troubleshoot the problem, eg Operating system and so on.

WDRM = "who does really matter"

Old Unghost · Post by **Old Unghost** » April 15th, 2004, 8:46 am

It's Bug 166111 - Unable to write email to the mailbox.
Fixed on 2004-03-08.
Try to upgrade.
If problem still here - add comment to bug.

anara · Post by **anara** » April 23rd, 2004, 10:30 am

I cannot download my emails after receiving hundreds of emails up to now. I have had TB for about 2 weeks and have not had any problems. How do I fix this? I am not well versed in going into the register or anything like that.

Old Unghost · Post by **Old Unghost** » April 23rd, 2004, 10:36 am

anara wrote:I cannot download my emails after receiving hundreds of emails up to now. I have had TB for about 2 weeks and have not had any problems. How do I fix this? I am not well versed in going into the register or anything like that.

What version of Thunderbird and OS are you using?

anara · Post by **anara** » April 23rd, 2004, 11:27 am

I am using 0.5 Thunderbird version and my operating system is Windows 2000 pro.

Old Unghost · Post by **Old Unghost** » April 23rd, 2004, 11:34 am

Try to upgrade to latest night build and see if problem still here. BTW there is my post right above yours saying that this bug was fixed six weeks ago.

dbl · Post by **dbl** » August 9th, 2004, 7:50 am

Unghost wrote:Try to upgrade to latest night build and see if problem still here. BTW there is my post right above yours saying that this bug was fixed six weeks ago.

Hi,

unfortunately this bug still exists in the latest stable release (0.73). I have experienced it more than once in the last week...

SusanB · Post by **SusanB** » October 13th, 2004, 5:51 pm

Loaded up the .8 build and it doesn't fix it.
Cleared out the email on the external SMTP server and I'm getting this error and can't fix it.

Any other suggestions as I lose about a year's worth of email?

rgathercoal · Post by **rgathercoal** » November 8th, 2004, 10:32 am

I have been using Thunderbird version 0.8 (20040913) for a couple of months. This popped up yesterday and now it doesn't love me anymore. That is, when it looks for new messages it tells me there are none (I know it's lying) and then displays this 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."

I am a single user with about 13.9 gig available on a 27 gig hard drive.

I vaguely remember seeing an error message flash by my screen (it was way late at night) saying something about a file being corrupted -- something about me deleting a .ms file? I realize now that it was stupid of me not to note the message carefully, but it seems like I see so many of those. . .

Given the previous posts in this thread, I will use another email program to go and try deleting some incoming posts to see if that fixes the problem.

Just wanted you to know that this error message is still lurking.

Please forgive me if I have done something stupid, here (or even ill-advised). I'm not even going to pretend I'm a techie. . .

Roy