318959 - 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

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[Hercules Dias]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-GB; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-GB; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Thinderbird version 1.0.2 (20050317)

It does not retrieve messages from the server anymore. It displays the error message I've sent as a summary whenever I try to "get mail". I've checked my disk space, and it sure has enough space, but I don't know anything about the file sistem and the privileges. I've tried to search for it in the toolbars but there's nothing there referring to it.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. None at all, just pressed the "get mail" button...
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
the message on the summary was displayed, and no e-mail was sent to my inbox

Expected Results:  
It should have downloaded the messages to my inbox folder and the other folders to which some messages are redirected

Comment 1

[zug_treno]

Maybe related to bug 314169 or bug 294311/Core bug 166111?

Comment 2

[robert johnson]

i have the same problem.   an email from "[e-mail]" keeps trying to be pulled in by Thunderbird (1.0.7), but it is misconfigured in some way that *breaks* thunderbird.

now this POP email account can not be accessed by thunderbird at all, every time it tries to pull that email in, it gives the "unable to write the email to the mailbox" error, and gives up.

i have sufficient storage, write permissions, etc.  i have other POP accounts that still work just fine.

the only way i could work around this problem was to go into the account's WEBMAIL interface and manually delete the offending email.

this is some seriously broke thing in thunderbird, when you have to go into WEBMAIL to delete an email that Thunderbird can't handle.

this same problem was reported as "FIXED" in Mozilla Bug 166111...   either it wasnt quite fixed, or somehow it came back.

Ill send a copy of the email in question as an attachment if someone wants it.

Comment 3

[robert johnson]

addendum to my comment above...

in my case it is not related to Bug 314169 or Bug 294311.  My inbox is only at 500K or so.  Still, I tried compacting folders and deleting old messages, and deleting .MSF files, etc. which didnt have any effect. 

And it's not a general problem, it is specific to one particular email that is either badly formatted (the MAILER-DAEMON auto-reply email from Yahoo), or possibly the particular email account (a web domain hosting service) has a misconfigured email server... or both.

And as I said above, all my other POP email accounts from various servers continued to work just fine.   And Thunderbird became "unbroke" once i deleted the [e-mail] email.

Comment 4

[Jeff Coghlan]

I have this message when i try and deliver emails. When i try and create another inbox for incoming email on the same account it works, but after exiting and going back into Thunderbird, it freezes and will not work at all. Its driving me mad.

I am picking up emails on my laptop. That seems fine but on my main PC it is stuffed. 

I have checked i have enough space and the correct permissions. Both are fine.

I have downloaded the newest version of Thunderbird and still have the same problem.


Please help me.

Comment 5

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Reporter, does the issue still occur in the latest supported 2.0.0.x / Shredder trunk nightlies?

(1.5.0.x is now end-of-life and the latest supported 2.0.0.x is now 2.0.0.16)

Comment 6

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

RESO INCO per lack of response to previous comment. If you feel this change was made in error, please respond to the bug with your reasons why.

Comment 7

[yorlik]

SAD DAY MY FRIENDS WHEN U BREAK THYUNDERBIRD AFTER 10 YRS OF USE ON ALMOST 100 ACCOUNTS.  SORRY FOR U

Comment 8

[yorlik]

ok.  not enough info.  I think there is enough info in all the post above mine about this error.  I spent hours trying to gain prevfideldges again to use thunderbird and write to my own hard drive, but since the error is not really mine, but thunderbirds, i cannot fix it without rewriting the bad thunderbird code.  Each new thunderbird build has gotten slower and slower folks;  you need to consider this.  Earlybird is slowest, with each older version faster and faster.

I have imported my thunderbird into a thunderbird offshoot called emclient and it is like 1000x faster than thunderbird wtih about all the same features.  Thanks for 10 yrs but you are going off  the deep end guys with adding stuff to slow it down to point of death.  bye

Comment 9

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to yorlik from comment #7)
> SAD DAY MY FRIENDS WHEN U BREAK THYUNDERBIRD AFTER 10 YRS OF USE ON ALMOST
> 100 ACCOUNTS.  SORRY FOR U

About opening a new bug ?

Comment 10

[Dick]

I upgraded from ver 31 to 31.2.0 and get this same error msg: 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. 

This only occurs for one email account on this computer.  The other email accounts with Comcast and Gmail are working OK. My other computer that is still running ver 31.0 is working OK for this same email account (and actually downloading all emails for all accounts) While I was writing this it just did an automatic upgrade and is waiting for a restart which I do not want to perform because I think I will then have two messed up computers.

I was comparing all the settings on the two computers and did not find a difference (does not mean there isn't one) I have also been searching online and have not found anything that I can use so far. That is how I got here. 

Have there been several different problems that generate the same message? It seems that there is a internal Thunderbird bug. 

How can I stop the automatic upgrade/restart?

Comment 11

[Dick]

Update: now seems to be working.

I changed the Connection security from None to SSL/TLS  After restarting Thunderbird this did not have any affect. I changed back to None.

I changed Authentication method from Password, transmitted insecurely to encrypted passwords and got an error message saying POP3 server does not support encrypted passwords.  

I changed to SSL/TLS and to Normal password and rebooted the computer.

When I restarted Thunderbird it downloaded email from the account that was hung up as well as copying emails to the sent, all mail, important, and the trash folders.

I am not sure exactly what worked but changing the Authentication method was the last unique action before it started working properly.  Restarting and rebooting had been done many times without any obvious affect.

Comment 12

[Bob D.]

Server is gmail, POP.
Server settings set to delete messages when accessed by POP.

Local email folder tree (all accounts) is 5.5 GB.
This email account's local mail folder is 611 MB.
Plenty of disk space.  I am administrator.


Protocol:

Click on Get Messages.
Four new messages on gmail server.
Download two messages, then at 3 of 4 messages:

There was an error downloading the following message:   
From: Name <[e-mail]>
   Subject: Open Houses in Rye This Friday!
 This message may contain a virus or there is not enough disk space. Skip this message?

Click "No"

Then:

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.

Click "OK"

Downloading stops.

Click Get Messages.
Remaining two messages downloaded.  Message 3 placed in Junk folder.
(I.e., all four messages downloaded, in two stages.)

On gmail server:
Msg 1 not deleted, remains marked unread.
Msg 2 not deleted, remains marked unread.
Msg 3 deleted (This is the one with error downloading.)
Msg 4 deleted

Comment 13

[Peter E. Humphries]

No one mentioned whether or not additional anti-virus software was running.  I experienced this error, and I am pretty sure that my anti-virus software, which was scanning email and watches file writes, locked the In Box file after "quarantining" the offending code, until I rebooted and all was well.

The messages downloaded before the error were not deleted until I had removed the message containing the virus, rebooted the computer and downloaded the email (a second copy, for some of the messages).

So, this may not be a Thunderbird code problem at all.  Or, it may be possible to experience the same error in multiple paths, some Thunderbird-related, some not.

Comment 14

[Dan Meek]

This problem happened to me as well today.  I then exited from Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and its real-time protection, and that solved the problem.  I then re-enabled Anti-Malware, and the problem has not yet recurred.