I've used Claws for several years and donated to support the project. I think it's an outstanding tool. I haven't had a problem with Claws for years until today. When Claws attempts to get mail, I receive an error "Can't write file" and am unable to receive any messages. Here's an excerpt from the Network log: [11:48:40] POP3< +OK Dovecot ready. [11:48:40] POP3> USER ... [11:48:40] POP3< +OK [11:48:40] POP3> PASS ******** [11:48:40] POP3< +OK Logged in. [11:48:40] POP3> STAT [11:48:40] POP3< +OK 110 2972890 [11:48:40] POP3> UIDL [11:48:41] POP3< +OK [11:48:41] POP3> LIST [11:48:41] POP3< +OK 110 messages: [11:48:41] POP3> RETR 104 [11:48:41] POP3< +OK 9770 octets *** Can't write file. Here's some background. This week I upgraded from Ubuntu 10.04 to Ubuntu 12.04. 12.04 was a disaster for me, breaking many things (but not Claws) permanently. Out of frustration, I migrated to Linux Mint 13. I did a clean install, and restored files from my /home folder. Then I installed Claws-mail from the repository. I received the error above the first time after I opened Claws and Claws attempted to get mail. I have closed Claws and re-opened Claws and get the same error. This leaves me unable to receive any messages with Claws. This might not be a real bug, but my searching online for help with troubleshooting yielded nothing. Thank you for any help you might be able to give! Devon Brewer
Check the owner and permissions of your ~/.claws-mail directory and its files, particularly ~/.claws-mail/claws.log
Thank you, Paul, for your suggestions. I tried them both (ensuring that permissions are set to "read and write"), but I still get the same error. What else can I try?
Hello, Did you just check ~/.claws-mail or all the files and directories inside ? As far as I know, POP3 gets a mail, and then stores it temporarily within ~/.claws-mail/tempfolder/processing/ So, you may want to : - check the permissions along the path to this directory, - check globally the system: do you have permissions and/or the possibility to manually create a file in ~/.claws-mail ? You can also check using "df -i" that you still have enough free inodes (if the filesystems you are using is depending on inodes to create files). Just my 0.02€... Paul
Things to try: a) You could run strace on Claws Mail, as that may help finding the path that cannot be written to. b) Is running "claws-mail --debug" more detailed? c) Set up Claws Mail in a fresh user account for comparison. This topic sounds much more suitable for the mailing-list instead of the bug tracker. While Claws Mail 3.8.0 isn't the latest anymore, it certainly has not suffered from such a bug.
Absolutely right: this subject is much more suitable for the mailing-list.
Michael and Paul, Thank you both very much for your advice. I tried strace, but the output was not meaningful to me -- I could not interpret it. However, I did check the permissions for the tempfolder/processing folder specifically. That folder had the permissions set to "root" only, and not the user. I don't know how that happened -- it was nothing I did actively, but perhaps something in the Mint install process caused it. The Caja file manager I used to check and set permissions gives the impression that permissions apply to subfolders as well as the main folder, but that doesn't actually happen I have now discovered. I apologize for my confusion where to send my request for help. To an average user like me, it is not clear where to get help apart from the bug tracker (a "general discussion" list usually isn't where critical errors are discussed, in my experience). It might help to clarify this on the Claws web page. Although 3.8 is not be the latest version, it is the version in the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS/Mint 13 LTS repository. So any problems users encounter with it are likely to be common for several years. Thanks again for all of your help, and I look forward to continuing my support for Claws.