[Mageia-discuss] Problems with Local Mail

[Doug Laidlaw]

On Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:06:45 +0100
James Kerr <jim at jkerr82508.free-online.co.uk> wrote:

> On 25/06/2012 12:54, James Kerr wrote:
> > On 25/06/2012 11:36, Anne Wilson wrote:
> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >> Hash: SHA1
> >>
> >> Plain M2 :-)  Every time I started Thunderbird I got a message
> >> that it couldn't locate the local mail spool (can't remember the
> >> exact words). Assuming it meant /var/spool/mail/anne, I touched
> >> that, owned anne:mail (I tried root, too), but now the message is
> >> "Unable to truncate spool file /var/spool/mail/anne".
> >>
> >> I don't have the problem on the Cauldron netbook, so I checked
> >> there, and there is no /var/spool/mail/anne - so I guess something
> >> has changed wrt local mail.  Are we now talking about
> >> ~/.local/share/local-mail/ ?  What do I need to do now?
> >>
> >
> > I don't have this problem. I use postfix to deliver system mails to
> > /var/spool/mail/jim. (I don't use it for any other purpose.)
> > Thunderbird collects those and stores them in
> > ~/.thunderbird/xxx.default/Mail/localhost/inbox (where xxx is an
> > alphanumeric string). /var/spool/mail/jim is owned by jim.
> >
> > The process is the same on both my Mageia2 and cauldron
> > installations.
> >
> > That error message suggests to me that there is something about the
> > file in /var/spool/mail/anne that is not what thunderbird expects,
> > but I've no idea what that might be. The only thought I have is
> > that for some reason that file is read only instead of read/write.
> >
> > Jim
> >
> 
> Sorry - one point that I forgot to mention. /var/spool/mail/anne is
> only created when the first message is delivered and so thunderbird
> reports that it cannot find it until mails start being delivered to
> it.
> 
> 
But you use Postfix.  I use getmail.  Both deliver mail
to /var/spool/mail/user.  If Anne is downloading her mail directly via
POP, /var/spool/mail/anne will never be used.  Kmail is like that.  In
both cases, the mail is placed in the appropriate place in $HOME.
I am running getmail as user, so I had to create /var/spool/mail/doug
manually.  It is an mbox file, so can be created with "touch."  Postfix
runs as root, and can create the spool if necessary.

It did occur to me that the config screens may say what the directories
are, but it looks as though $HOME/.thunderbird is the place to look.

Doug.