Why doesn't deletion of toc fix read-mail problem?

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TechnoBob - 10 Feb 2006 18:15 GMT

After migrating all my Eudora stuff to my new Mac, I can see all my
previous mail, but can't get any new mail.

Task Progress says, "Couldn't open mailbox.in.temp (-5000); an unknown
error has occurred."

Then I get an error message that says essentially the same thing:
"Couldn't write to the table of contents in.temp.toc (-5000). An unknown
error has occurred."

Eudora Help indicates that problems like this can be solved by deleting
the toc files and letting them be rebuilt, but the identical error
persists even after deleting all tocs and restarting Eudora.

What do I need to do to get Eudora going again?

Old Mac: OS 10.3.9
New Mac: OS 10.4.4
Eudora 6.0.2 <-- old, I know, but has been working fine for a year.
(If I upgrade, why wouldn't new version have same problem?)

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TechnoBob - 10 Feb 2006 19:20 GMT

[addition to previous posting]

> Eudora Help indicates that problems like this can be solved by deleting
> the toc files and letting them be rebuilt, but the identical error
> persists even after deleting all tocs and restarting Eudora.

...and I also tried compacting the mailboxes (command-click of number in
bottom corner of mailbox displays). No improvement.

Any suggestions would be welcomed.

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Marty Sachs - 10 Feb 2006 22:34 GMT

> [addition to previous posting]
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> Any suggestions would be welcomed.

Make sure that you (user on the new mac) have read and write permissions
to your Eudora folder (be sure that you are the owner of the folder and
its contents, or are a member of a group that has read and write
permissions). Particularly in the Spool Folder the files called in.temp
and out.temp within it. My guess is that the privileges from your old
Mac did not transfer exactly to your new Mac.

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TechnoBob - 11 Feb 2006 03:22 GMT

> Make sure that you (user on the new mac) have read and write permissions
> to your Eudora folder (be sure that you are the owner of the folder and
> its contents, or are a member of a group that has read and write
> permissions). Particularly in the Spool Folder the files called in.temp
> and out.temp within it. My guess is that the privileges from your old
> Mac did not transfer exactly to your new Mac.

That was the problem!

Actually, I'd checked this before for the various folders in the Mail
Folder, and Get Info said, "You can Read and Write". (I'm logged in as
administrator.) After reading your post, I checked the Spool Folder (so
THAT'S where the temp files live!), and its privileges said the same
thing.

But in all cases, "owner", "group", and "others" said "Read Only". So I
gave Read and Write privileges to everybody for the Mail and Spool
Folders, and to all folders within those folders, and that did seemed to
do away with nearly all the error messages..

Only remaining error message is a "problem with applying filters" every
time new mail arrives. But at least the mail comes through now.

Many thanks, Marty!

Bob

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Sander Tekelenburg - 11 Feb 2006 05:02 GMT

[...]

> > My guess is that the privileges from your old
> > Mac did not transfer exactly to your new Mac.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> [...] I gave Read and Write privileges to everybody for the Mail and Spool
> Folders

You don't want to do that. Only you should have read/write permission.

Signature

Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

Mac user: "Macs only have 40 viruses, tops!"
PC user: "SEE! Not even the virus writers support Macs!"

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TechnoBob - 11 Feb 2006 07:32 GMT

> > [...] I gave Read and Write privileges to everybody for the Mail and Spool
> > Folders
>
> You don't want to do that. Only you should have read/write permission.

Well, um...I know. [sheepish grin] But I was getting desperate, and this
brute-force solution worked. I should now go back and selectively put
certain permissions back to Read Only, working (backwards) through
"owner", "group", and "others". The thing that bugs me is that when I
initially checked, I recall that the top-level permission of all the
files said, "You can Read and Write".

Now, that top-level "you" was me as administrator. The next person down
the line was "owner", which was also me. Shouldn't that person also have
R/W privileges?

Anyhow, I don't really see much danger in "overprivileging" here--my
wife and I are the only ones in the house, and the only ones who ever
use this computer.

Nevertheless, thanks for the admonition, which will inspire me to do the
right thing, eventually.

I must also say that I really appreciate the fact that people in the
community take the time to read and respond to pleas for help
(especially, in this case, Peter, Mary, and Sander). It allowed me to
fix a problem that would taken me a long time to figure out on my own.

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Sander Tekelenburg - 11 Feb 2006 18:23 GMT

> > > [...] I gave Read and Write privileges to everybody for the Mail and
> > > Spool
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
> the line was "owner", which was also me. Shouldn't that person also have
> R/W privileges?

The default permissions for ~/Documents/Eudora Folder/Mail are
Owner: Read & Write
Group: Read only
Others: Read only

The "You" applies to the person looking at the file's permissions. If
that person is the owner, the settings for "You" will be the same as for
"Owner"; if that person is not the Owner, but part of the group the file
belongs to, than "You" will equal the "Group" permissions; if that
person is niether the Owner nor in the file's Group, "You" will equal
the "Others" permissions.

So the "You" section is just a different view of the file's permissions.
(And not that useful IMO, although I can see what Apple tried to
achieve.)

> Anyhow, I don't really see much danger in "overprivileging" here--my
> wife and I are the only ones in the house, and the only ones who ever
> use this computer.

Common misconception. On a multiple user system, "users" does not equal
"humans". There are many more "users" - processes that are users and/or
belong to groups. By setting "Others" to Read & Write you are allowing
*any* process to Read make changes to your Mail folder. A misbehaving
process would thus be able to screw with your mail.

Open /Applications/Utilities/NetInfo Manager and in its main window
click the "users" item. You'll see all users on your system listed in a
column to the right.

Signature

Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

Mac user: "Macs only have 40 viruses, tops!"
PC user: "SEE! Not even the virus writers support Macs!"

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JenCee - 10 Jul 2007 10:41 GMT

>Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

>The default permissions for ~/Documents/Eudora Folder/Mail are
>Owner: Read & Write
>Group: Read only
>Others: Read only
>
>The "You" applies to the person looking at the file's permissions. I

[...]

et al.

Once again, in the mysterious misty mountains of the net, that white knight
Sander has come to my rescue.

And probably not only fixing my same frustrating "mail.In.temp" error message
in Eudora, but I suspect for a raft of other seemingly unrelated problems Mac
wide, headed by an inability to get into the other Macs in our home network
to do maintenance, help, etc., will be fixed when I mount a major permissions
repair.

So a big net-hug from me, Sander, and thanks once again.

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Peter Ceresole - 10 Feb 2006 20:12 GMT

> Task Progress says, "Couldn't open mailbox.in.temp (-5000); an unknown
> error has occurred."
>
> Then I get an error message that says essentially the same thing:
> "Couldn't write to the table of contents in.temp.toc (-5000). An unknown
> error has occurred."

Just as a thought... Have you tried repairing permissions?

I've never seen this error, but nor have I ever seen an in.temp mailbox
(Eudora 6.1, OS 10.3.9)

And I'd say that it was well worth upgrading Eudora to at least 6.1, but
latest would be best. There was a real difference between the 6.0.n
versions and the next along.

Signature

Peter

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TechnoBob - 10 Feb 2006 20:48 GMT

> Just as a thought... Have you tried repairing permissions?

That sounded like an excellent idea, particularly since Eudora was
saying that it "couldn't write" to various temp mailboxes.

I tried it (and found that repairing permissions on a
just-out-of-the-box Mac is VERY fast).

Unfortunately, didn't work.

I have the old Mac hooked up in Firewire Target Disk mode, so I could
easily just trash the new Eudora Folder and bring over a copy of the one
from the old Mac. Would that confuse Eudora too much?

Incidentally, I can send mail (even though I get a similar error message
about not being able to write to out.temp), but I can't receive...or put
anything in the Junk folder. I can create new folders and transfer
e-mails to them, though.

It seems as if Eudora is ALMOST working...if I could only see why it's
unhappy about those mailboxes...

> And I'd say that it was well worth upgrading Eudora to at least 6.1, but
> latest would be best. There was a real difference between the 6.0.n
> versions and the next along.

If I thought it would help, I would. But for now, I want to get a
version that was working on the old Mac to work on the new one.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Um...any more ideas?

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Sander Tekelenburg - 11 Feb 2006 05:00 GMT

> > Task Progress says, "Couldn't open mailbox.in.temp (-5000); an unknown
> > error has occurred."
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Just as a thought... Have you tried repairing permissions?

If you're referring to Disk Utility's Repair Permission function, that
doesn't apply to /Users.

Signature

Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

Mac user: "Macs only have 40 viruses, tops!"
PC user: "SEE! Not even the virus writers support Macs!"

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Mac Forum / Applications / Eudora / July 2007

Why doesn't deletion of toc fix read-mail problem?