Subject: "Read Only" ???

From: Papa Pilgrim <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 07:49:59 -0700 (MST)

Something strange is happening with my inbox.  all of a sudden I am unable
to delete any of the incoming messages.  Instead I get the cue: "[Can't
delete message.  Folder is read-only.]"

I have done nothing in Config file or anywhere else.  Someone please
tell me how to delete from the inbox.

Thank you.

-pilgrim

---

From: "Robin S. Socha" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 17:50:02 +0100 (CET)

On Sun, 23 Feb 1997, Papa Pilgrim wrote:

  >Something strange is happening with my inbox.  all of a sudden I am
  >unable to delete any of the incoming messages. Instead I get the cue:
  >"[Can't delete message. Folder is read-only.]"

For a detailled answer, we need a little more information about your system.
What flavour of u*ix are you running, where is your inbox, are you running
pine locally or on a remote system, blablabla... ?

However, the error-message is pretty much self-explanatory. The folder in
which your incoming mail is stored has been made read-only for you. Talk to
your sysadmin to change that. IMVHO, that's a lot easier than exchanging
everybody's favourite remedy here :-)

If you insist on checking what's wrong, though, check where your "inbox" is
(Setup, Config, inbox-path) and then try to do a
	ls -alF <path/inbox>
to check ownership and permissions for that file. Maybe you've
*accidentally* changed something there. Then
	chmod u+w <inbox>
would do the trick. Don't forget to consult the appropriate man pages ;-)

  >I have done nothing in Config file or anywhere else.  Someone please tell
  >me how to delete from the inbox.
    
That's what they all claim... whiner! >;->
    
Cheers,
Robin

  Robin S. Socha	  | Bonner Talweg 56  | Tel:   +49 228 22217-8
  Political Science Dept. | 53113 Bonn        | Fax:   +49 228 22217-9
  Bonn University  	  | Germany           | email: [email-masked]

	Dresden 45        Tschernobyl 85        Windows 95

---

From: Paul O Bartlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 16:52:16 -0500

> tell me how to delete from the inbox.

    One of the most common causes for this condition on Un*x systems 
is starting two or more sessions of Pine.  It is easy to do without
realizing it, as I have found out myself.  If you start a second
session of Pine, the first session (usually in the background) holds a
lock on the INBOX, so the second session cannot write to the INBOX and
reports that it is read-only.  I cannot say for sure that this is the
cause of your situation, but it is such a common problem that it is
worth checking for.  I have found that the cleanest solution is to
gracefully quit (if possible) or kill (if necessary) ALL of the Pine
sessions and start over.

Paul                             <[email-masked]>
----------------------------------------------------------
Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA
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