Version: version with KDE 3.2.2 - 1.6 I think (using KDE KDE 3.2.2) Installed from: RedHat RPMs OS: Linux I've been using KMail for some time, but when I started it as usual I get a dialogue with the warning: Error while creating file inbox: Operation not permitted and when I click ok I get the error message: Cannot create file `inbox' in /home/jim/Mail. KMail cannot start without it. Why it would want to create the inbox I don't know, the folder ~/Mail/inbox is already present, and there haven't been any recent changes to the system. Hopefully someone can find what the problem is. Thanks for your work on KMail, I really appreciate the first class job you're doing.
Is ~/Mail/inbox a directory? If yes, does it contain a directories named "new", "cur" and "tmp"?
Yes, there is (or rather was, see below) a ~/Mail/inbox but it only has directory cur. I later 'fixed' this by renaming the Mail folder and restarting KMail, which is kinda taking a sledgehammer to the problem. It recreated the Mail folders etc and worked fine, minus all my mail. For now I'll just read the old mail in a text editor, luckily I won't need most of it again.
Jim, the missing new/ and tmp/ subdirectories under inbox are required, along with the cur/ one, for a valid maildir. For some reason they are/were missing in your Mail/inbox directory which prompted KMail to refuse startup, as it was not able to use or create a valid inbox file/dir under ~/Mail. I agree that KMail should handle this more gracefully, but it did not crash and the circumstances were beyond KMail's control. I'll therefore change the severity and description of this bug.
I have the same problem, without any visible cause KMail (1.6.2) won't start anymore with the above error. After creating the new and tmp directories in inbox, outbox, sent-mail and trash, KMail starts again. After creating the new and tmp directories in all my folders, they are back and working as well. Perhaps this will help you track down the problem, perhaps not, but KMail also seems to have forgotten in what folders I wanted my different accounts delivered and says: "<account> has no mailbox defined ..."
Hi, I ran into a very similar problem. I have been using Kmail 1.6.2 on KDE 3.2.2-6 Red Hat for a couple of months. It has always worked smoothly for me till now. Now when I tried to start kmail it said: "Error while creating file sent-mail: Operation not permitted". When I click ok I get the error message: Cannot create file `sent-mail' in /home/jpmarath/Mail. KMail cannot start without it. "sent-mail" is present in the directory, though Mail/sent-mail contained only the "cur" sub-directory (missing "new" and "tmp" sub-directories). After manually creating these sub-directories, on restarting it complained with the same message for "drafts" and "trash" folders. These directories were also missing "new" and "tmp" sub-directories, which I then created manually. This fixed the problem, and Kmail works normally now. (and I didn't lose any messages). thanks, -Jaydeep
See also bug 86304.
I can reproduce this problem with kmail svn r860337. What I did is I removed the "new" subdirectory of my inbox and tried to start kmail. What I got was: First warning message (appears twice!): Error opening /home/gkiagia/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail/inbox/new; this folder is missing. Second error message: KMail encountered a fatal error and will terminate now. The error was: You do not have read/write permission to your inbox folder. I also tried to do that with a new test folder. First I removed its "tmp" subfolder and kmail displayed a similar warning, but not an error and the folder appeared although it was not usable. Then I also removed its "new" subfolder and the "test" folder completely disappeared from kmail without any warnings or errors. I believe kmail could just create these folders if they do not exist.
*** Bug 86304 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 124111 ***