Message save fails in Windows XP "not a MBX-format folder"

[mainw...@yourserve.co.uk]

I've been struggling to get Alpine v2.0 working on XP Home for several
days.

It will log in to my pop 3 a/c and download mails ok, but when I try
to save them I get the above error message.

This is inspite of the fact that Alpine has created the savemail file
itself, so I'm pretty sure it is an MBX format file. But I created the
folder. I'm obviously missing something, but it has me beat. I
wondered it it might be something to do with the NTFS file system, so
tried creating the mailbox on a fat32 drive. Still no luck

[mainw...@yourserve.co.uk]

OK, solved it.

I tried installing Pine (as opposed to Alpine) and this time the error
message read "Unable to lock append mailbox"

This has been addressed:

"The correct fix. %windir%\TEMP must be writeable; PC Pine needs
to be able to write into the Windows global temporary directory (not
the
per-user temporary directory)."

I'm off to see if this works with Alpine, surely it will!

[mainw...@yourserve.co.uk]

And it solves the Alpine issue also. I suppose the fact that this
hasn't come up before speaks to the low user-base of this program. It
looks as if it may be exactly what I'm looking for, and I look forward
to getting better aquainted. But with error messages like those (a
million miles from giving a clue to the actual problem) who needs
enemies?

[Philip Coates]

A workaround is to use batch file along the lines of

@echo off
setlocal
set WINDIR=[your writeable folder]
alpine.exe
endlocal&EXIT

[Philip Coates]

On Saturday, September 3, 2011 10:27:34 AM UTC+1, Philip Coates wrote:

If you run your system as Admin, which many Windows users do, you may never have noticed this problem. I run my main account as limited, but my first solution created a security hole.

I've been playing with the problem again recently and I think I've found a better way to deal with it. It seems so obvious now, I'm only amazed that no one offered a solution years ago!

The windows global environment var WINDIR is not set in stone. In my system it is set (I assume by default, but you never know) to %systemroot% which is set to C:\WINDOWS on a typical instal. Which is odd because the access needed by Alpine or Pine seems to be to Windows\Temp.

Nevertheless, the following is working for me. As admin go to System Properties/Advanced/Environment Variables/System variables - highlight "windir" and edit to something more writeable for you.

[Philip Coates]

I might add, if you don't have access as Admin there is an option in System Props to set that var locally, which should work but I haven't tried it. If you can do it this way, it's prob going to be better than the batch file launch which tends to upset Pine in other ways I haven't entirely worked out.