"Unable to save your message as draft..."

[kap...@example.com]

I have been gettingthe subject message plus "Please check that your
mail and newsgroup settings are correct" intermittently during
composition recently. Today it saved one or more versions
automatically without generating the error message while I am
composing a long e-mail,, but after that every auto save or manual
save seems to generate the message while I am composing this long
e-mail.

Any idea how to fix this would be appreciated.

TB 2.0.0.21/Vista Home Premium up to date.

[kap...@example.com]

[Christoph Schmees]

kap...@example.com schrieb:

Pretty much sounds like an hardware problem.
Thermal problem? Is your machine getting hot?
Run MTest. Memory errors, in particular w/ high temperature, are more
common than publicly perceived.
Checked your HD. No, I'm not kidding. I had upgraded the HD in my laptop w/
a larger model from a well-known brand. And after four months of work, that
brand new beast failed!

hth. Christoph

[propman]

Might want to try switching to Off-line mode to see if that error
message is still generated while you are composing.

[Bijan Soleymani]

Are you using IMAP? Maybe it is trying to save the draft on the server
and either the right folder doesn't exist or the connection is dropped
for some reason, so it can't save it there...

You can go in Edit or sometimes Tools -> Account Settings -> youremail
-> Copies & Folders

and change "Keep message drafts in"
try changing it to some other folder or maybe even a local folder. That
should fix it.

Bijan

[kap...@example.com]

I doubt it's overheating. I had an old PC that couldn't run in temps
above 78 (its 63 in here now). Synptoms were random windows and other
programs crashing. There is nothing out of the ordinary happening
except for that error message from Thunderbird.

This 6 month old HP has a Seagate Barracuda hard drive. Passes the
periodic hardware tests that run automatically. And again...only
T-bird is experiencing any problems.

[Bijan Soleymani]

Yes if it is a hardware problem it is most likely the network connection
going down. The wifi on my laptop is pretty flaky in windows and
everytime it goes down I get an unable to save draft or unable to send
message from thunderbird.

[kap...@example.com]

This desktop is wired to my router and I have gone to web sites in
Firefox at the same time this error is occurring.

On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:01:47 -0400, Bijan Soleymani <bi...@psq.com>
wrote:

[Bijan Soleymani]

kap...@example.com wrote:
> This desktop is wired to my router and I have gone to web sites in
> Firefox at the same time this error is occurring.

Then (obviously) it is probably not a hardware problem.

Is this for IMAP, NNTP, POP or some other protocol?

Try setting Thunderbird to save draft in "Local Folders". That should
get rid of the error. If it doesn't something is really wrong.

The most likely scenario is this:
You are using IMAP to access your mail.
You log in.
You click Compose or Reply, you start replying...
meanwhile the connection to the IMAP server is dropped (possibly because
it times out) and Thunderbird neither realizes that this happened nor
automatically reconnects, so as soon as it tries to auto-save the draft
on the server... you get an error.

So there are two solutions:
1. tell Thunderbird not to save drafts on the server
2. prevent the connection from being dropped (increase timeout, force a
NOOP or something like that)

But of course it could be some other problem. The remote drafts folder
might not exist or might not be writable , etc.

Bijan

[Tony Raven]

In article <joobe594hilcsg1gq...@4ax.com>,
kap...@example.com says...

I get that message sometimes when I try to save a message to draft. Its
usually TB getting itself in a twist and a restart usually solves the
problem. I'm just wondering whether you have autosave on which is
causing the message to throw up every time it tries to autosave a draft
while you are composing.

Tony

[Nir]

Is that problematic account an IMAP account?
Does your compose message or signature contain any inline image?

You may check this bug report
"https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=461785"

[Gualtier Malde]

If you will forgive the longish narrative below, it may help you deal with this.

I write a monthly newsletter for an organization. I get information that
trickles in and so I am constantly upgrading the newsletter to its final form,
keeping it in a folder called "Next letter".

Like you, I like to save letters and messages I am composing in increments, and
it usually works. But if I paste a hunk from a .pdf file or some other thing,
the next time I try to save the message (after having saved it once) I receive
that error message.

This NG gave me a lot of advice about deleting the .msf file from the
Thunderbird profile, and that worked, but it was a nuisance.

So finally I just avoided saving as often and, when I did save, to close the
newsletter message, go to Drafts and bring the newly saved copy to my Next
Letter folder (they add up, rather than overwriting), and the next time I Edit
as New I'll be able to save, once, again.

It doesn't solve the problem, but it lets you get on with life.

[Christoph Schmees]

Gualtier Malde schrieb:
> ...

> So finally I just avoided saving as often and, when I did save, to close
> the newsletter message, go to Drafts and bring the newly saved copy to
> my Next Letter folder (they add up, rather than overwriting), and the
> next time I Edit as New I'll be able to save, once, again.
>
> It doesn't solve the problem, but it lets you get on with life.
>

perhaps a silly question: Why don't you use a plain text editor to compose
your draft an save it locally? And the moment it is finished, cut'n'paste
it into the next newsletter?

hth. Christoph

[Andrew Katz]

This happens in the background when you are composing and are using
auto save.
It only happens when there are images in the text some people use in
their emails, and you are including that text, which people do
frequently when replying to someone's email.
It does not always happen. So I do not know what particular images
cause this, and which do not. The problem only goes away when you
manually find and delete the offending image (usually a tiny thing).

[kap...@example.com]

No the account is an SMTP account with Comcast..

[kap...@example.com]

They are always replies to other e-mails and I do include the that
text. Would an smiley icon count as an image that could cause this
problem? That's the only image I can think of that might be in there,
although I will check again next time it happens.

[Nir]

On Wednesday 28 October 2009 08:59 AM, kap...@example.com wrote:
>> Is that problematic account an IMAP account?
>> >Does your compose message or signature contain any inline image?
>> >
>> >You may check this bug report
>> >"https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=461785"
> No the account is an SMTP account with Comcast..

SMTP is a protocol to send message, it's not a mail account type.
I'm asking type of account with which that SMTP entry is associated in
account settings.

You can easily check the type of your account in following way:

Goto Tools > Account Settings > That account you are using to sent mail
> Server Settings.
At the right pane, look at the top. What is mentioned after 'Server Type' ?

[kap...@example.com]

Its a POP server.

[Nir]

Well, next time when the same problem will occur kindly check if you
message contains any kind of inline image.

[Gualtier Malde]

The times I have had problems with the "can't save" notice were those where I
had pasted something. The error message would be something indicating that I
may not have control over the insertion or some other linking glitch. Never use
emoticons, but go ahead and remove it and see if it was the guilty party.

Or... Open any message as new - Write a little sentence and save it - if that
works, put an emoticon in and save it again. Did it save? OK Copy a hunk of
PDF file (text or image) and paste it in the document. Now try to save it. If
that didn't work, then close your message

Then... Move your previously saved message out of the drafts folder into another
folder, and Edit as New. Immediately try to save it. If that works, you've got
a way of overcoming the problem. OK it's busy and a bit inconvenient, but it
will get the job done and, in my case, doing it that way has become something of
a habit and I don't even think much about it.

Rule: You get to save once, then move your message from Drafts to [some other
folder] and start up again.

[kap...@example.com]

No images. I am replying to a message which had no images. The text
I am replying to is highlighted by blue bars on either side (the
original message did not have these).

[Bijan Soleymani]

I think the blue bars are because you are editing/composing the message
in html. If you change it plain text then instead of the bars you will
have '>' at the beginning of each line.