Re: SMTP problem

--On Thursday, March 05, 2015 8:34:39 -0500
> From: "B. Timothy Walsh" <[email protected]> wrote:

>...
> I hope someone is out there, still thinking about Mulberry...
> 
> I am a long-term user, but with limited technical expertise. I
> use Mulberry  as my primary email (IMAP) client on my 3 PC's.
> On 2 of the 3, it works  without a hitch.

This may or may not turn out to be relevant, but does "3 PCs"
imply "Windows" and, if so, what versions are on each machine?
You also didn't mention whether you are still running Mulberry
4.0.8 or if you switched to one of the development versions.

> But, on the third, I have a persistent problem with the SMTP
> account, even  though the setup is identical to the other 2
> PCs. One feature of my setup  on all 3 PCs is that, on the
> SMTP account, I use the option to "hold  messages when added
> to the queue" so I can double-check the message before  it is
> really sent.
> 
> I am afraid I cannot give a simple description of the problem,
> but here are  a couple of symptoms:
> 
> -if I push enable/disable on the SMTP account, I get a "timed
> out" while  connecting to server error.
> 
> -if I decide to edit a message in the queue, and then hit
> "send," I get the  error message "File in use elsewhere while
> appending message to a mailbox"  for the SMTP account.
> 
> If I shut down Mulberry and restart, it works OK for the first
> Email, but  then the problem immediately recurs. I have tried
> uninstalling and  reinstalling, but to no avail.
> 
> I would be grateful for any suggestions. Many thanks!

I haven't seen the symptoms you are describing, but I generally
don't use "hold messages" on machines running Windows versions
later than XP.  I have seen problems (with 4.0.8) vaguely
similar to those you describe that result from changes in
locking mechanisms and file locations (due to changes in the
conventional directory hierarchy) with Windows versions from
Vista and Win 7 forward, with not all of those newer versions
exhibiting the same symptoms.  

4.0.8 didn't quite get the change from storing configuration
information in the "Program Files" tree to storing it below
"Documents and Settings\<user name>' right and of course doesn't
know about the much larger rearrangements that occurred later.
So, if I saw those symptoms, I'd start looking for locks that
aren't being reset because they aren't in quite the locations
Mulberry expects, etc.   Once identified, it is possible to get
around some of those issues by putting links in the right
places, but others just require getting used to.

My rather sad and pessimistic guess is that Mulberry isn't going
to survive many more Windows versions unless some very serious
maintenance work is done -- not good in combination with a
situation in which most of the work seems to be on Apple, Linux,
or Unix platforms.

   best,
    john