On Wed, Oct 08, 2008 at 01:06:33PM -0500, Kyle Wheeler wrote: > On Wednesday, October 8 at 01:37 PM, quoth Indi: > > I have been using mutt without trouble on OS X for several weeks > > until today, when suddenly I got "/var/mail/$username is not a > > mailbox". What on earth happened? > > Sounds like your mailspool got corrupted (or transformed into an mbox > format that mutt doesn't understand). There are several different mbox > formats, all of which are mutually incompatible. Mutt understands > three of them. If you somehow got a new program delivering mail to > your mailspool that is writing a new and probably incompatible mbox > format, that could make mutt unable to understand your mailspool file. > For details on some of the different formats, check here: > http://homepages.tesco.net./~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/mail-mbox-formats.html > > Note, near the bottom, the problems of incompatibilities: > > - Delivering messages to "mboxcl2" format mailboxes with "mboxo" > or "mboxrd" tools will corrupt the mailbox, rendering all > subsequently delivered messages irretrievable. > > Mutt attempts to convert from mboxo and mboxrd format into mboxcl > format. > > Generally, this is one of the general problems with mbox mailboxes > (i.e. mailspools): everyone has a different idea of how to store > messages in that file. The *best* thing to do, as a general rule, is > to use mutt to move messages OUT of the mailspool and into a mailbox > in your home directory somewhere, that only mutt uses. That way you > can be assured that other programs, that might have a different idea > of how to store messages, won't corrupt it. Mutt tries to make this > easy by allowing you to specify a $spoolfile and an $mbox to store > read messages in. Personally, I prefer not using a centralized > mailspool like that, but it's really up to you. > > > I have Googled this extensively and found no useful answer, so have > > been forced to revert to claws-mail for an MUA -- arrgh! > > Claws-mail can read the mailspool file? Hmm... I doubt it's doing it > correctly... > > Anyway, you can attempt to fix the corrupted file by hand, using a > text editor. Or you could try to use Claws-mail to save the messages > elsewhere, which should enable mutt to read them in their new > location. > > ~Kyle > -- > Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but > rather division: For henceforth there shall be five in one house > divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be > divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother > against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother > in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against > her mother in law. > -- Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ (Luke 12:51-53)
Thank you for the helpful advice. I still don't know for sure what happened, but I "fixed" it like this: mv /var/mail/indi out of the way cp /var/mail/root to /var/mail/indi chown indi:mail /var/mail/indi changed .muttrc to use MH instead and redid mailbox entries accordingly Examining the original /var/mail/indi (in jed) reveals nothing unusual; there must be some hidden property of which I am ignorant. But I expect it won't happen again using MH and ~/mail for my spool. :)
