#2607 new
miriam

disconnected mail account - on newly downloaded mailmate

Reported by miriam | July 12th, 2020 @ 01:21 AM

Hi I am putting MailMate on a new mac and I got this error:

MailMate is running on a read-only file system and can therefore not be updated.

If you downloaded MailMate from the internet then moving it out of the Downloads folder should solve the problem.


The app is in the Applications folder, not in Downloads. I tried adding one of my imap accounts and the account shows up as "disconnected" in the left column "Sources" list.

I have FileVault on this computer but I don't think that should matter.

Suggestions?

thx
-miriam

Comments and changes to this ticket

  • miriam

    miriam July 22nd, 2020 @ 01:11 AM

    Benny. I was able to get MM to run on a different user. It's a sort of long story:

    This is a new Mac running 10.14.6. I migrated everything from my old mac, account username Tabatha. However the migration of apps did not seem to work, although all the data did migrate successfully.

    When I set up this ticket I had not attempted to run MailMate on username Tabatha. (I was having hardware issues with the new machine so stuck with the old one for email.)

    I had the machine serviced and they created a new user Miriam. When I got it back I wanted to install MM on this new user account.

    I downloaded MM while logged in as Miriam, put the tbz file in HD/Applications folder, and ran it.

    Then, when running the application (still logged in as Miriam) I got the error mentioned above.

    Just today I figured I'd log in as Tabatha and try MM, and it worked. Note that I am clicking on MM app that is in HD/Applications (not in a user-specific Applications folder). I did get that error about "read-only file system" but it disappeared quickly and all of my email loaded. All the folders and accounts I set up on my old mac are intact and updating. So some support files must have come through in the migration.

    However, I still can't get it to run on user Miriam. I checked the permissions on the Applications folder and they look ok. I am stumped. I really want to run it on this new user account.

  • benny

    benny July 22nd, 2020 @ 08:48 PM

    Sorry about the late response.

    I think you should try deleting MailMate.app again and install it from scratch (you won't lose any data doing that) while being logged into the account that you want to use. I cannot see why it wouldn't get the correct settings like that. You could also try installing it in the user specific Applications folder to make sure the problem is not related to some special permissions issue with the global applications folder.

  • miriam

    miriam July 22nd, 2020 @ 11:29 PM

    thx I'll give that a try

  • miriam

    miriam July 22nd, 2020 @ 11:37 PM

    Ok so installing on HD/application folder is leading to the same result. Is there a way to uninstall the version I put on the machine last week? I don't see an uninstaller. The .tbz file simply puts the application itself in the folder where you decompress it.

    Also there is definitely some setting or files left from the earlier install, since the one email account I set up is showing up in the newly installed version.

    If no other options for HD/applications I'll try the user-specific applications folder. But it's running on the other user account from HD/applications so I don't see why it shouldn't work for this user as well.

    thx Benny!

  • benny

    benny July 23rd, 2020 @ 12:51 PM

    Uninstalling is simply dragging the MailMate icon to the trash folder. The settings are saved elsewhere and should not be affected by installing/uninstalling MailMate (or any of the permission issues).

    If you want to also get rid of account settings then you need to remove this folder:

    /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/MailMate
    
  • miriam

    miriam July 23rd, 2020 @ 07:34 PM

    This is both embarrassing to me and potentially informative. So, it turns out I had mistyped something in account settings and when I fixed the typo Mailmate is getting mail just fine on the "problem" username.

    But I think this means that the error message ("MailMate is running on a read-only file system") was a red herring? Maybe it was triggered when it should not have actually been displayed?

    One follow up question and I'll get out of your hair Benny. If I copy the entire folder that you mentioned above /Users//Library/Application Support/MailMate from my old username to the new user, will this bring in all the settings so that the accounts and folders I've set up in MM will be available in the new username?

    Thanks Benny.

  • Andrew

    Andrew November 22nd, 2022 @ 09:47 PM

    I have similar issue and googled then found this discussion.

    I have successfully added 2 gmail accounts but when I tried to add a fastmail account, I see the "disconnected" sign in bracket next to the account. There is no error message, etc.

    How do I re-connect it?

  • benny

    benny November 25th, 2022 @ 02:28 PM

    @Andrew: Could you make a screenshot of the account settings and send it to me via “Help > Send Feedback”?

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