Mail: Error Saving Preferences: Writing your preferences to disk has failed

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Level 1

15 points

Mail: Error Saving Preferences: Writing your preferences to disk has failed

I received this error when I tried to add another mail account to a second user on my iMac. This is the full error:

Error Saving Preferences
Writing your preferences to disk has failed. Your preferences may not have been saved. The permissions on !/Library/Preferences may be wrong or your disk is full.

This is a fairly new Mac and I am fairly new to Macs as well. I have searched the internet for help, but many of the solutions seem pretty complicated. Can someone help me here? I am not familiar with scripts and booting to safe mode and permission and so on.

Thanks,
Ed

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Oct 14, 2010 6:36 PM

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Answer 1

MadisonP

Level 5

4,832 points

Oct 14, 2010 6:57 PM in response to mosley1

Greetings,

How much free space do you have on your computer?
_ If your hard drive is very low on space or out of space, this can cause a variety of issues including files being unable to update (like the preference file that message refers to).

Are you running File Vault? http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8738.html

Let us know.

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Answer 2

lightwav

Level 1

0 points

Oct 15, 2010 4:58 PM in response to mosley1

Ed,
Try this..go to applications..utilities..disk utility. Select your partion and click " repair disk permissions".

Bill
7100 man

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Answer 3

mosley1 Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 16, 2010 12:29 AM in response to mosley1

Thanks for the suggestions...

Amount of free space on my computer:
Capacity: 499.76GB
Available 432.54GB

File Vault is turned off.

I tried to "repair disk partitions" but this didnt work, and everywhere I looked on the web it would say that this does not work.

I also did a complete TimeMachine restore. This didnt work.

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Answer 4

MadisonP

Level 5

4,832 points

Oct 16, 2010 9:48 AM in response to mosley1

Amount of free space on my computer:
Capacity: 499.76GB
Available 432.54GB

You are doing great on free space.

I tried to "repair disk partitions" but this didnt work, and everywhere I looked on the web it would say that this does not work.

It does work, but not for permissions issues on individual user files. It only has benefit on systemwide issues.

I also did a complete TimeMachine restore. This didnt work.

This is really only affective if you restore from a point in time when the issue did not occur which can be tough to know unless you try adding new Mail accounts every day.

_Go to Your User > Library > Preferences.
_Click on the Preferences folder once to highlight it.
_Go to File > Get Info
_Make sure that your user name is listed in the Sharing & Permissions window with Read & Write access
_Go to the bottom of the info window and click on the pad lock to unlock it
_Click on the cog / gear and then click on apply to enclosed items
_Now try adding an account in Mail again.

If the issue persists at this point it may be necessary to reset Mail which may require you to re-enter your account settings.

Remove Your User > Preferences > com.apple.mail.plist to the desktop and then open Mail and try adding an account.

Cheers.

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Answer 5

mosley1 Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 16, 2010 12:34 PM in response to mosley1

OK, I think I am one step closer. I followed your instructions to modify the sharing and permissions. They were set to Read & Write access, but I clicked apply again. Now I can save the new email account, but I cannot save the password, and I have a circle with a triangle with an exclamation point in it next to this account in Mail, and I am getting the following error:

Alert
There may be a problem with the mail server or network. Verify the settings for account "my accountname" or try again.
The server returned the error: The attempt to send data to the server "(null)" failed.

I then moved the mail.plist file to the desktop and tried set up all the email accounts again. I was able to set up my old account without a problem and it saved my password and worked fine. But I cannot save the password for the new account. I get the same errors.

One more thing to note. I can set up my mail logged on as my user, no problem, the problem is when I try to set up this account on my other user account on this computer. Note they are both from the same ISP so I am verifying that they are all using the same settings.

I hope this is all making sense.

Thanks,
Ed

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Answer 6

MadisonP

Level 5

4,832 points

Oct 16, 2010 1:51 PM in response to mosley1

Sounds like a keychain issue (where your passwords are stored).

_Go to Hard Drive > Applications > Utilities > Keychain Access and open it.
_Click on the Keychain Access menu and then click Keychain First Aid
_Click Repair and type in your password and repair it
_Now go back to Mail, delete the account in question and then attempt to enter in your account settings again.

If the same error happens again you can try doing the Apply permissions steps I suggested earlier on the keychains folder found in Your User > Library > Keychains

If the issue still happens, I would suggest you move the Keychains folder to the desktop, restart the computer and then try adding the account again. NOTE: removing this folder will require that you re-enter all your saved passwords for programs like Mail and Safari, so don't be surprised if it pops up and asks you to enter them in.

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Answer 7

mosley1 Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 17, 2010 9:18 AM in response to mosley1

OK, that worked, but I dont have sent folders for the individual mail accounts and I cannot send email from either account now. Also, this is not new, but I cannot close the mail program. I have to force it to quit form the Apple menu. and lastly my computer is running EXTRMEMLY slow ever since i noticed these mail problems.

I am considering formatting and starting over.

Your thoughts on this?

Ed

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Answer 8

MadisonP

Level 5

4,832 points

Oct 17, 2010 7:01 PM in response to mosley1

If you are having system wide slowness issues try running Disk Utility Repair disk to check for errors: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417

If you cannot close Mail then at this point I would try the following:
Remove the following to the desktop:
Your User > Library > Mail and Mail Downloads
Your User > Library > Preferences > com.apple.mail.plist

Launch Mail and set it up for the desired accounts and test.

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Answer 9

mosley1 Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 18, 2010 8:48 AM in response to MadisonP

@ MadisonP, Thanks for your help. Last night I formatted the drive and pulled everything off my Time Machine backup. So far I am ok.

Any idea why this happened, and how I can avoid it in the future?

Thanks again,
Ed

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Answer 10

MadisonP

Level 5

4,832 points

Oct 18, 2010 11:17 AM in response to mosley1

Glad to hear you got it worked out.

As to why this all occurred, that is tough to say. Keeping regular backups as you obviously are is really your safety net from future issues.

My best advice on that score is to keep enough free space on your computer's hard drive (20% of total capacity should be free at all times to keep things moving along) and perhaps run Disk Utility Repair Disk every now and then to check for errors.

Cheers!

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Answer 11

Jan 10, 2011 1:35 AM in response to mosley1

I had the same error message. Started after changing my gmail password.
Of course I had to change the password in Mail too. This was possible but trying to save the new password led to the error message. Whatever i tried at first, Keychain would keep the old password.

My solution:
- quit Mail app
- repair disk permissions (just to be sure)
- open keychain and delete the imap.gmail.com login in
- lock keychain without the imap.gmail.com login
- empty recycle bin safely
- open Mail app
- re-enter your password when required. Accept when prompted to let Mail save this in Keychain

Now working like a charm for me!

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